Monday, September 29, 2003
WISH LIST
I'm making a wish list & posting it here because I read on someone's blog that, "Everyone should make one, and check it from time to time, and see if you're living your life, or just existing." I'll try to write things that are in the long-run as well as the short-run, things that are "possible," as well as "impossible."
I WANT TO:
1. Play guitar and sing at an open mic. [SANG AT AN OPEN MIC IN FEB; STILL NOT GOOD ENOUGH AT GUITAR]
2. Write a non-fiction article & have it published.
3. Apply to graduate school.
4. Take that newspaper reporting class at NYU.
5. Have a child (not for at least a few years from now).
6. Go to California.
7. Drive across the country.
8. Have a better relationship with my father.
9. Learn to make Indian food that doesn't suck. [HEH HEH]
10. Go to Memphis.
11. Speak fluent French.
12. Teach again.
13. Go to France.
14. Quit smoking for good.
15. Take a dance or movement class.
16. Invite my brother Tommy (15) to stay with me for a month this summer.
17. Ride the Cyclone at Coney Island before it gets too cold.
18. Go skiing this winter.
19. Visit my family.
20. Face the fact that I have to figure out what to do with the ashes. (Haven't even thought about this).
21. Eat dinner in Chinatown.
22. See Tara.
23. Go to the beach.
24. Get a new tattoo on my shoulder to cover up or complement the one I don't like.
25. Memorize "The Raven"
26. Be in a play (substantial role).
27. Have a "roast" when I turn 30.
28. Go to Maine & interview the lobstermen & write about it.
29. Go to the batting cages.
30. See Sandra.
31. Learn to play chess.
32. Have a toned stomach.
33. Run 5 miles.
34. Videotape the ducks in the park. [DONE]
35. Make a short film.
36. Record a song with S.
37. Be a very happy person when I'm 41.
38. Remain open to new ideas throughout my life.
39. Buy a computer.
40. Get a job I love.
41. Refinish my dining room table with my mother's assistance.
42. Go on a boat.
43. Review more plays.
44. See Laura.
45. Buy some new clothes.
46. Get a new cell phone.
47. Put curtains up in the living room. [DONE]
48. Talk to my grandma. [ONGOING]
49. Write descriptions of the people who are important to me.
50. Go to a Quaker meeting.
51. Be fearlessly honest.
52. Read more plays out loud.
53. Add a "comments" field to this so that I will know if anyone has ever read it
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I'm making a wish list & posting it here because I read on someone's blog that, "Everyone should make one, and check it from time to time, and see if you're living your life, or just existing." I'll try to write things that are in the long-run as well as the short-run, things that are "possible," as well as "impossible."
I WANT TO:
