Smoke and Gaslight

The Art of Dancing Alone

2012-02-12T18:41:00.000-08:00

Walk, skip or glide to your own rhythm that only you can here.

Use all images and sounds that continuously weave in and out of focus to provide a pause in the one-two-three-step of life..

Turn your shadow into your best dance partner, it either stays behind you, in front of you or beside you..but it never leaves you.

You have the tune, you just have to find the right words to go with the melody.

This is the art of dancing alone.

Spontaneity

2012-01-14T18:22:00.000-08:00

From a friend..

" I always keep my passport in my bag..you never know when you just might need to get away. Just for a few days...from a Thursday to a Tuesday or something... Maybe one Thursday you may find yourself riding to JFK or Newark and looking for the long term parking."

" Just grab a toothbrush, take your credit card and some money and whatever else you need you can get over there."

Nice.

new year, new beginning

2012-01-01T08:41:00.000-08:00

Repost from last year, with slight modifications. As progress is always in constant motion..

Here's to closing out a year of pitfalls and mishaps and unexpected joys and surprises.

To pushing oneself to the limit and realizing that sometimes your best isn't always good enough.

To discovering new and amazing people, sometimes buried within your own heart,

here's to finding multiple ways to irritate government officials in new jersey who are use to shoveling out bullshit in the hopes you will go away ( they didn't learn the lesson..I'm the penny that keeps turning up)

apply line above to those individuals in new york city, it sucks for them cause I live here.

here's to learning to be still and silent and listen...sometimes too much. You may not like what you hear but it's better than standing at the bottom of the hill with the snowball gaining momentum. I'm the loony one pushing it back up the slope, battered and bruised in the process.

Here's to discovering in surprising, humbling and sometimes frightening ways that you are on the right path though it may be twisted and unclear.

Here's to doing it all over again.

Hope everyone gets everything they want in the New Year. Good health, a chocolate bar or mega millions.

I'd settle for my book to ( finally) be done and an oatmeal cookie. Hope to have both :)

hidden treasures

2011-12-30T19:01:00.000-08:00

Broke in one ( of two) new pair of sneakers to kick start the new year today. Started out near Battery Park and walked all the way through Harlem Valley. On the way home, I actually had a destination this time.

I had come to a compromise with my bookcase. If I rearranged the books it already held, it would make room for the several rare and out of print books I had on my list of buy them for myself presents. Bookcase originally balked, but then obliged. So on my way home I stopped at the rare bookstore. An elongated, narrow space with books going to the ceiling, on the floor, and on the stairs leading to the second level. The two I had spotted a few weeks ago, I knew were mine. The other is being shipped from a used bookstore far, far away.

This one was hiding on the steps, left in the same spot I had found it, I told the shopkeeper that there were a few I was looking for. He looked down at the book a puzzled expression on his face.

" You weren't looking for this one were you?"

I nodded in the affirmative. He shrugged his shoulders and put it in a bag as I bounced out the door. This was the reason why I wanted it:

When I first saw it, all I noticed was the date inscribed on the front page. I'm a sucker for dates like this. When I got home I realized it was inscribed by the author himself the year it was published in 1918. The recipient left a 90 year old newspaper clipping neatly folded on page 25 including an article about the author. Sixty five years later someone inscribed it to the descendant of the subject of the book on the cover. And then almost 29 years later it came home with me.

tis the season..

2011-12-22T18:39:00.000-08:00

It came as an unexpected surprise from the friend whose home I hope to have one day...books overflowing on shelves, the floor and the spiral staircase that leads to depths unknown near 9th avenue. I have books overflowing but only in strategically placed corners..

She knew that in a time of festivity and joy I would be seeking quiet and center balance in the midst of the chaos. So she sent me this. Inscribed on the card:

Happy Holidays and Everyday!

A destination
A refuge
A masterpiece
A joy
A tradition

Unwinding

2011-12-18T05:59:00.000-08:00

The first thing my computer said after I hit the power button was "Where have you been?"

Well, not really but that is what it felt like as for the past six to eight weeks it had mostly been OFF as I didn't have the mental energy to sit down and do anything with craziness swirling from daily life..and I hated it.

When you can't stop at your usual port for repairs the gears start to wind up and get knotted.

Every time I tried to find a balance, the swing would go in the opposite direction.

Now the knots are unwinding. Screen goes on, research subject is happy, and oh boy so am I.

My sneakers were happy too ( and incidentally will need to be replaced soon). Walked over familiar haunts, seeing things as if for the first time, retracing steps over and over, not caring how long it would take, as long as it got me back to the clarity that I need in order to function.

Walked from Harlem to Chinatown and looped back around again. Faded ghost signs, architecture, sunlight that lasted longer than snippets gleaned in the morning, urban silence..

Welcome home..

..now back to the antics of that cranky ghost in the fedora...

1847 says hello to 2011

2011-11-15T17:41:00.000-08:00

In the midst of sheer exhaustion, I managed after several phone calls, to find myself on a train bouncing to a great uncles house in the middle of dense trees, and lots of grass that wasn't apart of Central Park.

In the midst of catching up face to face with my other 90 year old great-uncle, a large cloth was pulled from behind the couch and unwrapped until I found myself staring into a painted picture of grandparents five generations back that I had only heard about in fragmented conversations.

Another welcomed reminder in the chaos that appears to be my life these days that the past is always near by.

puzzlement and amusement

2011-10-17T18:00:00.000-07:00

"Excuse me miss, do you work here?"

"No."

A puzzled look...

"But, you've been coming here everyday for the past three weeks."

" Research"

Still puzzlement as if it couldn't be comprehended that someone could be that dedicated and engrossed in something.

Then out of the blue:

"You read alot of books don't you? You don't look like you own one of those electronic readers."

I smiled back..yes I own alot of books, my bookcase hates me for it.

Guess I'm that strange of a cookie. Could be worse...

sound of silence

2011-10-01T15:24:00.000-07:00

I had just concluded the week from hell and decided that the only way I would unwind from being a mouse on steroids would be by my favorite past time of walking. So under the Brooklyn Bridge I go, cut across Mott Street, sidestepping the shopping carts, displays of fish, fruits and bags, then Hester, then Orchard..looking for the Orchard Corset Shop, mainly to make sure it was still there. Forgot where it was, backtracked to the Manhattan Bridge, said fuck it, went back UP Orchard Street and passed the Tenement museum and clearly not caring how long it would take me to get home.

They crossed my path somewhere between Delancey and Houston. Didn't pay them any mind until I heard one of the men whistling. Then the other began singing in Hebrew with a shopping bag thrown over his shoulder like a knapsack. The woman remained silent and smiling with a bounce in her step.

I followed behind them, wondering how far they were going, but mostly because I wanted to hear the whistling and the Hebrew. Up First Avenue, past Third Street, Fifth, Ninth..past DeRobertis cafe, glance in at the tiled ceiling and desserts. They weave their way along Stuyvesant Town, before turning to disappear in a courtyard of that city unto itself. On the corner they turn and smile absentmindedly in my direction and I smile back.

And continue on my home, finally unwound.

Repost from My Private Coney

2011-09-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Welcome To His New York. Got Kidney?

This is Juan.

And he needs a kidney.

He's New York Mitchell Lama houses on 95th and Amsterdam. When he was growing up there, you still could see New Jersey from Amsterdam. Never lived anywhere else but New York (and you can't count those 8 months in Kansas City). His high school job was opening-the- doors-closing-the-doors at the Planetarium. TWA flight attendants, then glamorous heroes of the sky, in full length fur coats taught him the difference between a silly drink of vodka and orange juice and the sophistication of a kir royale. Christmas finery in those days was skinny jeans and a shirt unbuttoned down to there. Well, after all it was the 70's.

Then Tom met him.

Tom is not from New York. He's from Missouri. He moved to New York and went to a Buddhist gathering. Took one look at Juan and that was that. And that was 26 years ago. Tom is the only reason Juan lived in Kansas City for eight months.

I ask Juan, "What about you is New York?"

"I experienced everything. We didn't grow up with money, but I experienced everything."

This is my friend, Juan. And what I want him to experience is something he hasn't before - a new kidney.

So if you are B+ or maybe even O or O+ or 0- and you got a kidney, my friend needs your help.

And if you are not any of those things, would you help and pass this post forward? Post it to your blog, post it to your facebook, send it out with your pigeons, let your friends know.

Spread the word. And welcome to His New York.

photos for an overworked brain to submerge in..

