Does This Make Me Look

This was the week that one moment slid into the next. No discernible order. Thursday followed Monday, then came Tuesday. Wednesday and Friday seemed to have put on their masks and slipped out the door. It was like living in a Tom Waits’ song. It didn’t help that it rained all week so there was no visual difference between day and night. I also had a wee eye infection so had to wear my glasses, which don’t give me the best distance vision (& of course I could riff on the symbolism of that for a good long time, but I’ll leave it for now).

At one point, I was folding laundry and realized that I usually have some running dialogue about what happened on the day that I wore said item of clothing. But as I held up a pair of chinos and stared at them…nothing. No idea what was going on in the moment they were trotting around on my person. I stared at the gathering layer of dust on the surrounding surfaces and thought, I really should clean. I stared at Dennis and said that out loud, then we turned around and went about whatever it was we were doing. I made a sad little batch of cookies (which Dennis claims are actually tasty but let’s agree that he’s biased. Or just desperate for cookies.). I did not even once tune into any of my enjoyable online fitness or dance moments. Just didn’t. My meditation has been a pretty regular loop of “focus” and “start again.” I had two very exciting covid-19 dreams that in no particular order contained breaking isolation for a lousy bag of candy and a lot of elders physically fighting each other (no masks in sight). Words have been treating me funny too. My current fiction, Deacon King Kong, has been serving me up words that aren’t there. Quarter became quarantine and pinnacle = pandemic as if my subconscious were determined to rewrite the book for current times. (Speaking of what lies beneath, came across a great podcast this week courtesy one of my all time favorite writers, Caitlyn Moran: This Jungian Life. So. Good.)

On the flippity flop, I had the pleasure of talking either face-to-face or voce-to-voce to some of my all-time favorite people and even met some new ones during a good friend’s zoom birthday party. Was also invited into an FB discussion group “Civility in American Politics” for a friend who is completing her master’s thesis. What timing! She lives in Austria currently, but the other people in the group are spread all over the contiguous states. In her introduction, while laying some ground rules, she talked about suspension not as it translates to being on edge in a mysterious way or even dangling ten feet above ground by a bungee cord, but rather the act of suspension in expressing opinions. The difference between immediate reaction to a comment or action versus the act of suspending your reaction as you listen, gather the information in your intellectual and emotional place, then respond accordingly. I’m of course all for this definition of suspension. Agree wholeheartedly and strive while wishing upon a star to exercise it. I write that while watching a couple of my neighbors stroll down the sidewalk barefaced as an Amazon delivery man (fully masked and gloved) slips by and they seem to want to talk to him much closer than six feet dictates. And my brain screams People, what part of this death-dance do you not understand? idiiots. effin’ dangerous mofos. what’s wrong with you? You see where I’m going with this suspension thing. So hard to pause before reacting. And don’t even get me started on my inner dialogue when reading the daily newspapers.

So even though I’m still a bit fuzzy on what day it is and am pretty sure I just spotted a pile of dust in the corner grow a mustache, I am endeavoring to practice some suspension in order to keep front and center how incredibly and insanely committed a majority of humans out there are at keeping their loved ones, themselves, and also total strangers safe in this tsunami. I send us all big buckets of love and patience. I’m now going to go try and bake something. Wish me some success! Have a great, safe week, all you lovelies!

I’ve always had a very complicated relationship with bras. And I know I’m not alone in this. Over my many years of lady-hood, it’s become apparent that many many many people who are required to don the brassiere hate them. When I worked at the women’s magazines, the topic of how to do an article/listicle/poll/guide on how to find/fit/make peace with your bra was an annual event. My (sort-of) brief and not-so-wondrous history with this item of clothing went through the regular channels of youth (“whee, I’m a woman now. Let’s get me a bra, mom.”) to young-adulthood (“I’d rather just wear that hippie halter top.) to single-in-the-city/professional (“Ouch. Underwires and price tags.”) That latter stage spanned from obsessively watching Sex & the City and believing subtle Samantha tropes while relating more to Miranda moments to finally figuring out how to find something I liked (no underwires or excessive padding, thank you). When we moved out to SoCal in January, I dumped the contents of the whole bra drawer in a box, then when we arrived, I dumped the whole box in the new dresser. And there they’ve sat, most of them in very low rotation.

Then, last week, as I pondered various ways to be crafty about creating my own mask to use during our current make-your-own-PPE crisis, I came across a series of online tutorials showing how to turn bras into face masks. Although I didn’t follow this one exactly, it is my A#1 favorite for step-by-step entertainment and pure joy. (I can’t find the one I actually used, but this one is close & simple.) I was excited about those lightly padded things I had hanging out in my drawer, and also mostly glad that I’d stopped buying the lace and floral designs that had derailed my checking account during the Victoria’s Secret phase of my life. (Although my mom did ask whether I featured any lacy bits, and I was happy to that my dad couldn’t tell it was a bra until I told him.)