1. Play guitar and sing at an open mic. [SANG AT AN OPEN MIC IN FEB; STILL NOT GOOD ENOUGH AT GUITAR]
2. Write a non-fiction article & have it published.
3. Apply to graduate school.
4. Take that newspaper reporting class at NYU.
5. Have a child (not for at least a few years from now).
6. Go to California.
7. Drive across the country.
8. Have a better relationship with my father.
9. Learn to make Indian food that doesn't suck. [HEH HEH]
10. Go to Memphis.
11. Speak fluent French.
12. Teach again.
13. Go to France.
14. Quit smoking for good.
15. Take a dance or movement class.
16. Invite my brother Tommy (15) to stay with me for a month this summer.
17. Ride the Cyclone at Coney Island before it gets too cold.
18. Go skiing this winter.
19. Visit my family.
20. Face the fact that I have to figure out what to do with the ashes. (Haven't even thought about this).
21. Eat dinner in Chinatown.
22. See Tara.
23. Go to the beach.
24. Get a new tattoo on my shoulder to cover up or complement the one I don't like.
25. Memorize "The Raven"
26. Be in a play (substantial role).
27. Have a "roast" when I turn 30.
28. Go to Maine & interview the lobstermen & write about it.
29. Go to the batting cages.
30. See Sandra.
31. Learn to play chess.
32. Have a toned stomach.
33. Run 5 miles.
34. Videotape the ducks in the park. [DONE]
35. Make a short film.
36. Record a song with S.
37. Be a very happy person when I'm 41.
38. Remain open to new ideas throughout my life.
39. Buy a computer.
40. Get a job I love.
41. Refinish my dining room table with my mother's assistance.
42. Go on a boat.
43. Review more plays.
44. See Laura.
45. Buy some new clothes.
46. Get a new cell phone.
47. Put curtains up in the living room. [DONE]
48. Talk to my grandma. [ONGOING]
49. Write descriptions of the people who are important to me.
50. Go to a Quaker meeting.
51. Be fearlessly honest.
52. Read more plays out loud.
53. Add a "comments" field to this so that I will know if anyone has ever read it
A Monday Morning Love List
I love scalding hot showers, so hot that it takes time to get used to the water, so hot that all the oil on your skin melts away. I love how scalding hot showers make you so sleepy you want to go to sleep while you're still in the shower. I think scalding hot showers are my way of returning to the womb.
I also love how my old roommate put her arm around Joe at the appetizers table at her housewarming party in Hoboken, which we went to Saturday night. She just walked over to him & put her arm around his shoulder so casually, like he is her buddy, and said, "What's up, Joe? Are you enjoying yourself?" I love seeing my friends embrace him casually like that. So many times, a friend's boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife is just a barrier between you and the friend. (I feel that way about my friends' sig others 99% of the time; I don't know about most people.) I love that Joe is friends with my friends & that they really love him. They don't just tolerate him because he's there with me.
Speaking of Joe, he played at an open mic last night at this place called the C Note on Avenue C and 10th Street (I think). We had to wait 3 1/2 hours for him to go on! We got there at 5:15 & he didn't play until about 8:45. Sucked! We should have gone home earlier. But, I loved this one girl named Grace. She seemed so shy & looked so dorky because she was wearing a skirt & a pretty nice blouse with sneakers--and not cool sneakers, but white walking shoes, with socks that were folded. And, she was very anxious to get up there & she looked really young. I thought she would be bad because of her outfit & her enthusiasm. What does that say about me? Anyway, she played two beautiful, fairly mellow songs & the joke was definitely on me because she was probably the best person I've seen at any open mic ever. She has an angelic and slightly jazzy and slightly gospely voice & she is quiet but powerful, kind of like Jeff Buckley. I want her to record her songs. I want this for selfish reasons because I want to be able to listen to her whenever I want.
I also love: Prince; giving up my seat on the subway; corny jokes; The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (no joke; I'm reading it!); karaoke; my new, bulky shoes; when my cat runs laps from one side of the apt to the other in the middle of the night; that it was 57 degrees this morning; that I am having Easy Mac for lunch; that I get paid tomorrow; the ring my grandma gave me last Thanksgiving; the pilsner glasses Joe & I gave to Jenifer & Chris as a housewarming present.
--m
|
I love scalding hot showers, so hot that it takes time to get used to the water, so hot that all the oil on your skin melts away. I love how scalding hot showers make you so sleepy you want to go to sleep while you're still in the shower. I think scalding hot showers are my way of returning to the womb.
I also love how my old roommate put her arm around Joe at the appetizers table at her housewarming party in Hoboken, which we went to Saturday night. She just walked over to him & put her arm around his shoulder so casually, like he is her buddy, and said, "What's up, Joe? Are you enjoying yourself?" I love seeing my friends embrace him casually like that. So many times, a friend's boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife is just a barrier between you and the friend. (I feel that way about my friends' sig others 99% of the time; I don't know about most people.) I love that Joe is friends with my friends & that they really love him. They don't just tolerate him because he's there with me.
Speaking of Joe, he played at an open mic last night at this place called the C Note on Avenue C and 10th Street (I think). We had to wait 3 1/2 hours for him to go on! We got there at 5:15 & he didn't play until about 8:45. Sucked! We should have gone home earlier. But, I loved this one girl named Grace. She seemed so shy & looked so dorky because she was wearing a skirt & a pretty nice blouse with sneakers--and not cool sneakers, but white walking shoes, with socks that were folded. And, she was very anxious to get up there & she looked really young. I thought she would be bad because of her outfit & her enthusiasm. What does that say about me? Anyway, she played two beautiful, fairly mellow songs & the joke was definitely on me because she was probably the best person I've seen at any open mic ever. She has an angelic and slightly jazzy and slightly gospely voice & she is quiet but powerful, kind of like Jeff Buckley. I want her to record her songs. I want this for selfish reasons because I want to be able to listen to her whenever I want.