2011-09-16T21:56:00.000-07:00

Confectory Store-1924

Bike Store-1912

Woolworth Building at Night-1913

all from Shorpy

thoughts on a rainy day

2011-08-28T11:39:00.000-07:00

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

-Nietzsche

34 going on 110

2011-08-07T15:59:00.000-07:00

I'm a good pretzeler = I'm a good German ( in his slang)

It seems like only yesterday ( which it was.. literally and figuratively) that two German-Jewish immigrants in their Yorkville tenement apartment welcomed a cute little baby boy named Arthur. Of course, little Arthur was the apple of his mother's eye...could do no wrong. Except the usual slip ups like robbery, homicide with a gun, grand larceny, beer baron, and policy king to name a few of his achievements by the time he reached his final birthday at the age of 34. You may not recognize the name Arthur Flegenheimer, but you would recognize his adopted moniker of Dutch Schultz.

He has also been the cause of excitement, writer's block, bottles of aspirin within easy reach and ridiculous wild goose chases through archives and police stations ( see some of my posts from early last year) as I work on a biography on the man. Pat Downey, a swell fella and awesome crime historian gave me the honor of doing a guest blog for The Dutchman's birthday which you can read here.

Happy Birthday Dutch!

going back in time to move forward..

2011-07-31T15:11:00.000-07:00

Schifft's Pier, Fralingers, White House Subs, Ocean One mall with the Arcade and Atlantic bookstore on the top floor. Those forbidden dens of brightly lit machines that only adults could go into, the plush carpets and chandeliers that I proudly told my father I wanted in my own house when I grew up...

My first real vacation, the only noise I heard were the hysterical laughter of seagulls, the crashes of waves. Pausing at the ramp right next to Fralingers, a powerful memory of my father parking the car at the end of the street, me and my cousins running up the boards with buckets, blankets and an umbrella, with a cooler packed with sandwiches made by my grandmother. Ham and cheese on white bread, and a handful of salt water taffy from Fralingers, it's red awning right on the corner.

White House, best subs in town since 1946, nothing has changed, same orange colored walls, same men behind the counter albeit much older. Now I can look over the counter and see them as they prepare the order but remember the excitement of Italian rolls disappearing from sight to be placed in large bags filled with yummy food.

Ocean One mall is no more, it's skeleton remains now filled with shops outside my budget. The length of an ocean liner extended into the ocean the decks are still there. Walking along the beach I get slammed by waves, welcoming me back and punishing me for being away for so long. stress, worry and fear and doubt get swept away with each tide.

Time it was, and what a time it was, it was...

A time of innocence, a time of confidences.

Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph,

Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you.

-Bookends Theme

tale of two Luckys

2011-07-19T18:33:00.000-07:00

this is Lucky, or Tiny Tim..I like the first name better. He was found in a driveway, probably the runt of the litter as his mother was nowhere in sight and he still had the afterbirth on him when a dog performing the role of surrogate mother began cleaning him off. To the man who rescued him and gave him a home with ten other brothers and sisters he thought he was a tennis ball.

Now he's a curious 5 week old rascal who posed for the camera when my friend took his picture in between feeding him. She got it right, I got it wrong as he became a wee bit agitated when the milk wasn't coming out of the bottle.

this my Lucky...well not really mine, but I found him and I didn't want to keep calling him baby bird. On a hot Sunday, quite a few blocks from home, lost in my own thoughts, something moving near the curb caught my eye. This baby had fallen out of its nest, breaking its leg and was using all of its energy to push up against the curb, and almost into traffic. I could tell by its labored breathing that it was taking everything out of it.

I didn't want to leave it, but didn't know what to do. The city hot line told me there was an animal hospital on the opposite side of town from where I was that could take it, provided I put it in a box. So in 90 degree weather I rushed home and grabbed gloves, a washcloth and the perfectly sized Panasonic battery box from the bodega owner on the corner. Reaching back to the bird he had surprisingly pushed himself even further down the street. I learned later that it was a baby robin which explained why it wobbled hurriedly towards me with its mouth open when I crouched in the street as my tank top was the color of an adult robin's chest.

Cross town to the hospital, only to be told that there were no vets on staff, that I could take him the next morning to the wildlife rehabilitator all the way back cross town, as they were closed.

"You gotta keep him for the night, if you leave him here he will die."

"What am I supposed to do with him?" a perplexed me countered as my new lodger banged in his box. Food ( which didn't work) and keep him safe.

Back in my apartment I whistle for Lucky to eat ( he chirps back but refuses to open his mouth for any other purpose) I look up that baby robins eat between sunrise and sunset so I rationalize in my head that he simply missed his last meal. In the cool darkness of my bedroom I sit his box on the floor and then proceed to wake up every hour to check that he is still alive.

"Please don't die." His wings moving up and down show me that he is alright...

Then promptly at 5:15 just when I begin to fall asleep, little Lucky starts chirping up a storm, despite my gratitude that he's alive and my pleas for him to be quiet for at least another hour and then I would take him to a nice place where he could eat real food and get his leg fixed. He obliges by turning into a snooze alarm and chirping every 5 minutes.

Bus ride downtown, a moment of panic in the box when an ambulance rolls by but then quietness when the nice wildlife people take him in.

He's doing much better now...and eating.

well needed laughter

2011-07-05T17:26:00.000-07:00

I found myself the other day crouched on the floor of a bookstore and was engrossed in a book that advertised itself as therapy for writers or something of the sort. Writer is a word that I find hard to identify with at times even after well appreciated critiques of this project that I am engrossed in. There are many others I am in awe of who I think carry that mantle very well.

But there were many things in this little therapy session I could identify with ( silly me, thinking it was all in my head). This one had me rolling in unexpected laughter that was very much needed at the moment:

Writer's Block: When your imaginary friends won't talk to you.-Unknown

:)

Second Hand Rose

2011-07-03T16:55:00.000-07:00

been in my head all weekend...thought I would share so it can be stuck in yours too. :) from 1921

A Lakota Prayer

2011-07-01T11:52:00.000-07:00

When I am lonesome
I look up to the clouds
For they tell me of how
They come and go.

When I am confused
I listen to the wind
For it tells me
What is best for me.

When I am mad I
Listen to the waters flow
It helps clear my mind.

An evening unlocking myself

2011-06-20T17:10:00.000-07:00

I'm used to waddling in the muddy waters of time concerning others, so it was a rare treat having it done to me...

A quick train ride into the country, the mouth of the Hudson opening wider and wider. A car ride to a 100 year old house with the cousin who fled my home city forty three years before, whom I didn't meet till I came running in her footsteps.

Dusty boxes and plastic containers full of pictures of people I heard of but never met to be sent in pieces to the cousin in Virigina to scan so that others can have them too.

" If he doesn't send these back, I'm going after him."

she says over her glasses.

She labels, and I type and listen to stories weaved in between..

"Papi always dressed like a professor no matter what he worked at, and no one could eat till he came home for dinner.. which included salad which in those days meant a slice of tomato, iceberg lettuce and mayo".

"grandma came from Ireland, I always wanted to go over but never did. She was a nurse, ironic that the same hospital she met her husband, her son would be nursed back to health by his ex-wife's new husband, Uncle Kei some forty years later."

the great-great grandmother whose story I only heard in pieces growing up..

"she fled up to Maryland....he was stabbed, as you know interracial marriage wasn't exactly accepted back then. No one was allowed to ask where she came from or how she met him.."

"....funny how families carry learned behaviors and cultures..atleast you and I stop the pattern in its tracks"

thirty six years apart, but strikingly the same, guess some patterns don't change...

people constantly running, the white woman who ran north only to have three out of four grandsons and one grand daughter head back to place she didn't want to be. And her great-great grandchildren wandering all over...

after a day of unlocking ourselves and worn out, a spur of the moment drive to the next town over for food...

then finally heading home, possessing equal questions and answers, and more mystery in those boxes.

wrap your troubles in dreams

2011-06-03T18:41:00.000-07:00

It's rare that I have a dream that I can fully remember in the morning and when they do happen they usually leave me rattled. The one this morning ( at least I am guessing that it is when it happened as I woke up near 4am) was a mix of me being a kid sitting in a passenger seat of a car, trying to peer out the window and glancing at who was at the steering wheel.

Each time I turned back the driver switched from being my father, my mother and other family members.

Then I was a grownup, except the dashboard of the car went back about oh 80 years and I was wearing items that someone today would pay a ridiculous amount of money to own or replicate. And the words and images gleaned from within 50 plus microfiche cards ( containing over 25 pages of photostatic images mind you) came back and I got out of the car only to have that broken nosed ghost in a fedora to be walking toward me with a smile on his face. Stops in front of me and smiles patiently at me. At that point I woke up.

The rest of my day proceeded to be a whirlwind of hell, as if I was in a teacup at an amusement park and couldn't get off.

The point I realized was that I had and have become too stretched, worn out and jumping around like a mouse on steroids for everything and everyone except those things that have a higher level of importance for me. Those things that bring me joy.

Time to put the car in reverse and go back in the other direction, and boy am I looking forward to it.

quiet refuge in chaos

2011-05-24T17:56:00.000-07:00

an actual smile as a greeting from the archivist.