So yesterday I suited up (see above) in my homemade mask, safety glasses I’d snagged at Home Depot years ago because I thought they gave me a kind of Bono vibe, rubber gloves from Dennis’s collection of contractor gear, bandanna to keep my hair in place, grabbed my cloth grocery bags and steeled my nerves to make a foray into Trader Joe’s to buy enough food for the next two weeks for our magic bubble (otherwise known as Dennis, dad & me). I was pleased to find that four out of five humans were following the wear-a-mask suggestion that had made the airwaves the day before. I was also pleased that the six-foot-person-to-person distance was mostly being observed.

We are, all of us, finding ourselves in uncharted waters and as we float around in that space, I’m appreciating the messages that acknowledge that whatever you and I do right now, it’s enough (as one of my online movement teachers put it last week “you’re winning just by getting out of bed. If you get back in five minutes later, you’ve still won.”) Connecting via online is an awesome way to not feel alone.

But despite the wonder of screen-time connections, there’s no doubt that hugging is a truly fantastic thing that is missed. To quote Meghan Markle, “I hug.” Within that context of distance, it is truly surreal to look east and know that the place where I spent decades, still co-own property, and have so many dear, dear, hold-my-heart friends is currently at the apex of this crap-ass, terrifying coronavirus crisis. I’m sending so much love to those I love and to those I would see almost daily but didn’t know their names (I’m thinking of you lovely postal lady whose shyness gave way over time to chatting; 168th street, subway train platform crew who, among you, made me feel anchored in a place that otherwise held so much frustration; A-train morning conductor who had a bit of a stutter and wrapped me up in the assurance that I would probably make it to work on time or if I didn’t, he would let us know why, which was truly unusual in the working ways of the underground communication system; and the John-Goodman soundalike on my not-a-late-night A train home who sounded like he was smiling). I cross fingers and toes that each and every one of them are as fine as can be right now.

For those I know and get to talk to on the regular, a photo gallery of a time when we got to stand close and feel each other’s presence shoulder to shoulder. Now we’re virtually shoulder-to-shoulder, heart-to-heart until a time when we can hug again. (And for those of you who I love and don’t have an actual photo shoulder-to-shoulder with, well I look forward to when we can take one & I’ll add it here!)

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Hello. How are we all in this strangest of times? It is in fact the little things—or at least the things that a few weeks ago would have been taken completely for granted—that are driving life right now. Some stuff I’ve realized this week:

• I have never washed my hands correctly. Seriously. Imagine my utter chagrin and shock to learn that after actually focusing on what is required in order to get a good clean pair of hands that I’ve been at best shoddy and at worst just completely negligent of germ removal altogether—wasting soap really. When I finally understood (with the help of the NYTimes and various renditions of 20-second songs) how to accomplish this task, I felt a combination of pride and slight embarrassment. But what is expository writing for, if not to share?

• While it might be a bright spot in an otherwise dark time to believe that COVID-19 has brought a bright side by way of wildlife and other beauties repopulating the earth because maybe this virus is nature’s way of saying “Hey, humans, you’ve messed with our territory enough. While you’re inside self-isolating, we’re gonna take advantage of the open spaces and frolic.” Unfortunately, though, this isn’t altogether true. Too bad because I was going to write this entire blog about the great views Venice citizens were getting from their windows as dolphins and swans returned to cleaner canals. And while that’s not altogether wrong, it’s not altogether true either. As usual, snopes weighs in with rumor-busting, but also, just reasonably speaking, yes, the waters look cleaner (no silt stirred from gondolas) and the dolphins are nosing around (no gondolas blocking their way). But also the city suffers with no human interaction, so maybe this becomes a time of figuring out how to reenter the world without displacing every thing in front or behind us. Tricky, that.

• People are amazing in their ability to give, stay connected, and do what they can to help us all remain sane. Whether it’s FaceTime friend chats or virtual workouts, this period has brought some rich moments of giving. Trainer extraordinaire Kym Nolden helped me sweat off some pent-up energy last week when she streamed a live Instagram barre class that not only reminded me that I really don’t care for side planks, but also made me feel like I was back in a class with her as she shouted out hellos to people I haven’t seen since I left NYC and the Hearst tower. The amazing&wonderful trainer Denise Harris and her Resolve to Move has made me happy everyday as I watch her Instagram posts and sometimes drop down to execute some moves. Folks are generous. They’re sharing what they do from movement to meditation and even though we all may be taking some financial hits, being able to contribute to them with whatever’s available via technology has felt amazing.