I also love: Prince; giving up my seat on the subway; corny jokes; The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (no joke; I'm reading it!); karaoke; my new, bulky shoes; when my cat runs laps from one side of the apt to the other in the middle of the night; that it was 57 degrees this morning; that I am having Easy Mac for lunch; that I get paid tomorrow; the ring my grandma gave me last Thanksgiving; the pilsner glasses Joe & I gave to Jenifer & Chris as a housewarming present.
--m
Friday, September 26, 2003
I love Jane Hirshfield, but I'm probably not allowed to publish these without permission, so I'll take them off after a couple of days & just leave the titles:
OPTIMISM (Jane Hirshfield)
More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam
returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous
tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers,
mitochondria, figs--all this resinous, unretractable earth.
POEM WITH TWO ENDINGS (Jane Hirshfield)
Say "death" and the whole room freezes--
even the couches stop moving,
even the lamps.
Like a squirrel suddenly aware it is being looked at.
Say the word continuously,
and things begin to go forward.
Your life takes on
the jerky texture of an old film strip.
Continue saying it,
hold it moment after moment inside the mouth,
it becomes another syllable.
A shopping mall swirls around the corpse of a beetle.
Death is voracious, it swallows all the living.
Life is voracious, it swallows all the dead.
neither is ever satisfied, neither is ever filled,
each swallows and swallows the world.
The grip of life is as strong as the grip of death.
(but the vanished, the vanished beloved, o where?)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
OPTIMISM (Jane Hirshfield)
More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam
returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous
tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers,
mitochondria, figs--all this resinous, unretractable earth.
POEM WITH TWO ENDINGS (Jane Hirshfield)
Say "death" and the whole room freezes--
even the couches stop moving,
even the lamps.
Like a squirrel suddenly aware it is being looked at.
Say the word continuously,
and things begin to go forward.
Your life takes on
the jerky texture of an old film strip.
Continue saying it,
hold it moment after moment inside the mouth,
it becomes another syllable.
A shopping mall swirls around the corpse of a beetle.
Death is voracious, it swallows all the living.
Life is voracious, it swallows all the dead.
neither is ever satisfied, neither is ever filled,
each swallows and swallows the world.
The grip of life is as strong as the grip of death.
(but the vanished, the vanished beloved, o where?)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BABYSITTERS:
Wendy had long, blonde hair, and was really pretty. Her younger brother had a cast on his arm. I asked him what happened, and he said, "I broke it." She used to watch MTV all day. She brought her portable radio over to the house and put it on top of the t.v. so that she could record the songs onto cassette tape.
Ruth had cerebral palsy, and she walked with metal crutches. She was obsessed with The Who and taught us how to play rummy. She told us that, by law, every restaurant has to give you a cup of water if you ask for it, so we often went into McDonald's to ask for water if we were thirsty. She once told me I should be a janitor because I liked to sweep the carport.
Jane had frizzy red hair. Her brother, J.P., was a big time skateboarder. He had a small ramp in front of their house, which had a locked, metal fence around it, and which I never saw the inside of. Everyone in the neighborhood thought they were rich.
Stephanie, my older sister, left the house to go meet her friends as soon as my mom's car turned the corner.
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Wendy had long, blonde hair, and was really pretty. Her younger brother had a cast on his arm. I asked him what happened, and he said, "I broke it." She used to watch MTV all day. She brought her portable radio over to the house and put it on top of the t.v. so that she could record the songs onto cassette tape.
Ruth had cerebral palsy, and she walked with metal crutches. She was obsessed with The Who and taught us how to play rummy. She told us that, by law, every restaurant has to give you a cup of water if you ask for it, so we often went into McDonald's to ask for water if we were thirsty. She once told me I should be a janitor because I liked to sweep the carport.
Jane had frizzy red hair. Her brother, J.P., was a big time skateboarder. He had a small ramp in front of their house, which had a locked, metal fence around it, and which I never saw the inside of. Everyone in the neighborhood thought they were rich.
Stephanie, my older sister, left the house to go meet her friends as soon as my mom's car turned the corner.