"You are my favorite customer cause you always know what you're looking for. Oh you are one of us, you don't need my help." Gestures with his hand toward the twisting walkways in between miles of files.

Passage through semi dark hallways, glimpses of dusty books I'd like to go through another time.

Till I reach these..rows of them. And in the semi darkness in the midst of a chaotic week I get to pour over approximately 50 micro reels and counting on an old machine containing information on two people.

Yes, this is my quiet time.

bonding over poison

2011-05-07T21:02:00.000-07:00

The space a looong time ago use to be a bank, one of the first owned and operated by African Americans in New York. Knew of its existence but not its location until two years ago when checks over 75 years old turned up in boxes while I was researching my moody research subject. I live right above it.

Its recent reincarnation has been a pain in the ass, a fish market. I don't care for fish, particularly when it is steamed and comes into my apartment. That problem was fixed, me being the neurotic that I am, but then I come home today to my alarm screaming CARBON MONOXIDE! EXIT! EXIT!

After about three rounds of this I knew the battery wasn't dead so I opened the window more and called that wonderful information line on what to do next as there's one thing going through a test run and then the real mccoy..

well, that led to a parade of firemen coming into my home, looking very cute in their uniforms and managing to compliment me on my home as they went about their work, then me calling neighbors as then several other alarms went off like chimes. Then Con Edison men coming into my home and complimenting my space, and finally sitting outside till 11pm at night as said firemen and the con edison people worked on finding the problem in the wonderful arena of Mr. Limpet. A steamer that's bad, can't be used again until it is replaced. Thank God.

Sat outside with my other neighbors, some sharing their dinner with me and the older ones telling me everything that space was in between being a bank that was a symbol of pride in the neighborhood to being a pain in the ass not only for me but the other apartments directly and indirectly above it.

Hopefully this will be the last of the problems from that store, though I wouldn't mind a pair of Dorothy's red slippers, not to go home but to turn that space back into the symbol of pride that it once was.

where I would rather be right now...

2011-05-04T09:58:00.000-07:00

then waiting for a repair man/woman to show up....

Times Square- 1911-looks more fun in this picture

Coney Island-1903

A drug store-1910

All photos from Shorpy

Pulaskitown

2011-04-16T19:57:00.000-07:00

over 100 plus years of memories...

stairs that creaked and whined over 20 years ago, and 40 years before that, still creak and whine.

Banisters with knobs as big as a bowling ball.

Original floors worn from all the children that skidded across them bounding for the street or the backyard.

Kitchen still the same, a little more modern with kitchen table in the same spot it would be on those summer evenings when my father and his cousins would play cards or backgammon or checkers and me and the younger ones bounded up the street for the park, or the yard, or the other cousin's house down the street.

Walls absorbing an equal mix of joy and sadness.

This was and is "Pulaskitown", as my great uncle recently said at his 90th birthday. Pulaski Avenue was the anchor for where his family and my family grew up.

and for me as a kid this house was at the center of it. And for my family, it still is. During a short weekend years of separation disappeared, absorbed in its walls. Replaced with fond memories, old and new.

newspaper clipping

2011-03-31T20:13:00.000-07:00

caught my eye on a ride to work..

"...I think just understanding what the whole city is about. New York, a lot of people wouldn't be able to deal with this. It takes a special type of person, a humble person but a real straightforward person to actually embrace a city like this. And for a city like this to embrace you, that means a lot."

calm along the Hudson

2011-03-27T06:33:00.001-07:00

One of the great benefits of moving to here is connecting with family I never knew...or to rephrase it, they knew me, but I never knew them. Only their names. A cousin who is 15 years older than my father came to New York in the 60's and never came back. From dialogue that I would hear as me and cousins my own age would run around my great aunt's house, she was clearly the bohemian type. I was in awe of her by the words and snippets of conversation I would hear.

So as I packed suitcases all those years ago, my father gave me her name and phone number as family to reach out to. After dragging those suitcases up and down streets parallel to Riverside Drive I called. We arranged to meet one Saturday afternoon and I had a brief moment of fear that I wouldn't recognize her. The only picture I had seen of her was circa 1972. But that was quickly put to rest as she was the spittin image of my grandmother. Her soul very calm despite the chaos around us.

Fast forward years later, to today and I have met her husband, her first husband, and her son whom I met for the first time last summer. Who is only five years older than me, has a restless spirit like his mother and lives less than 20 blocks away from me. I got an invite to lunch at the house ( where the second husband grew up) along the Hudson and me and the class weary cousin drove up, asking each other questions to get to know each other better.

Rustic trimmed house, bright white walls and lots of sunlight with the Hudson gleaming down the road. The family I did know from back home ( her sisters and 82 year old mother) were there and it was a mini family reunion. Witty dialogue and old recipes sprung out from my great aunt. I always remembered her growing up, saying bits of wisdom back then.

Before she left to go home she grabbed my arm and smiled and whispered

" You're only as old as you feel. Live life, make friends and you will be happy. That's what I do. I don't waste my time worrying about what others do. It's not for me to judge, only God can do that...I can see in your face you are the same way."

I smiled and nodded yes.

"Ooh it was great to see you! Wait till I tell your grandmother I saw you!"

Me and my cousin waved goodbye, helped with the dishes and drove home. Grateful for the small break from the hustle and promising to stay more in touch. And meant it.

thought for the week

2011-03-14T17:05:00.000-07:00

Face life as you find it-defiantly and unafraid.
Waste no energy on yearning for the moon.

-Nietzche
Thoughts out of Season

memory lane

2011-02-27T18:19:00.000-08:00

A new set of kicks ( one of two) a new set of adventures.

After suffering through a library induced headache, I headed south for coffee and food, suddenly stumbled across this, a place I hadn't been to in a long time,,,

through the eyes of that second story window I got my first preview of my new home. Sounds of trucks rumbling up and down the avenue at all hours. I was excited at being invited back to this city twice in one week due to an interview ( I got picked! yay!) and a friend was renting a sublet at this address. Never heard of a sublet, let alone been in one at that time. My old hometown is filled primarily with single family homes, or duplexes. If apartments existed they were camouflaged behind screen porches and front yards, mostly of the asphalt variety. If you actually got grass you guarded it.

the halls were just as dark as the vestibule. Sickly yellow and brown hallways, white florescent light in the hall and my other first encounter as an immigrant in a new world: A shared bathroom in the hall with the other tenants on the floor, with a shower head facing me directly in the face, verses planted on the wall to your left or your right. Those shower heads provided dark comedy in another sublet ( one I moved into after I knew what the word meant and before I was lucky enough to get my own space) when my slightly off her rocker roommate forgot to put the liner in the tub and the power of the water pressure leaked through the tiles to the chandelier in the lobby and set it on fire.

She didn't know what happened until the super came up with a firefighter. I didn't know until I came home from walking around my new home and saw the water marks on the lobby floor and soaked tiles in the bathroom. At any rate this bathroom was dark too, bulbs deciding they didn't want to work anymore. A cold water flat in another era.

I darted out of that vestibule to interviews, the Empire State building looming up ahead and me being stupid enough to wear heels four avenues and six streets over ( I quickly learned my lesson). I got the job and the rewarding sound of that noise in a different neighborhood.

The buiding appears to be empty now, black bags cover all the windows. Probably destined to be turned into something else.

on the way back home from coffee and food, I came across this. fitting for that other memory I am trying to reconstruct piece by piece as best I can.

wish for a moment

2011-02-16T18:35:00.000-08:00

I want to go down to the open sea, I'll search for a sunlit strand.
Where clean scented winds blow cool and free, o'er glittering swirling sand.

I want to go out on the sparkling shore, where frolicsome wavelets play.
I'm yearning to feel on my cheek once more, the kiss of the ardent spray.

There's longing down deep in the heart of me, to look on the sun-shot foam.
I want to go down to the open sea, and then I'll come right back home.

from Wanderlust, Dorothy Parker

mental images heard and seen...

2011-02-11T17:59:00.000-08:00

heard....

An older woman sits on chair outside her apartment on the Grand Concourse. A large pitbull sits next to her staring in the opposite direction. Neighbor comes out and says hello.

" When did you get a dog? Is that your dog?"

"Mine? Oh no, he belongs to the store. You thought he was mine? Lord, he's bigger than my whole apartment!"

Two men exiting a bank.

First one: " Did you hear about Joel? He was dead broke, played a dollar and got almost a hundred grand!"

" So what? That ain't helping me."