• There are places that are paying attention. On our way to take things over to my dad’s yesterday we stopped at the local Trader Joe’s. At first, when I saw the line outside the TJ’s I balked (is this just a New Yorker reaction? Or is everyone equally as impatient?). But then I realized that they were doing a really good thing: Everyone was standing 6-feet apart and the store was only letting in two people at a time while madly disinfecting carts and what-not. Once inside people were being very respectful and spaced out (physically, but also maybe a little mentally as well), while taking only what they needed (there was a two item minimum) and moving quickly so as to let others outside get in. I blabbed to every TJ employee I came across how awesome I thought they were doing. Of course I feel a special pang for any person who has to be manning a cash register, delivering items, or working in a distribution center right now. Beyond the obvious awe I feel for healthcare workers—combined with abject furor and fear over their lack of equipment— everyone who is out in the world supporting us who are sheltering in/working from home is an effin’ hero. Not to mention customer service folks at financial institutions and other service providers who are dealing with flat-out freak-outs as we all try and figure out where our money is currently. As the lovely Benay Bubar put it in a FB post last week (this was her birthday wish. see below for the whole of it): “even a life that is in many ways limited right now can be meaningful and purposeful because we are all in this together and we need to take care of one another.”

• Many museums and galleries are closed in this moment in time. All the arts are shut down. Support for those institutions and for the artists themselves is really important. My friend TB Ward shared this song to NPRs Tiny Desk music and I think even though we are all separated, the opportunity to listen and be moved is paramount. I am going to work on a list of places that are either live-streaming and also taking donations, but I’d also love to hear about how you’re supporting your favorite arts and/or have heard about people who are doing that well.

At a fairly chaotic Target stop to pick up some non-food supplies for ours and my dad’s place, I stared at the empty toilet paper shelves wistfully. I didn’t have high hopes, but it was worth a try. Dennis wandered off to the electronics aisle for something electronic and happened upon a six pack of TP gold left abandoned in some random aisle. When he rounded the corner holding the pack I felt both lucky and vulnerable. Strange to feel that about toilet paper. Then, as he went on the hunt for Duraflame pressed logs for my dad’s fireplace, he found one lonely box on an otherwise empty shelf. It is clear that all things to do with sheltering in cozy comfort (something that toilet paper apparently plays a role in) are in short supply because the soup aisle was empty too.

A final message to everyone, be well physically and mentally! And please let me know what smiles you’ve found over this last little while from the little to the big.

On Wednesday, I got on my trusty steed (otherwise known as Blanche II) and headed off to the Redlands library, a beautiful old structure that has since become a place I won’t be going for a while as the mixing and mingling of people is on hold. What you see in the picture above is a glimpse of the street where I live. The place holds a nice collection of neighbors, some of whom I’ve only gotten to know by watching them pass by as I sit at my desk. There’s Margaret who lives next door, with her grandson Matt. She’s been here 15 years and seems to be the keeper of many Village Green stories. She’s also inspiring in me a search for vintage beaded cardigan sweaters because that’s the kind of elegant vibe she gives off. She’s told me how she’s gotten a bit wobbly on her pins after crossing the threshold of eighty, but her smile ain’t wobbly at all. There’s Angie across the street, who is Margaret’s best friend and has also lived here for over a decade. She favors bright pink slacks (yes, they’re slacks of the sort Doris Day wore). I just spotted her off to our shared laundry room wearing a pair that are sunshine on a cloudy day. Bob and Barb live next door to Angie. Their vibe is old-school hippie as only Southern California can deliver. They probably look almost exactly as they did in the 1960s (one long gray braid, one long gray ponytail, two great collections of rock t-shirts). They’ve got this amazing old blue truck that reminds me how cars can survive in this climate much better than they do in the northeast. They walk their dogs a couple of times a day and seem so solid and happy that I feel good just knowing they’re there. They might be my go-to in a crisis (more on that later). There are a handful of others whose names I don’t know (yet), like the family across the street who usually have jazz coming out their car windows as they park—I had forgotten about driving and music. It’s a thing. There’s the lady who walks her dog in the early AM who has such an amazing amount of chic scarves that I might have to see if the one’s my mom lost during her recent move might be in this woman’s drawer.

So, neighbors. Unless you live on a vast expanse of land, you’ve got them too. In NYC, my neighbor was my wonderful friend Elizabeth (Hi!). It was completely random when her real estate broker showed her the place next to ours, which turned out to be a space that seemed like it was literally built for her to live and be creative. Having her there to share the monthly coffee-in-the-morning dates and huddle during an electrical outage was comforting in a way that’s hard to put into words and I truly miss our Lucy/Ethel vibe. When I lived on the LES, my pal Mary (Hi!) lived across the airshaft, which was handy for checking on whether the light was on so maybe a trip to the bar around the corner might be a thing. Now she lives in Long Beach, which isn’t too far away. Yay! And yes, there have been the crazies and the louds, because of course there have. They may have yippy dogs that like to yip. All. The. Time. They may stomp around. Like to yell. To throw parties during early-morning hours. Stuff like that. But still, here we all are. We live on this planet cheek to jowl—unless you live on that aforementioned vast expanse of land.