Monday, September 22, 2003
Dialogue
I'm AD/SM-ing (that sounds so naughty) a show that's going to be produced in December. The director's boyfriend is a chef, and he's going to make food that complements the content of the show, which is about exploring masculinity and femininity in a certain way at different stages of life & related to sex/sexuality. The director is developing the show based on Viewpoints, which is a way of developing a show through improvisation from the performers. For the first 3 weeks of rehearsal, we will be "collecting data" as the actors play/improvise/research/explore & the director will use that material to shape the show into something with form that makes sense.
So, yesterday afternoon, I went to call-backs. The actors were given a list of elements to include in a 5-minute theatre piece on the topic of masculinity/femininity. The director, the choreographer, and I left the room for 25 minutes while the actors developed their piece, and then we came in to watch. The elements: using one object in 3 different ways, a simultaneous action, 3 stereotypes rebuked, 3 stereotypes affirmed, repetition, 2 exits, a game, a moment of silence, and a song.
It was amazing to watch what they came up with.
The first group did this very sexy movement piece based on a game of tag. The second group did a very talky piece using 7 minute dating as its format. The third group did a disturbing piece with kids on the playground. The second piece was definitely the least interesting because they were sitting in chairs talking the entire time. The first piece was probably the most interesting because it made the least "sense" in a linear way but said the most.
I think what I'm most interested in is the idea of stereotypes. I want to make a list of all the stereotypes I know of just to look at them, just to play with them, just to explore that idea. There are stereotypes based on nationality, ethnicity, age, geographical region, sexual orientation, race, gender, etc.
Some of my favorites: Asian women can't drive. Women love babies. Lesbians like folk music & hate men. French people hate Americans. Black men are criminals. Black women are promiscuous. Poor people are lazy. White men can't dance. Black people can sing. Gay men have great fashion sense. White women are princesses. Jewish people are stingy. Old people are senile.
The list can go on and on. And, it's an interesting thing. I love just throwing all these stereotypes out there because, somewhere inside, each of us feels like some of these stereotypes are true, depending on our individual experiences.
The only way to work through our relationships with one another in this country is to talk about these things. I feel like racism exists on deeper, institutional levels, but it needs to be dealt with on personal levels as well.
Anyway, it was amazing to watch the actors play, and I would like to do a theatre piece based on racial stereotypes because I'm so interested in opening that dialogue. Where is that dialogue in our society?
--m
|
I'm AD/SM-ing (that sounds so naughty) a show that's going to be produced in December. The director's boyfriend is a chef, and he's going to make food that complements the content of the show, which is about exploring masculinity and femininity in a certain way at different stages of life & related to sex/sexuality. The director is developing the show based on Viewpoints, which is a way of developing a show through improvisation from the performers. For the first 3 weeks of rehearsal, we will be "collecting data" as the actors play/improvise/research/explore & the director will use that material to shape the show into something with form that makes sense.
So, yesterday afternoon, I went to call-backs. The actors were given a list of elements to include in a 5-minute theatre piece on the topic of masculinity/femininity. The director, the choreographer, and I left the room for 25 minutes while the actors developed their piece, and then we came in to watch. The elements: using one object in 3 different ways, a simultaneous action, 3 stereotypes rebuked, 3 stereotypes affirmed, repetition, 2 exits, a game, a moment of silence, and a song.
It was amazing to watch what they came up with.
The first group did this very sexy movement piece based on a game of tag. The second group did a very talky piece using 7 minute dating as its format. The third group did a disturbing piece with kids on the playground. The second piece was definitely the least interesting because they were sitting in chairs talking the entire time. The first piece was probably the most interesting because it made the least "sense" in a linear way but said the most.
I think what I'm most interested in is the idea of stereotypes. I want to make a list of all the stereotypes I know of just to look at them, just to play with them, just to explore that idea. There are stereotypes based on nationality, ethnicity, age, geographical region, sexual orientation, race, gender, etc.
Some of my favorites: Asian women can't drive. Women love babies. Lesbians like folk music & hate men. French people hate Americans. Black men are criminals. Black women are promiscuous. Poor people are lazy. White men can't dance. Black people can sing. Gay men have great fashion sense. White women are princesses. Jewish people are stingy. Old people are senile.
The list can go on and on. And, it's an interesting thing. I love just throwing all these stereotypes out there because, somewhere inside, each of us feels like some of these stereotypes are true, depending on our individual experiences.
The only way to work through our relationships with one another in this country is to talk about these things. I feel like racism exists on deeper, institutional levels, but it needs to be dealt with on personal levels as well.