Seen:

Sign on the side of an apartment complex from over 70 years ago advertising for "Available Apartments" "Inquire within" or call the owner at Jerome-7119.

would love to know what those went for....

the original and the knock off

2011-01-30T18:48:00.000-08:00

natural light in Grand Central-1941

What used to be lit by nature is captured glaringly by a movie prop floodlight that can never replicate the original...

artificial capture on a Sunday afternoon

all roads lead home

2011-01-17T17:44:00.000-08:00

left the house pretty early with one goal in mind, hadn't gone for a walk like this in awhile and I needed it. Grabbed a cup of coffee at the corner bodega, made my way down the central artery that cuts through Harlem valley. looped around the large green space in the middle, cut across millionaire's row, minks and uggs galore, pharmacies and florist shops since the 1890's.

Passed the luxury shops wondering how they can afford to stay open with no traffic going in. Light a candle for the lost souls in the church where F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald got married. Beads, threading, hats and purses. move on...

Passed what once was Tammany Hall, the sight of Luchow's and realize I'm hungry. Thought I could hold out till Veselka's for soup but got enticed by the hole in the wall selling dumplings and corn soup. Get distracted by the meat shop on Second Avenue and gaze at the sausages, blitzes and lamb chops the size of a football and have fantasies of being able to cook all of that. Russian filters in and out of my ears as I go up and down the display cases...mental note to come back but only to buy something I will realistically cook and eat.

Almost there...pass houston, delancey, grand..can see a partial view of the Manhattan bridge. Pass the cup and saucer lucheonette which looks more like one those old timey places for people on the run as I didn't see any seats, just counter space.

I made it!

then conversations of reform and orthodox, uptown and downtown, mentally making a note of what I need to change in that one chapter, unexpected company from a woman whose grandmother was a Ratner and the lady I was partnered with filling my head with 124 years of history I will have to remember at some point.

" Well you found you're right place, everyone has their own way for telling the story." It's alot to remember but think I can handle it,

As dusk sets, I get ready for the return trip cutting through another swath of my home. I survived. but the sneakers finally gave out. oh well, time for another pair.

"you must retreat in order to advance"

2011-01-13T19:06:00.000-08:00

So I am retreating...back to when women knew how to really dress it up....

Fox Furs-1910

to when you could be reminded of how small you were in the world

Banker's Row-Pittsburgh-1915

to when you had more choices to wet your imagination....

Zine Shop-1940

-images from Shorpy

lesson from the pond

2011-01-03T18:56:00.000-08:00

keep your head above water, paddle even if you can't swim that well and eventually the barrier will slowly eb away.

out with the old and in with the new

2010-12-30T20:11:00.000-08:00

look for the silver lining

when er a cloud appears in the blue

remember somewhere the sun is shining

and so the right thing, to do is make is shine for you.

A heart full of joy and gladness

will always banish sadness and strife

so always look for the silver lining

and try to find the sunny side of life.

Here's to closing out a year of pitfalls and mishaps and unexpected joys and surprises.

To pushing oneself to the limit and realizing that sometimes your best isn't always good enough

here's to discovering new and amazing people, sometimes buried within your own heart,

here's to finding multiple ways to irritate government officials in new jersey who are use to shoveling out bullshit in the hopes you will go away ( look forward to seeing ya next year too!)

apply line above to those individuals in new york city, it sucks for them cause I live here.

here's to learning to be still and silent and listen...sometimes too much. You may not like what you hear but it's better than standing at the bottom of the hill with the snowball gaining momentum. I'm the loony one pushing it back up the slope, battered and bruised in the process.

Here's to discovering in surprising, humbling and sometimes frightening ways that you are on the right path though it may be twisted and unclear.

Here's to doing it all over again.

Hope everyone gets everything they want in the New Year. Good health, a chocolate bar or mega millions.

I'd settle for my book to be done and an oatmeal cookie. Hope to have both :)

Merle

2010-12-22T19:51:00.001-08:00

She always bounces into a room and greets everyone in sight. I've known her since I first came here, she was one of the first people to come up to me when I ventured into a place I did not know looking to connect with someone.

This past weekend over pizza and salad I got to listen to her talk more than usual.

" When did you first come here?"

" 1962...in a snowstorm, it was one of the worst snowstorms in awhile."

" I met this nice spanish dancer in Toronto who said that if I ever came to New York I could stay with her. So when I arrived, I got in the cab and gave the driver the address. He turned and looked at me and said 'Are you sure you want to go there?' I said yes, my friend lives there."

" So we are driving up through East Harlem and he says again 'Are you sure this where you want to go?' I told him yes and that started it."

" I met my husband at a party, a little later on he said 'Do you want to move in together?' And I said ' You mean get married?'. He replied 'Ah, sure why not?"

You can read more about Merle here. She is quite an amazing lady.

the ghost will be happy..

2010-12-18T17:07:00.001-08:00

It's been a couple of weeks of writing in notebooks and taking a much needed break. ( which I did enjoy, the former and the latter) That changed today when a dear friend said she had the program I needed to make my new electronic "typewriter" type. So besides the excitement of being able to open stuff not asking for a 25 digit cryptic code is the possibility of dragging this typewriter to my second home on 42nd street, sitting under that ornate ceiling and spread out with as many research books as I want.

And this will most likely be the only place I take this thing to.

Cost of a laptop that I get to figure out day by day: no comment

Cost of Office software: indebtedness to a friend

Opportunity to sit in the Rose Reading Room of the library till at least 9pm during the week in silence and write: priceless!

turning inward

2010-12-09T04:42:00.001-08:00

Be Still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they try to speak your name.
Listen to the living walls.

Who are you?, Who are you?
Who (be quiet)
are you(as these stones are quiet.)
Do not think of what you are still less of what you may one day be.

Rather be what you are (but who?)
be the unthinkable one you do not know.
O be still, while you are still alive, and all things live around you speaking ( I do not hear)
in your own being, speaking by the unknown that is in you and in themselves.

-Thomas Merton

forced stop on the side of the road

2010-12-02T18:49:00.000-08:00

It's one thing when you procrastinate from working on something because you get distracted by life or just don't feel like sitting and squeezing every last morsel out of one's brain. It's quite another when the very instrument you use to write something on puts up a road block...though I guess in a twisted way that is a distraction by life also. Old computer gave signs that it was going to go to electronic heaven soon so there wasn't much I could do besides be paranoid until I was able to save everything and meanwhile write everything down on one of the gazillion tablets I have lying around as an alternative.

Then a very generous gift from a family member gave me my new computer which for me is learning how to use something that speaks a foreign language. And once that final program known as Word can be installed I can go back to writers block, breakthrough, frustration, writers block, breakthrough and frustration. Actually looking forward to it.

In the meantime I got to go back to wild goose chases and special surprises along the way which has been a nice alternative in the daily chaos of life.

cross tongues over dinner

2010-11-27T19:32:00.000-08:00

a much needed escape from the dark cloud generated by others that persisted over the turkey on the table yielded small clues to my state of mind...

dinner with a friend on an eerily quiet street in a city that for the most part is eerily quiet.

Me: " I found out that the rabbi who helped my grandfather just died in 2001 and he and his family lived in Brooklyn. I don't know if his wife is still alive but I thought about reaching out if I could."

Friend: " That's amazing!"

Me: "I don't think the synagogue he went to is here anymore. It says it is now a conservative congregation in Virginia, back then it was located on... on the Upper East Side...er, I mean the northeast."

Friend starts laughing and observes amusingly that I am no longer apart of this city.

" How did you get here?" she asks as we begin to walk.

Me: " I took the subway."

Friend laughs again, " you took the subway from New York to here?"

" I meant the train. I guess you can see where my head is right now."

We walk down a quiet street lamplight illuminating small pieces of it. I don't remember things being this way but then again I was never allowed to walk out at night when I use to live here.

When we reach the main artery of the city, I look south towards the yellowish glow of the clock in city hall and recall a dream I had recently. I was standing in the middle of a traffic divider and the whole street was plunged in darkness except for that yellow clock. I couldn't run as I was wearing heels.

Part of me wanted to go into all those decrepit structures that line each side of that artery for blocks on end, details from an era long gone, and the other part wanted to run towards that clock. Cause on the other side of it was the train that would take me to the city that was my home.

take two a day with water

2010-11-23T17:28:00.000-08:00

taken on a cool fall day before the faucet got turned off for the harsh winter

Here's hoping that in the chaos of the next few days, my soul can be as calm as that reflection and not turn into Niagara falls. And that some of my scribblings and notes in a tattered book and photostatic images can keep me grounded.

Nocturne, New York

2010-11-19T21:26:00.000-08:00

The sky falls to the sea, The moon slips to the waning.
Dark flame piles the shore lights
Immerse in the sable river.
Luminous harps the ferries in tremolo string under water.

On either side, phantasmal, flung deep in the night mist,
The cities rest beneath shoals of stars
Low fallen from heaven.