And now, in these urgent, interesting—as per MW: holding the attention—times, I realize how important it is to pause and look. Pay some mind to this circumference of people and sentients all around and step up rather than away. Mind you, I’m practicing all that self-distancing and handwashing as is most important right now, but if Margaret needs something left at her door (another vintage cardigan perchance), then by-god, I can do that. As for Barb and Bob, my sense is that their house is where all the good survivalist stuff might be so I’m happy they’re there.

Last night while watching the Newshour, Judy Woodruff damn near brought me to tears with this. It’s so true that now more than ever, reaching out (safely. I see that soap at the ready) without the malice that fear can bring is necessary.

What neighbor stories stick in your memory most? Kindnesses? Humorous moments?

My dad just re-jiggered some Bob Dylan lyrics. Please to sing along: “How many times can a man wash his hands, before he feels he’s been cured? The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind.”

Stay Safe, ALL!

Maybe it’s the light that’s started the slide carousel of memories clicking off in my brain. The way it just spills right down to the ground with very few skyscrapers to bank off of. I find myself squinting slightly, looking around, and thinking “wait, haven’t I been here before?” And sometimes I actually have been there (or at least in the vicinity). Yesterday, for instance, I went to Long Beach and had a chance to spend the afternoon with my dear friend Mary. We have about four decades of friendship under our belt and as we walked around she reminded me of a place I’d lived near (on?) Ocean Blvd when we were both going to Cal State Long Beach. I remembered the apartment for sure. An expansive one-bedroom with a view across the boulevard of the ocean where I lived for a time with my British boyfriend, Richard. I remembered that the day I’d signed the lease, the owner had looked up and out the window as a jogger collapsed on the long expanse of front lawn. He’d run down to help as a crowd gathered and everyone then realized that the man was not breathing. A blood-clot had passed through his lungs (according to the EMS or maybe that was just the assumption of a bystander). I don’t remember if I was standing next to the owner and hearing the news or if he’d come back up to the apartment and told me. But that event I do remember, yet it’s anyone’s guess where the apartment actually was on this stretch of boulevard.

This memory thing is funny. When I asked Mary, “Hey, do you think it’s weird not to remember large swathes of moments in life?” she answered, “not really” because, and I’m paraphrasing here, life moves along and there are so many things that fill it up that to remember all the many details would make your head explode (that last bit I completely put into my speak). And I do agree, although sometimes I’m still unsettled by the loss or fuzziness of memories in my head. Like there will be an itch in my brain that really a lot of things happened in this place or during this time, but I remember very few of the details. Given my college life was lived in a time before phone cameras (more specifically, before a time when a phone lived anywhere but connected to a wall), not a lot of documentation went on. I’ve got a few snaps that I put stories too, and when I say stories, I’m allowing for the fact that the setting exists but I may be making up the details wholesale.

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So there I was yesterday thinking back while moving forward, which turned out to be incredibly prescient since in the evening I was lucky, so lucky, to be treated to Patti Smith by my great friend and writing partner, Judy, and her husband, Ian. As a way into memories, Patti Smith is for me an amazing road. Not because I remember having seen her so many times (I haven’t) or because she floods me with thoughts of a particular moment in my life (not really), but instead because she’s so generous with her own thoughts around memories, which makes me think and remember my own. The one and only direct Patti Smith moment was about a decade ago in an S Factor studio in LA when I was doing a workshop and trying so hard to find myself, my rhythm, my soul, my footing, and naturally flailing around the room and slamming into the walls. The teacher had me stop, then put on “Dancing Barefoot” and proceeded to let me do what I needed to in order to get still and break down, then get up again (eventually). And it was Patti Smith’s voice and words, plus her urgency, that got me there. But other than that, she has existed for me as someone whose attitude in living I find inspiring. And as she gets older, her singularity becomes more striking to me. Fashion? I see it in her/on her, but it’s so far from product&pretension as to come in the back door and surprise you. Which naturally has caused some designers to fall all over themselves to emulate it. She’s not unaware, I’m sure, of her style as this look book shows, but it’s so part&parcel of her that to me it doesn’t feel calculated. (A friend once mentioned that he’d seen Patti Smith on the boardwalk in Rockaway Beach and wondered who the old homeless man that everyone was talking to was. That’s how she rolls.)

One of my favorite passages in M Train, Patti’s 2015 book, is about a coat: “I had a black coat. A poet gave it to me some years ago on my fifty-seventh birthday. It had been his—an ill-fitting, unlined Commes de Garçons overcoat that I secretly coveted. … Every time I put it on I felt like myself. The moths liked it as well and it was riddled with small holes along the hem, but I didn’t mind. The pockets had unstitched at the seam and I lost everything I absentmindedly slipped into their holy caves.” This strikes me on so many levels: She’s not unaware of the designer. But the brand doesn’t make her care for the coat overmuch (and in fact we learn she loses the coat and is thoroughly gutted by it, saying, “I continue to search everywhere in vain, hoping it will appear like dust motes illuminated by sudden light”). She treats it like an extension of herself, which is the phrase that I’m most struck by: “Every time I put it on I felt like myself.”