Anyway, it was amazing to watch the actors play, and I would like to do a theatre piece based on racial stereotypes because I'm so interested in opening that dialogue. Where is that dialogue in our society?
--m
Monday, September 08, 2003
"New York is cold, but I like where I'm living.." (L. Cohen)
Joe & I went down to Chinatown yesterday afternoon. It was a beautiful, perfect September afternoon. To get there, we walked through the Lower East Side, down by the Williamsburg Bridge, down streets I don't walk down very often: Elizabeth, Clinton, Ludlow, Rivington.
There's this AIDS hospital on Rivington, a little further west from where we were walking yesterday. I've been there twice with this chorus I sometimes sing with. I remember that the first time I went, I expected the patients to be like AIDS patients are in the movies & in theater: upper class, flamboyently gay, mostly white, with an appreciation for show tunes and artistic talent. Seriously. I thought they would be like the cast for a musical, or something. But, they are very sickly looking & very thin men. They are, of course, of all colors, mostly middle-aged, and they mostly seem poor.
It's funny that I didn't even realize what I expected until I got there. It's like that Gwendolyn Brooks poem, "The Lovers of the Poor" (http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?45442B7C000C070C0E75) where she criticizes the ladies who want to donate money to the poor for being repulsed by (or at least afraid of) the people they are trying to help. It's a very interesting poem, and I admit there's something of that in me -- probably in everyone. I want to help people by donating my time & energy, but I don't want to have see any of the ugliness. I don't want to be uncomfortable. I don't say this out of guilt, just honesty.
So, anyway, we walked through the LES & down toward the Manhattan Bridge, which has these amazing marble sculptures on its entrance and benches to sit on cut into the marble. It's really, really lovely -- statues of Greek or Roman-looking figures, gorgoyles, flowers that look like they are floating on a pond. We sat down on one of the benches and discussed the wedding we'd been to the night before, which we'd been discussing the entire day. His cousin Mindy got really wasted drunk at the wedding and peed on herself on the way home. His other cousin Scott had a fit but then proceeded to get completely wasted himself in the hotel afterward.
Oh, Mindy! She's only 23 (almost 24) and she has this beautiful brown mole on her face, right to the left of her nose. And, she was carrying this sheer black scarf, which she wrapped around her neck and then around her arms, and which she used to keep herself warm when it got a little chilly. Mindy had so much fun on the dance floor. She just danced & danced. She requested "Shoop" by Salt 'n Pepper. She smoked a hundred cigarettes. She has this great, gleeful laugh.
Mindy & Joe's sister are one month apart. Apparently, their mothers had a contest of who could get pregnant first. The four kids grew up together. Their moms are twin sisters, and their dads used to be friends. Now, Mindy & Scott's parents are divorced, and Joe's father is no longer friends with their father. Scott is an obnoxious, disrespectful, loud, inconsiderate drunk. Mindy is a troubled, sad, charming, beautiful drunk. It's very sad. They're both in danger of destroying themselves. Apparently, Mindy has attempted suicide, and Scott is just verbally violent. Everytime he opens his mouth, he shouts obscenities and puts people down. He's so angry. The closest thing I've heard to anything nice coming out of his mouth is when he quotes from movies. And, he thinks in extremes. I asked him to move the bottles of beer from the sink to the ice bucket so that I could brush my teeth, and he said, "I know I'm a total loser. There are too many beers in there right now, but I'll move them soon. I know where you're coming from," but he didn't move them!
Oh, but I'm not doing a good job describing all this. I'm not giving enough information to make it interesting and complex. I really do want to write about it, though.
So, yes, yesterday... I want to get to the part about Chinatown, which is right off the Manhattan Bridge. We found the bus ticket booth, where you can get a ticket to Boston for $10 each way (!!!), so Joe & I are going to go up there sometime on a Saturday for the day. There's also a bus to Washington, D.C. for about the same price. We walked past these wholesale restaurant supply stores, and I went into one because, well, I get really excited about kitchen supplies. This 9 or 10 year old girl (or boy?) approached me as soon as I entered the store & asked me if she could help me. Isn't she too young to be a clerk? She was quite androgynous, but I think her haircut gave her away. It was one of those just-past-the-ear, cute, pixie cuts, which looked pretty girly.