H.G

-from the Almanac for New Yorkers, year 1938

generations apart

2010-11-07T19:03:00.001-08:00

one is mine, the other belonged to my great grandmother. Neither of them could resist the opportunity for a photo-op for the album I have in my heart.

visit to the ol' block

2010-11-06T17:54:00.000-07:00

bounced around the old neighborhood with a friend. Very happy ( and relieved) that not much has changed since I left as everything in this town seems to always be under the shadow of a nameless, faceless developer. Sure you had the occasional bar or boutique shop but they were oddities that blended in. Sidewalks still spilled with the stuff of people's lives from the past. An old cast iron teapot belonging to an Indian family, an old handle dangling with iron keys, Hebrew letters carved into a plaque, glassware, food carts making fresh empanadas, gyros and anything else. multiple tongues spoken and screamed from every corner, the bakeries, shoe shops and restaurants.

I would have stayed in this neighborhood, except the roommate was a bit off her knocker ( for another post) and I didn't quite feel that I belonged, it wasn't my home I was living in someone else's space with only a suitcase full of clothes and whatever books I could carry with me. So I dragged everything over sixty blocks down to a place that became my own.

Pass a man selling book bags. My friend recognizes him as she has bought bags from him before.

"Evening Ladies, how are ya?"

"You're downtown sometimes aren't you?"

"Sure, why you seen me before?"

"Yeah. I bought a bag from you before."

"Yup, I take everything with me so I move all over. You can't shoot a moving target eh?" He smiles and winks.

We smile back and continue on.

evening musings

2010-11-03T19:08:00.000-07:00

We can only offer , that which we have to give. We can't make others accept it.

I can live with the idea that we are merely actors playing a part. But I do wish whoever is writing my script would learn to use a few more happy endings.

Many people complain life never gave them any chances. We are given Life. We must take the Chances.

-Javan

split ends

2010-11-02T18:21:00.000-07:00

people don't seem to comprehend the term simple anymore.

Trusty computer gives a slight warning sign that it will be time soon for me to let it go to electronic heaven. I hate shopping and I hate shopping for an expensive workhorse not exactly in my budget. get complexed looks from sales people when I tell them I ain't interested in something that can think for itself and dazzle me for hours on end as if I were a baby. I just need it to run. and save my book and pictures. That's it.

Find one and hears hoping trusty computer hangs on long enough for me to sell bootleg hooch to get it's replacement.

now I hear humming from another part of my house, so I gotta wait for somebody to come and look at that. I guess that is the upside to apartment living.

Then the cranky ghost decides to do a teaser and show two documents on a microfilm that doesn't run in sequence..nothing before or after.

I'm about to turn into the pyscho weasel from who framed roger rabbit.

dead men tell no tales...

2010-10-23T18:56:00.000-07:00

..they just speak in mind boggling riddles...

a boy has never wept...nor dashed a thousand kim.

mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.

I showed him boss, did you hear him meet me? An appointment, appeal stuck. All right mother.

French Canadian bean soup, I want to pay, let them leave me alone.

I know what I am doing here with my collection of papers for crying out loud. It isn't worth a nickel to two guys like you or me. but to a collector it is worth a fortune, it is priceless. I am going to turn it over to....

Seventy five years later, I'm trying to make sense of it all.

journey to the center of the earth.

2010-10-17T20:46:00.000-07:00

I left my city in a dark morning and I returned to it in a dark morning. In between that I encountered the following:

Day 1:

A bus ride, a train ride and then a car ride... then over a hundred miles of these....

A general store, a gun show, a museum dedicated to little league baseball, abandoned farms. Phone loses signal for most of the way and as service provider had warned service would be provided by another carrier, in this case a bunch of strange digits. and lots of ads on the road for these:

wanna deal on a 12-gauge shotgun???

couldn't drink the water as the filter system was down, given one bottle to use between two people and told if we needed more "we could go to the pharmacy down the street."

A news broadcast that played for over ten minutes phone calls of people who actually condoned the beating death of an immigrant saying things like "that's one less foreigner in the world and those boys just had a fight that got out of hand"

Travel Buddy: We really are in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Me: What time do you want to leave tomorrow?

TB: How bout near three? ( We left about an hour after this proposed time, still not bad)

Sleep with the dehumidifier on as a lullaby as the silence outside is too deafening.

Day 2:

Reason we are in the middle of bumble fuck goes beautifully, bride looks like a silver bell.

Then a five mile journey (up) through here:

To get to here:

Then back down the five mile path to a lovely dinner and dancing and just before me and travel buddy depart turn around to be gawked at by people in jeans, fur vests and shotguns.

Back through the rolling hills and mountains, racing against the sunlight ( almost like a reverse vampire), three cups of coffee in a row to be hot wired, bright eyed and bushy tailed, fight with relatives over the phone who are trying to get me to make a pit stop.

Me: I want to go home...thanks anyway...I already told you I am going home.

back to the train, rushing through the station that was the final leg of my journey, still bright eyed I get here:

Tip of the morning on Day 3:

Return to my city in the dark of morning, filled with a constant lullaby I recognize to go to sleep by.

the medicine for the day

2010-10-07T18:14:00.001-07:00

Wasn't feeling well, but there is only so long that I can stay in the house before getting cabin fever. Had enough strength to go somewhere familiar.

"Hello Mr. N"

" Oh hello!, you know what you're doing so you don't need my help." He says in his thick Russian accent and gestures to the back with a smile.

tabletops, shelves, floorspace and every corner filled with books, ledgers and boxes documenting over 100 plus years of history. All permanent, and a stroke of luck for me the originals as the state is too poor to document anything. Anger from the records keeper as no one seems to care.

Almost breaking my back to coax a cabinet to open it's drawers. This thing must be as old as some of the dusty ledgers around it. Been through it on three separate occasions and each time it refuses to open a different drawer.

Fingers black with dust as I gently sort through papers and for the second time this month I hear how unusual I am from the bespectacled man in the corner.

" You know, where I came from...history was destroyed on purpose, and here I go to work surrounded by it. People need to listen to what is in the documents as this is our future, not the technology that can rewrite history." He shakes his head and stares off in the distance for a minute. I try to keep the pages of ledger book from coming loose.

what I would prefer right now

2010-10-04T15:40:00.000-07:00

Times Square-1943

The rain I would like to see, verses what is outside my door.

Penn Station-1910

If I had to leave New York, I wouldn't mind passing through here...

Soda Fountain-1921

If I needed a mental break in the afternoon.

*all photos from Shorpy

a small treat

2010-09-27T18:49:00.000-07:00

After emptying my head on paper the night before I wanted coffee and hotcakes. Diner coffee to be more specific and set out to get some. My usual haunt was filled to the max ( a good thing!) but I couldn't take the noise level and wanted some place a little more quiet. Thus appeared the little hole in the wall with the old style letters on the awning.

I had to adjust my vision when I stepped over the threshold. Everything seemed to be tinted in a yellow glow. The light covers, the in scripted tiles on the walls, and the cases displaying an assortment of cakes. I had to look up at the white tin ceiling to adjust my eyes a bit. Conversations in English, Spanish and Greek floated around me and I floated to the counter and swiveled on the stool, happy to have my coffee and hotcakes.

"Everything is a good? How bouta now? More coffee?" The owner inquires with a toothy smile.

I smile back and watches as he fills my cup, banters with a waitress and relish the quietness of the moment before I go home to bang my head out some more.

slight sensation

2010-09-21T18:35:00.000-07:00

foreign language scripted in gold on the wall as I steal a moment to trace as many with my fingers standing on my toes. At one time I knew how to sound out those letters from the tattered paper that belonged to my grandfather, a paper in my hand that warranted looks of astonishment and disbelief from the Hasidim one morning on a packed A train to work and a few questions coming my way. I think it was my response of a "mixed marriage" that threw them off. I did get a wave and a tip of their hats out of it. I waved and smiled back.

Beautiful glass lamps, installed over 123 years before, use to be gas, made the transition to electric in 1907. The Edison bulbs still work, how's that for getting your monies worth. During a history lesson going on around me, I slip off a shoe and trace the worn grooves in the floorboards underneath my feet. Souls upon souls that offered up their hopes, dreams and fears and that wood absorbing every one of them.

baby steps for healing

2010-09-15T19:52:00.000-07:00

vent your frustrations out on a dead research subject...

go into one of the oldest hat stores in the city, get wide-eyed at the newsboys, fedoras, bowlers, you know real men hats, with staff who wear said real men hats and get an impromptu history lesson on said hats and try not to grin as you imagine a time when gangsters, card sharps and the like wore such hats...and oh yeah and grin at the original moldings on the walls, ceilings and display cases.

repeat step one and vent frustrations out on dead research subject.

talk to my grandmother who remembers riding on the trolley when she was around 16 and going to the Stetson store cause she wanted to buy her father a Stetson hat for his birthday.

