Amagansett or "The Springs"

G & G on the screened in porch with take out containers. Lovely meal.

After a lovely extended Cohen family breakfast (truly lovely) and a kiss goodbye to Sandy and Tom and Jane and all the family that I came to love for 24 hours, Greg George and I drove back to Manhattan to drop off DH and then head out to the Hamptons. Technically I had been there before, but it was in the winter and just a drive through for a few hours. We were going for an extended "weekend in the country."

Greg and his family have a place there. I loved every inch of the place especially the screened in porch. I think I am liking things that are so not familiar to me and my upbringing like screened in porches and trains and seasonal clothing. Everything almost, except mice, but that is another entry.

After driving from Ossining to Manhattan to Amagansett, it was late. We picked up prepared food at the local grocery (Hampton's style) and had a fine meal together on the screened in porch.

We watched some of the Olympics and then I retired to my bedroom with the queen bed with headboard and footboard and all the family knick-knacks protecting me. I was snug and happy as a bug can be.

I think I almost had to pinch myself with joy.

OhEightOhEightOhEight

The Califorina Contingent (of which I include myself) + DH and Jane. (The framed photo on the couch has the eighty year old telegram announcing Jane's birth.)

Where were you and what were you doing on this auspicious day? I, myself, had lunch with author DH Melham in Manhattan (fancy!) and then a car picked us up at her swank apartment (where Norman Mailer stabbed his wife) and we went to Ossining, NY for an 80th birthday party. Get it? 8-0 on 08/08/08. Infinity, circle of life. Even "Ossining" seems full of eights trying to get out.

DH is my good friend Greg's mom and were all in NY to celebrate our good friend Sandy's mom's milestone birthday. It was a wonderful event. Jane is a great lady whom I have admired since I met her in Los Angeles when she was only in her seventies. She was duly feted by her family and friends. It is amazing hearing about someone else's life from different perspectives. We as kids so often don't see/know our parents in the same way as their friends and colleagues do. Jane seems like an eater of life and I mean that in the best way. That is why she looks so damned young at 80! That is the secret folks: genes and eating life. And helping others. I hear the recipe constantly and here I saw it in the flesh. Happy Birthday, Jane.

In Chekovian 101 fashion, she has three daughters and she is one of three sisters. All were there including middle daughter Nancy who lives in Belgrade. (Think daughter who goes who goes away to marry Russian in "Fiddler on the Roof.") Judith and Malcolm came from San Francisco and it was great to see them. So loving of all of Sandy's friends I have to say. And this brings me to my gorgeous pal and the youngest daughter Sandy (is that Chava?) [Side note: there wasn't a daughter named Hovel was there? As that would be just wrong]. I adore her and I bow at her feet in this entry. She advises me on all things: cars, boys, careers. She brought her boyfriend Tom to the East for my inspection ( at least I read it that way. ) He is Norwegian, a musician AND a keeper! Imagine that! Three things a mother looks for.

We like Tom.

Zumba.

Last Thursday I was at my beloved 63rd Street YMCA and there was this class taking place in the large studio. There were loads of people, loud music and this rather hot, smiley guy leading them all in this kick ass dance movement. My little treadmill heart longed to be a part.

In my continuing quest to "walk through fear" I put it in my datebook to go tonight. I did and my t-shirt is still drying hours later.

It was AMAZING. I loved it and my body will be in traction pain tomorrow. It is called Zumba and it is some Miami Latin dance/aerobic craze. The kind of stuff that makes tall white boys look ridiculous. And it also seems like something that will end up in a time capsule of the crazy shit people used to get into in the early aughts.

I just have to say the heart-pounding joy I got was worth all of it. I think there is a human need to,well, shake your grove thing. Trust me on this. It is there. You all have it, but you may not know it or know how to express it.

We are all dying to dance and shake it off and let it go and shout it out and roll around in it.

I am certainly going to go back and get even lower!

New York is for Writers

As eye rolling as this may be to utter, it is true. I can see why so many writers have come here and I can feel that it is a place that makes, er, them better.

As I walk around my fantastic town I see stories everywhere. I smell stories. I hear stories. I have not tasted a story yet, but I am sure a good knish will take care of that. It is just that kind of place where you feel it in the air and the life here begs to be interpreted.

I see faces so clearly as I walk on the street. And to me everyone in New York is beautiful. Life Magazine beautiful. Everyone in New York warrants an article. How they got here, why they stay, who broke their heart.

The European families that walk so calmly together and have perfect skin and four of the same nose. I love that. I want to write about them and why they walk so elegantly with thousands of years more practice on their bones and they don't seem stuck up about it either.

And there are the broken vets who eyes died a long time ago, but there is something deeper in there. And the lovers. Lovers everywhere: beautiful patrician, Kennedian-preppy ones and rollie pollie ones. There is the young guy who puts a hand on his girlfriend's butt as they walk up the stairs out of the subway. You know they will not last, but they need to rub up against each other in order to grow. And the African women with the white babies. This city teems with these duets. And the too long in the sun, knock-off toting old Jewish ladies with the voices of rusted fencing. You know they used to go to dances. At dance halls. With live bands. No more.

And the firemen and cops and nuns and hotel workers and the drummers. Loads of drummers. Keeping time, boys?

This is one big damned town that has a story on every corner in every face. It is all low hanging fruit for writers if they,we, choose to notice.

Pat to Control, Come in Control....

22, 078 Steps (lots of walking aimlessly around New York)

There is my job and my 401K and my health benefits and my apartment and my gym and my Monday night band practice and a book to read. Ahhhh. Order. My life is in control. If each of these things were on a plate, I would like to look up and see them all spinning. I know then I have control.