Further into the more congested section of Chinatown, we found that there were these restaurants with big fishtanks in the window, and we spent, like, 15 minutes staring at the fish at one of them. There was this enormous lobster with claws the thickness of my arms. And, there was this huge crab with barnacles growing on its shell. This guy walked by & looked at the fish & he said he wouldn't want to eat the crab because of the barnacles. He said the crab must have lived at the bottom of the ocean for a very long time for those barnacles to grow, so the meat must be very tough & that maybe the crab was just for show. In the upper left corner tank, there were these fish that were almost completely flat, but very tall from bottom to top, and pretty long (maybe 8-10 inches). They would sometimes get pushed onto their sides by a current, even in that small tank. And, they more or less stared out from the glass. If you put your finger to the glass, they would gravitate towards it, and they would follow your finger if you moved it. The weirdest thing, though, was their lips. They had almost human lips, very thick, and tiny little teeth, two at the bottom, and two at the top. It was such a strange feeling to stare at their faces like that. You couldn't help but be attracted to how alive they were. It made me happy to watch them. It sort of calmed me, and it made me feel better because I was very emotionally "zapped" from the weekend with Scott and with all the drama.
Oh, and on the way out of Chinatown, we saw these boys hitting baseballs in a cement yard. We watched one of the boys pitch several pitches that were too high or just clearly out of the strike zone. This one boy was swinging at balls pitched to his shoulder, and Joe said the pitcher needed to release the ball later. I asked if he wanted to tell the kid, and he said it was like a fever or an itch. He wanted so badly to coach the boys, to just give them a few pointers, because baseball is one of his realms. But, he didn't. That would have been breaking a taboo.
Right now, I am at work listening to "The Joshua Tree" by U2. I remember listening to this on tape on the walk from the bus stop when I was in middle school. I remember walking past the manicured lawns down to my street, which wasn't so nice, to my house, where the lawn always needed to be cut. I was very paranoid about our lawn because my grandma made a comment once when she rode in the car with my father to drop us off after we spent the weekend with him. She probably wanted to see what the house looked like since the divorce. She said, "It's a shame how people just don't take care of their homes anymore like they used to." I was devastated & embarrassed & I designated myself as the household groundskeeper. I mowed the lawn and trimmed the bushes in the planter, and I resented the fact that if I didn't do it, nobody would.
|
Joe & I went down to Chinatown yesterday afternoon. It was a beautiful, perfect September afternoon. To get there, we walked through the Lower East Side, down by the Williamsburg Bridge, down streets I don't walk down very often: Elizabeth, Clinton, Ludlow, Rivington.
There's this AIDS hospital on Rivington, a little further west from where we were walking yesterday. I've been there twice with this chorus I sometimes sing with. I remember that the first time I went, I expected the patients to be like AIDS patients are in the movies & in theater: upper class, flamboyently gay, mostly white, with an appreciation for show tunes and artistic talent. Seriously. I thought they would be like the cast for a musical, or something. But, they are very sickly looking & very thin men. They are, of course, of all colors, mostly middle-aged, and they mostly seem poor.
It's funny that I didn't even realize what I expected until I got there. It's like that Gwendolyn Brooks poem, "The Lovers of the Poor" (http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?45442B7C000C070C0E75) where she criticizes the ladies who want to donate money to the poor for being repulsed by (or at least afraid of) the people they are trying to help. It's a very interesting poem, and I admit there's something of that in me -- probably in everyone. I want to help people by donating my time & energy, but I don't want to have see any of the ugliness. I don't want to be uncomfortable. I don't say this out of guilt, just honesty.
So, anyway, we walked through the LES & down toward the Manhattan Bridge, which has these amazing marble sculptures on its entrance and benches to sit on cut into the marble. It's really, really lovely -- statues of Greek or Roman-looking figures, gorgoyles, flowers that look like they are floating on a pond. We sat down on one of the benches and discussed the wedding we'd been to the night before, which we'd been discussing the entire day. His cousin Mindy got really wasted drunk at the wedding and peed on herself on the way home. His other cousin Scott had a fit but then proceeded to get completely wasted himself in the hotel afterward.