"Of course, I couldn't as I didn't have his head with me and men got measured. So they gave me a mini fedora in a little box with his appointment time on a card to come in and be measured. Next time you go in there ask them about the mini hats!"

repeat step one and vent frustrations out on dead research subject.

wonders whose apartment she can haggle into on Sunday nights as I don't have cable and Boardwalk Empire starts on Sunday.

talk to my great uncle on the phone:

" Me and Aunt Marie just celebrated our wedding anniversary. Been together over forty three years...I told her you been with me all this time, no use looking for anything else now! You know, we have arguments, but at the end of the day we're still together and that's what matters. The arguments fade away"

repeat step one and vent now cooled off frustrations out on dead research subject...subject no longer liking being beaten to a pulp starts talking...feebly, but still talking.

End result=heart slowly healing.

Interior

2010-09-13T18:46:00.000-07:00

Her mind lives in a quiet room,
A narrow room and tall.
With pretty lamps to quench the gloom,
And mottoes on the wall.

There all the things are waxen neat,
And set in decorous lines.
And there are posies, round and sweet,
And little straightened vines.

Her mind lives tidily apart,
From cold and noise and pain.
And bolts the door against her heart,
Out wailing in the rain.

Dorothy Parker

blind spot

2010-09-11T17:51:00.000-07:00

I bought it in a store downtown while in a weird mood. I needed something to replace what use to be in the spot. Something given to me by someone close to me. Something I couldn't bear to look at anymore cause it didn't represent what it use to. For too long a time I ignored the signs that things were different cause I didn't have the energy to go down that road. So confusion and fear got tucked in a corner. And then little by little I brought the pieces out and although I didn't like it I began to reflect on them and they were all adding up to the same conclusion. Then there were the clever let-me-pretend-she-won't-see signs that I wasn't suppose to pick up on but I did.

And then came the spot on the wall. The physical reminder in my face. The replacement hit me full blast in what I tried to cover for so long. So now my home is empty of all reminders. Except for the one in my chest and though I don't feel pain it hurts like hell. I guess this is the closest thing I've come to in having a broken heart and I don't like it. I don't like it one fucking bit.

Too bad there isn't a replacement for that.

two opposite ends of the spectrum

2010-09-07T16:51:00.001-07:00

one street, sparse with people, a long iron chain fence on what was at one time a gas station and a decrepit tenement, at least it was when I was there before. Hanging vertically along the middle is a large hand painted poster, the blurry image of a man with a gun pointed at another. In middle blazing with red and white letters:

Don't shoot! I LOVE my life!!

another street, sparse with people, trees galore. A little girl sits at a table close to the ground, books scattered around her, all on the sidewalk. children's books. She smiles up as I walk by.

" Books are twenty five cents and lemonade and cookies are free with purchase!"

Mother asks her to speak up as I politely ask her opinion of the tattered paperbacks. I buy one and get two cookies while that poster is still in my mind.

tonic for the day

2010-09-05T05:18:00.000-07:00

The start of a long weekend and I wake up early, apparently no sleeping late for me. I sat in the chair wondering what or more likely where I should go. Someplace different, the small voice said. Someplace you haven't been to in awhile. I glanced at the clock and debated for 10 minutes whether I would have time to get dressed and head to the train station and go someplace different. The good voice won and being extra early I actually made it to the station in enough time to warrant not flying up the stairs with a minute to spare.

It was nice being on a train with hardly any people on it and actually silent. Something I really needed to be enveloped in. Not city silence, where you can always hear the slight hum of life going on somewhere but the kind of silence that only happens in those far off places in the country, or for me a forty minute train ride out. Trees that rolled on hills for miles and miles and long roads that seemed to go on forever in the distance. I could mentally unwind without the interruption of an outside force infringing on it. I sat on an actual hill by myself and thanked my lucky stars that I had ventured to this place that I hadn't been to in awhile.

The return trip that brought me back was quite different. Hundreds of people tired of silence, looking for noise and making lots of it too. I had no choice but to use static noise to drown them out. But before the headphones slipped in my ears I glanced at a girl who couldn't have been more than 14 years old having an argument with her dad and using phrases I never would have mumbled at that age:

It's only a two year contract, why can't I get one?? I need an upgrade. If you don't want the five dollar bundle then just cancel it. It's not fair! If anything happens and I'm in a place where my phone won't work...."

When I was her age my parents were yelling at me cause I would spend my allowance money on books, would wear shoes and jackets into the ground and refused to ask for new ones and if I needed to reach family in an emergency I either used a payphone or went to the school office to use a desk phone. And secretly wishing that I had the means to find my own silent space from everyone. The bus outside my mother's house was not an option and the alluring train station located downtown was off my radar except for the rare instance a family member came in by train.

I wouldn't discover that escape route for almost nine years later. And thank my lucky stars that I did.

a spoon full of sugar

2010-08-29T18:02:00.001-07:00

if my week goes as nuts as the last one I am barricading myself in here:

New York Public Library-circa 1910

and I'm not coming out till Friday. I would rather deal with the antics of The Dutchman, The Bug and Mad Dog.

Banana oil

2010-08-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

this is me after the most spastic week I've had in a long time. Thank god it's the weekend and I can detox and go back to mildly looking like a sane person....

guess I'm not the only one who was living in lala land, there's a man singing outside my window, off key without a care in the world and it's almost midnight.

sometimes...

2010-08-18T19:40:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I wish I could jump in the picture and follow those tracks to the end.

Elevated tracks along 8th Avenue, 1905

Sometimes I wish I could jump in the picture to see what it was like..

Fifth Avenue-Easter 1915

And sometimes, I want to jump in just because....

Place Unknown, 1941

*all photos from Shorpy

stopped me in my tracks

2010-08-12T20:13:00.000-07:00

running around the office like a cat chasing catnip, numbers to crunch thrown at me at all angles...

lunch time...dash down the stairs into the sauna better known as the subway to my second home that I haven't been to in awhile. Guards actually smile with a greeting " Where you been?"

" Hiding"

Sourly gatekeeper still there, wearing a wrist brace to go with his already somber ensemble of plaid shirts and thick glasses. Would have time to feel a nano second of sympathy but I'm too busy fighting with a broken microfiche machine and wondering if someone else sprained it on purpose. Clock ticks by.

Back to the office when I hear from the desk in the corner as I whizz by:

" You know, for a 29 year old woman you are very unusual...very unusual. But in a good way." A wide grin is on the source's face, a woman who does not shell out compliments on a regular basis.

"Thanks, I take that as a compliment."

"As you should!"

"I wouldn't want to be like everyone else."

details

2010-08-07T08:08:00.000-07:00

dark corners illuminated by hanging globes, wood carved into mythical beings. The tiles white and black, gilt edged mirrors align the walls.

conversations of people around me...

" I turned up the lights because of the food, it's not too bright eh?" he says in a heavy Gaelic drawl.

" no, no, not at all. I thought you were trying to wake us up."

" Ahh my dear, you're a bright star all by yourself!"

" So being that they taught me the wrong way, I had to learn to survive."

" I had a Larry David moment, I went into...on Fulton and I ask for a roast beef sandwich, sandwich is $5.00. It comes with lettuce and tomato. So I says, can you put it on the side? He says 'That'll cost you $2.00'. I says are you fuckin kiddin me??? on the sandwich is five bucks, you put it on the side and it's seven dollars?!"

" I says, who says? He says 'cause my boss said so'. So I'm arguing with the guy for over ten minutes."

Other colleague: " Here's what you do, you tell them to put the lettuce and tomato on top and the bread and mayo on the side!"

Everybody laughs and then throws their hands up at the screen for there sitting in a box at a baseball game is Larry David.

if you want the rainbow, you must have the rain.

2010-08-01T00:34:00.000-07:00

a picture I took of a building that caught my attention, as so many of them do.

Pounding the sidewalk as daylight turns to dusk. Seething anger released each time my feet hit the sidewalk. Angry at the lie and because I can see straight through it like shattered glass and because the source thinks they're clever and I wouldn't notice it. A bitter after taste in my mouth that seems to be permeating through my core. If you're going to lie do a better job of it.

Pounding leads me to a place that I've gone by, but never into. There is a happy ending though. Who knew that a tattered photo, broken bottles and blown out safes combined with a really shitty day could be the spark to make me fall in love with my written work again.

I guess creativity works in mysterious ways.

not the norm..

2010-07-25T20:31:00.000-07:00

Haven't been able to write as much as I would like ( here or elsewhere) which has been driving me up a wall. The job that I go to during the day has been a bit crazier than normal and I didn't have the energy to write anything at night. Add the heat, family drama from afar and my body finally taking charge and making me slow down by causing one of my muscles to go out of wack and you wind up with moi in the present.