I think about what I put on that makes me feel like myself. There was a time I was convinced I’d moved to New York City as much for the electric stimulus of the place as for the fact that I could have an extensive wardrobe of coats. I imagined, depending on the occasion and my mood, sweeping down the streets in leather dusters, Russian overcoats, faux-leopard fluffy things. I had a coat that looked like the brocade upholstery of an old couch that I wore during my music days. Often people would sit on it at a club or parties, that is how much it resembled furniture. I had a bright yellow, mid-thigh-length, felt coat that had a pouch in the back that I was told was for storing bullets and slinging your firearm while hunting. I kid you not, this may be a slightly faulty memory, but that coat had a pocket big enough for those aforementioned things (along with red leather trim) and it was a mythic bit of my wardrobe. Where did that coat go?

Now that I’m back in the land of light-to-no coat weather, that’s fine. I turn to other moments to wear my identity. At thrift stores I’m always magnetized by the white, gauzy, Indian-inspired pullovers like the one pictured below that I wore to the end of days in high school. I know back then I felt my identity in that shirt: a California girl who would rather be on the beach, sitting around a fire pit while someone strums “Stairway to Heaven” on the guitar. Today the slightly see-through quality might not put me so much at ease, but the idea of it floating and easy appeals. I might still enjoy the odd fire pit as long as the sand fleas stay away. And the “Stairway to Heaven,” well sure.

Looking at the picture above, I can see the youth. The early settling into an identity (that would continue and does still change quite often). I was a girl who when told at a concert to raise her arms in the air and shout about how the people have the power, would do that without second thought. Last night, when Patti worked the crowd in that direction, I raised one arm halfway while my brain screamed I feel silly and gaah, I am cynical. Although by the end of the show I was out of my seat and dancing in a way that might embarrass anyone in the club. But really, what club am I talking about? Who cares? I could have been channeling Elaine (the link needs clicking to fully understand) and no one would have given two bits. What was happening had more to do with feeling like myself. Getting out of my own way. Not looking in the mirror and judging.

What do you feel like yourself most in?

Hello there! When I started this blog, the focus was on sustainable fashion and while I am obviously still a wholehearted supporter of that, the writing here took twists and turns depending on the week and the location (hello, Georgia. Hello, jumpsuits.).

Now that we’ve been settled in the lovely Redlands area for a minute, I’m excited to return to the land of sustainable fashion ideas in the form of thrifting. Oh, my people, I am in awe of the wonderland of thrifting that is within this general area. From the American Cancer Society’s Discovery Shop (pictured above) that is a ten-minute bike ride away and across the parking lot from a cool coffee place called Stell to Redlands Thift Store, which should have the word store swapped out for ginormous cavern of all sorts of stuff that is both wonderful and slightly scary (but of course all that wouldn’t fit on the sign). That particular emporium is only a five-minute bike ride away, but luckily because I do not pull a small trailer on the back of my bike, I often must pass up the larger, nuttier items. But when Dennis and I have gone there…watch the F out because we must keep each other from going a little crazy over all the possible finds. We did find an amazing vintage treadle sewing machine for $40-ish on our first visit. It was on sale down from $99. And even though, no, I don’t sew, especially not by using my feet in some treadle-y way, gadzooks, it makes a nice addition to the living room–and sometimes a place to put a glass of wine.

Also, for bonus points, there were all kinds of original items in the drawers, like extra needles from the Woodmen of the World Life Insurance Society (they claimed to be “One of the World’s Financially Strongest Fraternal Benefits Societies” altho I read it as one of the “Strangest” but I was wrong).

Just the other day, while taking a break from earning my hourly wage, I toodled over and found this interesting item because I’d been looking for something to drape my necklaces over:

I don’t know what kind of animal it’s supposed to be (please weigh in with ideas) but I like it’s eyes and the fact that there are wheels. But really, the reason I bought it (for $4.95) was this inscription on the bottom:

This mystery wood animal with wheels was made by GENE JR. in 1986. Where is Gene Jr. today? Why is his handmade mystery animal here at the Redlands Thrift. Of course I was forced to create a life for Gene in my imagination. He’s doing great. He has no memory of being involved in this woodcarving/building experience (which Dennis believed to be a part of a Scout project). And while the receiver of this masterpiece appreciated it at the time, after awhile it ended up in the attic/basement, then was further buried away to make room for the mid-size rocket Gene Jr. ended up building (because he’s a rocket scientist now).