And if Control is my mistress then I am a sorry sod for certain. I am afraid it is.

See, I am NOT working. I have no job, 401K, etc. I have very little to control at the moment and THIS drives me crazy! When someone is not working he feels out of control at best and I find I tend to want to UBER control what I do have: the subway, the gym, my book, my computer, etc. If any of these smaller items goes out of whack or order I lose it!

Today I went to the CHASE Bank to deposit a measly check. ( I want to control the size of this check.) I have hated when I left B of A for CHASE because CHASE requires you to fill out a deposit slip with an account number and all other info PLUS an envelope with your name, which type of account, account number, etc.

So while others are paying down their mortgages, I pass by 5 B of A's and finally happen upon a CHASE. NONE of the wee tables has deposit slips or envelopes! THAT IS IT!! I HAVE HAD IT. It took me long enough to find one of you and I have check smaller than most people spend at lunch and now this!?

Less sane people shoot up an office or jump off a bridge that still allows such things. Me, I just go into one of those horrible, self-important (big ticket item/indicator of lack of control) and huff and puff all over the branch looking for envelopes at kiosk. NOT A ONE! I am now audibly snorting. A thing I despise in others. A CHASE rep asks me if she can help. "You bet you can," I say. And she says "Great, what can I help you with?" in a polite tone usually reserved for customer service phone reps from India: "Hi I am Susan (from Delhi) and I want to prowide you with excellent, if frustrating, service today." I have to first give her the whole snitty, boring to everyone including her, history of how I was happier at B 0f A and how I wished I had not switched. (I am sure that one just got her right there.) and then I went off about the no envelopes. She started to speak, but like a man who just got out of solitary, I was not done. I interrupted and went on about how much I hated all the tree death and waste to time because of all the envelopes and deposit slips I had to fill out. "But you no longer have to do that,"says she. "All you have to do is sign your check and deposit in the machine." If this is the case, I am certainly a horse's ass and certainly unemployable.

This is what I wanted all along. This news. Someone to hold my hand and say softly "You are okay and you don't need to prove yourself to me with a deposit slip. Even if your thing is small. Your deposit, I mean."

If only she could take me to her bosom for a good cry, but my pride/control were bruised and I just had to say thank you and take my tail off the floor and put it between my bare legs which were not covered in working clothes like everyone else in that swank branch.

When I got back to the door I had first entered I saw this:



So, when one lacks control and wants TO control, one is way OUT of control and needs to just go sit in a park and meditate.

I have this thing...

...which I call "T-shirt, Book, Dog." It is my thing about how people most often need license/entree to speak to each other. And by each other I mean two strangers. Ala two strangers on the streets of New York City.

If I am wearing a solid black t-shirt, holding or walking nothing, then if you come up to me and say something beyond "What time is it, please?" or "Do you know how to get to Coney Island?" I will think you are scamming me and want nothing to do with you. The same goes when I walk up to someone in solid colors whose hands are empty and ask "How did you feel when "Dynasty" was on the air and you were engrossed in it, but had to go off to college?" They would rightfully think I was a freak. (Regardless, no doubt. Okay, not a good example.)

But if you are walking a beagle or have a t-shirt that reads "Green Bay, Wisconsin" or are reading "Kavalier & Clay" then I can approach you with ease as long as I ask something that pertains to Wisconsin, beagle or Clay and not "Dynasty and college." Get it? Simple.

Today I was crossing the street to Zabar's and this man was wearing an "SF Giants" cap - my home baseball team. I was not entirely pushed to speak to him, but it was the combo of this and the fact that a UPS truck was blocking our signal and the fourth thing besides "T-shirt, Book, Dog" that allows us to speak to strangers is "Shared Tragedy" such a torrential rain that we are both caught in, down subway, or blocked traffic light.

So me and Giants fan got to talking. He used to live in Tiburon (swanky!) and now lives in Miami Beach, but "met some chick who owns a brownstone so I am up here half the time." Keep in mind this whole exchange happened crossing Broadway. His son lives in San Rafael. After I told him I moved from San Francisco to LA he told me his daughter lives in Newport Beach. We were both members of the Olympic Club in San Francisco. I told him I was just home for a visit and said how much I liked getting away from the humidity. He told me "all you have to do is take your boat out to the Bahamas with a fishing pole and you are all set." Okay so many he was a bit of a blowhard, and it was a hat and not a t-shirt, but without the traffic light issue and his Giants cap we would have remained total strangers with so much in common.

Not a great example I realize, but when I meet the one because I was reading "Brideshead Revisited" while wearing my "J Church" t-shirt I will get back to you about how important LICENSE and using it is!

Newark to Lanark. Not really, but best title I can muster.

After very little sleep from last night (or this morning - 5am!)'s festivities at OG, I got up and had a day. In the early evening I took a subway, train and shuttle out to Newark Airport in a whole different state in the union (!!!) to see my friend Scott off to Belfast where he starts his journey with the Australian Highlanders Pipe Band who are headed to the World Bagpipe Band Championships in Glasgow, Scotland the following weekend. He is once again treading the boards (field?) in Grade One competition which is the top of the heap class. I wish him and the band loads of luck and decent weather. (har, har)

Scott is one of my best pals and we have known each other forever. This is old sweater division. He is one of my soulmates I have to say for certain and just hanging in an airport talking music theory and life and stuff has to be a great way to have a Sunday evening.

I wish for the sake of blogginess I had thought to take a photo of him on his way (he would have hated it no doubt, but I am not about being loved here, it is my responsibility to convey the story no matter what.).

So I guess I will rip off a photo of the band instead.