But hopefully that will change soon. In the meantime taking advantage of the break for as they say absence makes the heart grow fonder.

The Nuisance

2010-07-17T07:17:00.000-07:00

The Past is dead

So let it be

A worn and tattered memory.

What's done is done

Let's not regret

Tis better far that we forget.

The past is queer

It will not stay

Buried in the yesterday

Instead it sneaks up

Softly sly

And pokes its finger in your eye.

-Latham Owens

escape route

2010-07-13T18:01:00.000-07:00

during a two week period when I only had one day off, I flew to the station in time to catch the train to the farthest point I was yet to travel from new york by myself.

I flopped in the seat, lucky to be near the window, seeing lakes and trees and calmness that I hadn't seen yet.

Stood at the edge of the river bank seeing the Hudson expand in ways that seemed to go on forever and a yearning desire to follow it.

think I need to go back.

question of the week

2010-07-11T13:59:00.001-07:00

Have you ever been stung by a dead bee?

better off abandoned

2010-07-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

It was abandoned like so many other structures here for decades. Neighborhood lore held that in the bad old days, rival gangs would stash the bodies of their victims in the flooded basement. Was only a legend but it added to its mystery. Built in the late 1800's, the wife of Charles Becker, the only police officer in New York City history to be sent to the electric chair, taught here circa 1900. It was the site of a massive turnout for an electoral vote, one of the first where all of Harlem could participate.

I've only found one picture of it from back then, a grainy black and white photo, showing youths in jaunty caps and filling the entire courtyard, recognizable to me by the high arched windows that frame each side and the two buildings down the street that I pass going home from the train. For years, whenever I would walk by, peering past the overgrown trees and looking into its broken windows, especially noticeable in the summer, the middle sidewalk was eerily cold, even with sunlight beaming down at you. I notice odd things like that.

Neighborhood fought for years to have it turned back into a school. Nasty fights at the community boards, developers lying and saying "there aren't enough children in the area." Bullshit. The walls facing the courtyard were painted in a beautiful mural. Developer said it couldn't be saved. Clutching their trade mark coffees and wearing sweaters that seemed more suited to Vermont they wore looks of fear as staunch old timers and young ones like me shot them down. Now it's destined to be something it never should have been, a luxury amenity. Where children use to learn, soon to be a tenant's lounge and cookie cutter apartments. Windows that once looked onto an open courtyard that welcomed everyone will now see only the handful of people who can afford to live there. If they can at all.

I stand across the street, thinking it looked much better with broken windows, and haunted chandeliers glimpsed through long weeds. And that cold feeling? It's still there.

If your interested in learning more about Charles Becker, pick up The Starker by Rose Keefe

the comedy continues...

2010-06-27T18:26:00.000-07:00

Even this I had to laugh at... More dysfunction across the river.

Scene: A courthouse with a strange sounding name.

Players: Me and a clueless clerk.

" How can I help you?"

" I am looking for a criminal indictment from 1941."

Eyes go wide followed by a grin with laughter. Guess this isn't your run of the mill question in this joint.

"Oh boy! That's gonna be hard." She wanders over to a computer. At least it supposed to be a computer. It looks like the word processor I use to use in high school with the black screen and bright green letters jumping at you. She asks me for the name and I give it to her.

(Pause) " Do you have his social security number?"

Did she really just ask me that????

" Uh, no. Social Security wasn't used then."

"What's the victim's name?"

" Fleg..."

" Do you have his social security number?" Mind you, she still has that goofy grin on her face and I am trying my best not to look at her crooked.

" No, he died before social security was even a concept."

She still insists on giving me a form, telling me Archives would take at least a month to look and that if I could get the social security number it would make things easier.

Would love to know what's running in the tap water through this town.

cheesecake, limonata soda and faces in dreams

2010-06-23T20:26:00.000-07:00

We always agree to meet up at least once a month. It never happens and two, three, six of them go by before the timing is right.

Meet up on Mulberry street, eating dinner in the slightly warm restaurant, across the street from the one that still contains bullet holes from a gangster feud over 70 plus years ago ( or is it 80? I forget). Head down the street to the little cafe that I always go to for cheesecake as it's a special treat for me. Plus I love how the owner has been sitting outside, on the same street for forty years.

It's nice to be remembered by someone like that who has seen so many souls pass by. He has seen me in there a few times before.

" How was dinner? You like? You getta pasta?"

" Yes it was nice."

" I have a nice cake for you, you like, on me."

I get cheesecake. She gets pistachio gelato and some of the nice cake.

Conversation veers off into the realm of how we ended up in the places we are in our lives now. The importance of being able to face your demons head on as much as you can.

" You know, I knew a woman once who said " I want it to be that when I dream I can have a face behind it' and I told her, you never see faces in dreams." she remarked.

That's true most of time. The handful of times I did see a face it was of the ghost with the broken nose. And he was staring at me saying nothing. Which usually coincided when I wasn't writing enough.

Meanwhile the owner bid us farewell, he was supposed to leave a half hour before but he promised the next time he saw us he would have another cake made up.

"Ciao now, goodbye!"

I enjoyed my cheesecake, she enjoyed her ice cream and the nice cake.

And we both enjoyed the conversation.

sums it up nicely

2010-06-16T20:49:00.000-07:00

walking after my day job to clear my head, only to stumble on this as I went home to my other job in front of my computer. The one that despite the frustrations and occasional writers block, creates an even balance for me soul wise.

People work much in order to secure the future, I gave my mind much work and trouble trying to secure the past.

Think that's a nice job description.

looking glass

2010-06-13T08:11:00.000-07:00

my camera taking a picture of me peering through the lens of something too sophisticated for my taste.

got to look at myself through the lens of a friend's high powered camera. The tiredness showing in my eyes and on my face. The realization that I really need to take a break. Been running on an empty tank for quite some time.

piss poor management

2010-06-07T19:44:00.000-07:00

go across the pond on a whim, maybe this time might yield something different.

Nope.

Scene: Police Department

Players: Me, police officer behind partition.

" How can I help you miss?"

" I need investigative notes on a shooting from 1935."

" Holy Shit!"

" Just tell me where I can go please, I've been bounced all over."

Up the elevator to the Homicide division. ( note: you never want to be there under any circumstances) a cold empty hallway: I get blank, suspicious looks, I put on my best shirley temple smile with my hands clearly visible.

One barks: " You a relative?" ( maybe I need to say that next time)

" I'm researching the victim."

" You gotta send a letter to the director for permission across the street"

Letters get me no where in this town, so I bypass that and head straight over. Those detectives are a little bit more friendlier, the one stops laughing when he sees I'm glaring at him.

" Ah, miss that's hard, ya talkin 75 years ago, see those records from back then were moved a hundred times, one place had a fire, the other there was water damage." So God struck twice to rid Babylon of it's sins in the form of old records? Must've been a slow year then.

Bounced back home gritting my teeth, not so much from hitting a road block but more at how poorly kept things are and no one cares until someone comes calling for it. Well, as long as there's a will, there's a way and I'm gonna find it. Somewhere. Just need a bigger flashlight and a whole new bottle of patience.

the diner on wheels

2010-06-05T06:32:00.000-07:00

I love diners, always have and especially here as they are a rapidly vanishing entity. Keep your six dollar cups of coffee and give me the small cup sitting in a saucer wet on the bottom from it being filled to the top for $1.25.

There is only one located near where I work, but instead of chromed seats and waitresses balancing plates of hot food, this one is on wheels. In a small beat up truck that sits on the same corner everyday near the Staten Island Ferry. I was in heaven the first time I found it, wandering around for something different. Guy who runs it has been there for close to 40 years, has a toothy grin and trades jabs with all the regulars. After visiting two or three times he remembered me and I was included into the fold.

" Who has the best grilled cheese sandwiches?" he says pointing a finger at me.

"You do!" He smiles his buck tooth grin and winks. Yesterday he asks:

" Ya married?"

"Nope."

" If ya don't mind me askin miss how old are ya?"

" 28"

" Ah, ya still a baby!"

" That's what they tell me."

" Ever been married?"

"Nope." His smile gets even bigger if it's possible.

" Ahh!! smart girl!" he says tapping his head and speaking with the kind of accent only natives of this city are blessed to have and everyone else wishes they could imitate. "You don't want the drama!"

He asks what building I work at and I tell him. His face turns to surprise then gratitude. "You come from all the way up there??! Hey Joe, you hear how far she comes from for us?"

He leans out the window and takes my hand in his suntanned one. " You could go to any place round here for a sandwich and you come to me. God bless ya sweetheart! Wanna pickle? And be sure to take some chips!"

I bid him a good weekend and he tells me to be careful crossing the street.