Anyhoo, here’s the thing about all these treasures: they get one to thinking about their past life. My friend Denise (yoo-hoo. love you, Resolve to Move) plays a great game when thrifting, which is: Why was this piece given away? For instance, she discovered after buying a really fantastic sweater that has big knitted loops (kind of like this but so much cuter) that probably the person who gave it up did so because hoop earrings were forever getting caught and causing the head to be pulled sideways and jeopardizing the earlobe. When we went to Beacon’s Closet, we tried to figure out why an entire rack of Anna Sui dresses had ended up there. Then I tried one on and realized I looked like a very silly strangers-with-candy kindergartner. So let’s just say Anna Sui had a bad season and just because she’s famous, this wasn’t her best work. And maybe even Anna herself had dropped off the lot. Last year when thrifting with my pal Kym (hi, hearts to you almost-birthday girl), she saw me standing with a pair of faux leather black leggings that had bright yellow patches on the knees and said, “You have to get those.” Which I did and have subsequently gotten caught up in wondering whether the former owner was some sort of moto-cross lover. I love the idea of putting a story to the find.

I had my own loopy sweater back in the day, which I’d found at a thrift store and wore until I could wear it no more. Maybe someone is now using it as a doily. I had a pair of silver sequined pants that I found at Housing Works that looked so rock’n’roll on the rack that I practically body slammed the person in front of me in order to grab them. But they were bar-none the most uncomfortable item of clothing I’d ever worn—the lining was so frayed that I felt as if tiny metal discs were flaying me every time I took a step. Yet, I wore them. Because of course I did. Until such time as I dropped them in a Goodwill bin. I can only hope that the next person who bought them sewed a proper lining inside. Or made them into earrings. When I was feeling rather flush at my record company job back in the mid-nineties, I bought a Cynthia Rowley sheath dress with matching coat to wear to fancy meetings. When I quit that job, I quickly carried off many of the pieces that reminded me of how doing music’s corporate bidding wasn’t my jam to the local thrift. Most the pieces were lightly worn and I hope strutted their stuff into better boardrooms than mine.

So now, here in this land of treasure, there are more and more stories to uncover (within a budget of course). More Gene Jr.’s to wonder about and Woodmen of the World moments to marvel at. Very exciting!

What’s something you’ve found that begged a story? And what have you donated that carried its own tale of fun? I’ll leave you with this crazy fox beer stein ($7) as inspiration.

Hello there. A week has passed already since I last visited you all here. Funny how that happens. I’d felt kind of empty of ideas when sitting down to write today, having put it off yesterday. No big topic was looming in my brain waiting to be spooled out. In the end though, that mostly doesn’t matter since as I keep learning (over and over), it’s just the starting that counts. Who knows what comes next?

The actual happenings: I got a haircut (see above). Dennis and I went to LA last weekend. I went to a chat about art at the Broad museum (a window of which is featured at top) where Kim Gordon and Christopher Wool talked with John Corbett about making art. A good portion of the start of the talk centered on how New York City has changed so immensely as a place for artists to live and thrive. Obviously this is a topic that has been kicking around for many years among the NY-dwellers who create in the arts but cannot afford to live there (unless they have subsidized housing) or find studio space given the always escalating rents. Kim and Chris discussed how the city used to be in the eighties and nineties and how they see it now. I had a fair amount of flashbacks as they talked given my move to the Lower East Side was a few years after Kim’s own relocation from SoCal in 1980. I was struck by how technicolor memories can be and also how old we’re in danger of sounding when we wax on about then vs. now. “Back in my day, kiddo, there were heroin addicts right there where that natty restaurant sits, and after that a good portion of crackheads roamed this block. What a time that was.” And while that may be true—it was in fact a time, often exciting, often terrifying, and, I think also ultimately boring to reference ad nauseam without allowing that new things are happening that are refashioning creativity. To Kim’s credit, when the question was put to her (paraphrasing), Where is there to go in the city to hear new music? She said, “I have no idea” in a way that while not altogether an eye-roll, definitely had the edge of ice that she’s so good at, but also allowed that she’s not the arbiter of these things in New York any longer. And Chris added something to the effect that at his age he doesn’t pay attention to the cool places to go anymore. He said that with not an ounce of bitterness, but with a kind of relief that I could totally relate to. But when asked what she thinks about New York City now that she’s moved back to LA, Kim paused and said that since she’s gotten distance from it, what she sees is “… a luxury brand that Bloomberg built.” That got a lot of “mmms” and “aahhs” from the attendees. Well, yes. But it’s also a place where your average Joe & Josephine can live. I’ve done it. It’s quite possible and only sometimes painful. It’s true that you have to work your butt off to afford shows and dinners and the like on the regular. And sometimes you’re just too damn tired to do all that stuff. But that basically describes living and aging and stuff like that. I did not feel like I had to take part in the luxury branded-ness unless I wanted to scale that mountain. I could be a 99cent store creature just fine.