Oh, Mindy! She's only 23 (almost 24) and she has this beautiful brown mole on her face, right to the left of her nose. And, she was carrying this sheer black scarf, which she wrapped around her neck and then around her arms, and which she used to keep herself warm when it got a little chilly. Mindy had so much fun on the dance floor. She just danced & danced. She requested "Shoop" by Salt 'n Pepper. She smoked a hundred cigarettes. She has this great, gleeful laugh.
Mindy & Joe's sister are one month apart. Apparently, their mothers had a contest of who could get pregnant first. The four kids grew up together. Their moms are twin sisters, and their dads used to be friends. Now, Mindy & Scott's parents are divorced, and Joe's father is no longer friends with their father. Scott is an obnoxious, disrespectful, loud, inconsiderate drunk. Mindy is a troubled, sad, charming, beautiful drunk. It's very sad. They're both in danger of destroying themselves. Apparently, Mindy has attempted suicide, and Scott is just verbally violent. Everytime he opens his mouth, he shouts obscenities and puts people down. He's so angry. The closest thing I've heard to anything nice coming out of his mouth is when he quotes from movies. And, he thinks in extremes. I asked him to move the bottles of beer from the sink to the ice bucket so that I could brush my teeth, and he said, "I know I'm a total loser. There are too many beers in there right now, but I'll move them soon. I know where you're coming from," but he didn't move them!
Oh, but I'm not doing a good job describing all this. I'm not giving enough information to make it interesting and complex. I really do want to write about it, though.
So, yes, yesterday... I want to get to the part about Chinatown, which is right off the Manhattan Bridge. We found the bus ticket booth, where you can get a ticket to Boston for $10 each way (!!!), so Joe & I are going to go up there sometime on a Saturday for the day. There's also a bus to Washington, D.C. for about the same price. We walked past these wholesale restaurant supply stores, and I went into one because, well, I get really excited about kitchen supplies. This 9 or 10 year old girl (or boy?) approached me as soon as I entered the store & asked me if she could help me. Isn't she too young to be a clerk? She was quite androgynous, but I think her haircut gave her away. It was one of those just-past-the-ear, cute, pixie cuts, which looked pretty girly.
Further into the more congested section of Chinatown, we found that there were these restaurants with big fishtanks in the window, and we spent, like, 15 minutes staring at the fish at one of them. There was this enormous lobster with claws the thickness of my arms. And, there was this huge crab with barnacles growing on its shell. This guy walked by & looked at the fish & he said he wouldn't want to eat the crab because of the barnacles. He said the crab must have lived at the bottom of the ocean for a very long time for those barnacles to grow, so the meat must be very tough & that maybe the crab was just for show. In the upper left corner tank, there were these fish that were almost completely flat, but very tall from bottom to top, and pretty long (maybe 8-10 inches). They would sometimes get pushed onto their sides by a current, even in that small tank. And, they more or less stared out from the glass. If you put your finger to the glass, they would gravitate towards it, and they would follow your finger if you moved it. The weirdest thing, though, was their lips. They had almost human lips, very thick, and tiny little teeth, two at the bottom, and two at the top. It was such a strange feeling to stare at their faces like that. You couldn't help but be attracted to how alive they were. It made me happy to watch them. It sort of calmed me, and it made me feel better because I was very emotionally "zapped" from the weekend with Scott and with all the drama.
Oh, and on the way out of Chinatown, we saw these boys hitting baseballs in a cement yard. We watched one of the boys pitch several pitches that were too high or just clearly out of the strike zone. This one boy was swinging at balls pitched to his shoulder, and Joe said the pitcher needed to release the ball later. I asked if he wanted to tell the kid, and he said it was like a fever or an itch. He wanted so badly to coach the boys, to just give them a few pointers, because baseball is one of his realms. But, he didn't. That would have been breaking a taboo.
Right now, I am at work listening to "The Joshua Tree" by U2. I remember listening to this on tape on the walk from the bus stop when I was in middle school. I remember walking past the manicured lawns down to my street, which wasn't so nice, to my house, where the lawn always needed to be cut. I was very paranoid about our lawn because my grandma made a comment once when she rode in the car with my father to drop us off after we spent the weekend with him. She probably wanted to see what the house looked like since the divorce. She said, "It's a shame how people just don't take care of their homes anymore like they used to." I was devastated & embarrassed & I designated myself as the household groundskeeper. I mowed the lawn and trimmed the bushes in the planter, and I resented the fact that if I didn't do it, nobody would.