A really often-asked question I’ve gotten from people since moving here is “What do you miss?” I write that as I stare out at a big sky filled with some clouds post-rain where two tall palm trees are sticking up. A very different view from the sun setting over New Jersey across the Hudson River. Both views are really gorgeous. The answer to the miss question then is: being able to call close friends and make dinner plans. While I’m grooving on reaching out to friends here and making plans, the distance with car can be a thing. But I’m also welcoming the non-social time to investigate my own inner world. Publicly, I recognize a blank spot where a parade of strangers used to traipse by on a daily basis. There’s a much different people parade strolling along out here. Really the only walking activity I see has to do with people and dogs. I have a whole lot of neighbors who are attached to leashes and the furry friends on the end. I’m also enjoying hearing the pneumatic wheeze of a school bus door open and close in the morning and see kids on their bikes coming home from school in the afternoon. Different from the stand-clear-of-the-doors opening and shutting of the subway for sure. To ride my bike past Victorian houses into the downtown which is borderline twee but mostly really cute is vastly different from riding my bike to the Hearst tower. All these different views that I’m feeling solitary about, but not unhappily so. Day to day it’s the starting. And the continuing.

Things you miss about a place? New views from a distance?

One of the more interesting parts of life lately has been looking around and realizing I’m doing a thing pretty far from any activity that used to be my daily. Yesterday I helped Dennis paint the trim on my dad’s place. This was an activity that I’ve done exactly zero in my life up to now. The closest I’ve come to the painting of household surfaces was about a decade ago when I swabbed the walls of my old apartment white right before I sold the place. I used a roller on the end of a stick and at the time thought it was damn difficult and was glad to get back to my desk job. I was reminded of that yesterday when pulling on the same pair of jeans that had been suitably splattered during my first go-round with (oil-based? water-based? honestly not even sure) paint. Soon after I’d worn those jeans and someone asked me where I’d gotten them because at the time—before the manufactured-rip look was in—the manufactured-paint-splatter look was in. I was damn proud to know I’d had something to do with making the mess I was wearing rather than paying for the experience.

Experiences. Funny things those. At some point yesterday while trying to be patient and concise with the paint so as not to let big globs of gray drip onto places it wasn’t meant to go I thought about the things I’d done that seemed far from the life I thought I was supposed to be having. Currently I’m feeling fairly solid about where I’m situated, but there were absolutely many times I’ve looked around and thought how in hell did I get here?

There was the time after I’d left my record company job—the one where I was director of video promotions and had a staff of two under me and knew I’d made a wrong career choice because my days consisted of convincing MTV and VH1 to play videos of people whose music I 92.9% didn’t like—when I worked the phones for a focus group. A real clarity moment during that time was when I was standing on a NYC sidewalk trying to interview people about whether they enjoyed cleaning (their clothes, their bodies, their spaces, their minds? I’ve blocked out those details). It was cold. I was miserable and very freaked out that someone would recognize me from my music biz days and think what the hell happened to her? Obviously I was already thinking that about myself, so I didn’t need anyone from my past to say it. At one point I wanted to scream out at all the passersby as I stood with my clipboard “don’t you know who I’ve been?” I didn’t do that. I mostly just hid inside a bank machine vestibule and darted out to talk to women with rolling carts figuring they might be more willing to answer my questions seeing as how they were possibly on their way to shop or do laundry. At the very least they were moving slower than everyone else. I was also mostly wrong about all of that and I came back to the workplace having woefully underperformed. A few weeks later, I found a way out of that job.

What I’d wanted to do after leaving the music industry was write. Stories, articles. Long-form and short-form. Sit with a topic and spool out words. So naturally I became a teacher. Why, you ask, did I not write and write and write? (I asked myself that too.) I could say it was because I needed to make money. That was true. Or that it was because I was crap-ass at pitching myself. That was also true. So I taught writing workshops in the public schools. I’m not gonna lie: There were times I’d stand in a classroom full of kids yelling and screaming and thinking writing was a punishment and I’d want to scream out “don’t you know who I’ve been?” I did once say I knew Eminem in a desperate effort to shut them up. I don’t know why I thought that would work and as I remember it, no one cared. Plus, I didn’t know know Eminem. I’d just been at some kind of MTV event with him and we nodded at each other because he probably thought I was someone else.

So there I was still not really doing the thing I wanted to do. But, I said to myself that I was gaining life experience. And this was in fact true. By the time I returned back to magazines and was able to understand how a human is capable of holding a few different things in their life at once, I’d begun to understand that what we do is not an either/or. I’d become a journalist because being a writer of fiction was never going to pay my bills. No matter that my dream was to sit in a room alone and write stories, I would go out into a crowd and write stories. In the last few years, discovering that I can be just fine at doing the management of people bits in a job that if you’d told me in my youth I’d be doing, I would have been very sad for myself. There was no sadness there. There was enjoyment to learn I was capable of doing a thing I thought I was bad at: the management of people. I also learned to make time to do what I love, which is, yes, writing. So I did that on the side. Wrote a book. Whether that piece of writing is read by anyone other than me and the handful of friends and agents I’ve shared it with, who knows. And sort of, who cares.

What I’m saying here is that I realize nothing ever looks like I think it will. So I paint the trim. I start a new story. And I know who I’ve been.

What things do you look back on and think yeah, I did that!

It’s funny to be starting somewhere new after over three decades of being in one place. Of course, within those decades I experienced newness in doses. For instance, the year the band that’s name-checked above came on the scene I moved from Cali to NYC (1984 for those of you who managed to avoid the NKOTB early phenom) to go to college. I started new jobs, I went to new bars. I met new people and took chances in new situations. I’m not writing this with the intention of saying it’s more challenging this time to be a new kid than when I was younger. Actually, it’s a lot less fraught emotionally given I don’t feel like my entire future depends on every career decision I make and every person I meet. But it does bring into focus some real who-am-I moments. Especially as I’m fresh off the packing & moving boat, which required me to go through boxes of old pictures deciding which to keep and which were completely worthy of the bin. This activity not only took me twice as long as it did to pack up the entire kitchen at Haven avenue, but in the end I think only seven photos were discarded—all of which went to my friend Elizabeth to use in her awesome art.

Naturally I (re)discovered many things about myself that I’d forgotten or possibly just locked in some attic in my mind. When I found the photo above, I was happy to discover that the high-waisted short with suspenders (?cuz that was a thing?!) look was not a terrible choice for me. My love of knee socks has clearly carried on (thanks, Dennis, for giving me space in his chest of drawers so I can still own a stupid amount of socks. That I’ll rarely need to wear for warmth. But still). My sporting of braids has also been a time-honored thang, altho I moved away from that just a few years ago thanks to my friends Amy and Windy who talked me through a particularly poignant who-am-I moment in my mid-fifties and I let go of the braids until I become eightysomething and want to sport a Patti Smith vibe. I also had a perm back then, which I know because that explosion coming out from under the bandanna headband are my bangs. Yes, I permed my bangs. That was a mistake.

I blatantly copied my looks from my favorite magazine at the time. Viva. I loved their style (Anna Wintour was their fashion editor in the early 70s). But imagine my surprise when I did a search just now for the magazine and found that it was marketed as soft-core porn for women and published by Bob Guccione. Huh? I liked that it was edgy. They had good writers (hello, Joyce Carol-Oates) but really, I loved their fashion spreads, which had a little something more than I could find in Seventeen magazine. Possibly that was the soft-porn part. (I have now found some pretty purple moments online that I apparently never remembered seeing. But it does explain a few things.) The fact that I went on to work for Bob Guccione Jr. at SPIN in the nineties only deepens the six degrees life offers.

When I stood in front of the mountain range pictured above at the age of 22, the world was ahead of me. At the time, I may not have known that I would be moving to New York City. I did know that I loved music and writing words and I adored magazines. I’m sure I also knew on some level that I’d need to leave the Southern California of my childhood to find the career and stimulation that I wanted. I was probably scared on some level. Excited on another. Definitely confused. No doubt hopeful and possibly a bit stoned.

Now being back in Southern California, I am all those things again (except for the stoned part) as I face this set of mountains. I step into places where no one knows me and I gauge what that feels like. Decide who I am in the space. I’d gotten so used to knowing someone in the room that it’s really interesting to just be invisible for a minute while not taking anything for granted. Walking into a barre class at a gym down the street, I try and figure out where to stand in the studio since naturally the regulars have their spots. Should I just stake a claim? Or wait until everyone’s planted? A new doctor’s office where they ask me all the questions I haven’t had to answer in years and it occurs to me that sometimes people look at you differently if you’re in your fifties, have had abortions, and don’t have kids (or I’m totally making that up, am suddenly sensitive about my life choices and the nurse has a natural twitch). I meet the neighbors and don’t assume that they think purple hair and tattoos are cool, although I still think they are, so in that regard, I celebrate and wouldn’t change a thing. But I’m a bit quieter while I get to know the space around me. When I go to aerobics with my dad, that’s a place I feel totally at home. I’ve gone there with him for years, starting back when we’d come to visit annually. At the beginning, I felt like a visitor. Now I feel at home among all the bodies who move slowly and deliberately through this thing called silver sneakers class. I’m old enough to enjoy it without my ego getting weird. I’m recognizing all the life in the room and how we fill it so differently. Point is I’m (still) learning how to move in it.

And fashion…my love. Now I get it from thrift stores and my closet. Knee socks and all.

In the meantime, thanks for coming on the ride! Where are you all currently feeling most comfortable in the world? Do you have lots of socks (or other things you don’t really wear but can’t get rid of?)