So if you're ever down near the ferry look for the truck that says All American Diner, and they guarantee their food will be the best you'll ever have.

relaxing sound on a warm day

2010-05-30T19:05:00.000-07:00

walking aimlessly on the city streets, not too hot of a day, but for someone who lives running on her feet, warmer that usual.

Window shopping, as this was the check that goes towards rent meaning not too much left until next time. That's ok, I have a roof over my head and food to sustain me when the ghosts of the past drain me out.

Drawn into the building with old objects beckoning in the window as I'm a sucker for such things. At the top of the stairs I hear it, that scratchy needle recognizable to me anywhere. I follow the sound to see the horn of the graphophone belting out in the cramped space filled with wax cylinders, microphones and radios. It echoes over the whole floor. The woman winding up the spring, testing old records for a couple that want to borrow it for a wedding and I stand there transfixed, wishing I had that in my house as it seems far more superior to my little boom box for drowning out the obnoxious neighbor blasting techno music when I'm trying to write.

" I think these are appropriate for a wedding, don't you think?" she smiles as she looks up at me.

I nod in agreement. Not bad for a 90 year old entertainment center.

mixed signals

2010-05-27T20:02:00.000-07:00

listening to a conversation.
of someone who sounds like they are settling for something less than they deserve.
trying to make someone feel something they can't.
me, tired, running on vapors, the ghost impatiently floating in the corner.
I don't know what to say to this cycle that repeats itself over and over.
So I remain silent, offering only an ear over a wire.
sometimes it's all one can do.

peering in the well with a flashlight...

2010-05-22T20:38:00.000-07:00

... can lead to many interesting objects being highlighted in fragmented rays. Some things are stuck in the crevices of the well, no matter how hard you bend over to pull they won't budge. Some things come out in curiosity, wondering where that piercing light came from. Some times the light is too harsh and those things that would like to come out end up burying themselves deeper and deeper into the cool dampness of the shadows in which they dwell.

And if you peer straight down you may see a reflection of yourself in those rays, reflected on a pool of impenetrable blackness. It can either beckon or intimidate. It's up to you on whether you can handle sliding down the slickness of that round cavity, to know what is on the other side of that reflection.

Fulfilment

2010-05-14T19:42:00.000-07:00

I do not sit and sigh for wealth untold,

It never thrusts itself into my schemes;

I shrink from all your piles of clanking gold,

Better my sparkling hoard of golden dreams.

A life of limousined and jeweled ease is but a round of fathomless ennui.

Your motor cars, your pearls, your sables, these are naught to me.

Better a homely flat in Harlem's wilds, than a costly living's spurious benefits.

Better a simple buttercake at Childs' than caviar and stalled ox at the Ritz.

Your unearned gold to me, is shot with flaws; A life of honest toil I'd make my lot.

Which really makes it very nice, because it's what I've got.

-Dorothy Parker

power of a memory

2010-05-09T20:35:00.000-07:00

How do you compact five decades of memories into one afternoon? I guess in instances like this time cannot be molded. I had never seen this until a few weeks ago, but there it was in a new frame, above the picture of my father and his brother and sisters.

In a house full of five decades of memories. Some good, some not so good. '

Pictures of cars that once had running boards wide enough for a man to stand on the side of and hoods long enough to stretch on.

Of my great grandparents, one of which I had the pleasure to meet and know in my lifetime. Her handmade Japanese panel hangs on my wall and an old camera is hidden in a drawer somewhere.

Photos of me I never knew existed and memories of which I cannot recall.

This photo was the first time I saw my grandfather smile. I guess three decades on the police force as a detective will do something to ya. Till this day I swear he's profiling people in public. My grandmother still has that smile of mischief and a hidden giggle. Still remembers the first time she saw him in the playground with his hat and the color shirt he was wearing. You don't hear things like that anymore.

She asked me to bless the table and I didn't even blink. As everyone joined hands, both of them surrounded by their two sons and daughters, friends and family, a memory was created for me that will last a lifetime.

After I was done with my little speech of which I had no clue what I was saying, I saw my grandparents cry for the first time. And for the second time I saw my grandfather smile.

signs of a new beginning

2010-05-01T21:16:00.001-07:00

She comes out every spring to replant all the gardens. A skill perfected over 40 years in her home, talents she got from her mother and father years before that in that distant homeland south of the equator. I always know it's spring by seeing her rake and shovel propped up against the wall opposite my kitchen window.

She was out early this morning and worked well into the evening, her voice giving words of encouragement to the property maintenance crew who always help. She asks if I would ever go into the garden but my talents always seem to work with plants that grow indoors. But maybe one day.

And as she rarely lets me take her picture I managed to sneak one while she was giving directions for where the perennials and rose bushes will go. Of course of her prior plantings are hiding her bright yellow shirt, wind visor and apron filled with seeds.

rescued

2010-04-25T18:05:00.000-07:00

I don't know how old it is, at the bottom it said it sold for 25 cents when it was brand new a long time ago. Even a coupon clung to its backside with the notation " ask your newsdealer about special offers!". But it was in pretty bad shape. Sent to the dollar pile of the castoffs of the 18,000 miles of books-bookstore. Me, always having a soft spot for the orphaned printed word spotted it face up on the damp ground, flung in the corner where it had fallen. The sides looked as if someone had burnt it, large chunks where missing from the spine and even the delicate page turn in my hands sent pieces of brittle paper spraying my coat.

But it still looked interesting by the pages that remained in tact and I figured I had a warm home it could spend the rest of its days verses a shelf barely covered from the raindrops dripping from above. So now it sits in comfort on my already crowded bookcase.

wishing-part 2

2010-04-16T05:02:00.000-07:00

bouncing on a train to another city, this time with unexpected company in the form of my friend and colleague from the museum of the other city I left..she came to spend the day with me and I rewarded her with dragging her somewhere else other than the concrete jungle. Cause as I've learned it's better to get blank stares and mouths dropping to the floor in person than being passed from phone extension to phone extension.

Was worth the trip in many ways. Catching up with someone special, seeing frozen in time buildings of all shapes and sizes ( note to self, go early next time to discreetly snap more photos). The best treat was the domed ceiling, peeling paint and extensive moldings of the old courthouse as we walked through the musty corridors of typical government offices. And the comedy begins:

Bored government official: "Yes?"
Me: " I need to find investigatory notes on a shooting from 1935."
Bored agent, snapping to life, eyes getting big as saucers: "Ha! 1935??? You gonna have to go to the Archives! 1935 you weren't even born yet!"

Me: " Uh, I was told this was the Archives."

Agent: "No, no go out this building to ghdhdfhshssh" ( as in could not make it out, was a cross between Fulton, Hustle and something else). "At the light, that's the archives."

Back on the sidewalk, turned to Susie " OK, the light is over there so maybe it's that way. What the hell did she say?"

Susie: " I think she said Hill, there's Hill over there." We go another way, stop to ask a cop who was actually friendly, hence a quizzical look on my face. New York City cops don't smile like that.

Go back the other direction, find the un-pronouncable street with a building correctly named Archives and begin all over again. More dumbfounded looks between a security guard and a voice over an office partition.

"1993?"

" No, 1935."

" You gotta go to the City Clerk."

Susie: " We were just there and they told us to come here."

Finally after double talk they produce a form that I have to fill out only to take back to the office that we just left. I ended it by saying I didn't care what it was, it could be one sheet of paper, all I knew was the city had something in their files and I just wanted to see it. They take the form, log it and then say for another leg of the journey.

" For Essex County prosecutions you have to go to blah blah blah"

So off we bounce to yet another courthouse and arrive in a very old school little office that has three arrows: Bail Bonds, Complaints and Information. Except there was no information desk, just a tablet for you to write your name and what you were there for. At least I made it farther than I had in the past but the conversations around me told me people had more important things to deal with. Namely, the poor person who had to listen to the File a Complaint line. The last thing Susie and I heard before me saying I would do this part of the adventure another day was:

" This is your ninth arrest."

"So what? That doesn't give him the right to take my car!"

Me to Susie: " Let's go, and thanks for coming with me. Now you know what I go through most of the time."

Susie: "No problem, I'm having fun!"

Get on the elevator, hit the wrong button and end up in the Prisoners Detention Bureau and Susie bursts out laughing.

Me: " We need to get out of here."

And back to the concrete jungle we go so she can at least see apart of that city.

The end. For Now.

I wish upon a star

2010-04-14T21:20:00.000-07:00

The old bones spoke, but they did not give direct answers...

Here's wishing they speak fast enough for the large files to come in before my mental break from my other job ends next week. As for directly, they never do so I'm not even gonna hope for that.

words of reflection, seventy one years later, from a usually tightlipped source

2010-04-08T21:10:00.000-07:00

" I have a dollar in my pocket. And as long as I have that I can't be broke."

Jimmy Hines-Tammany Hall district leader
Jan. 1939

statement made during his criminal trial to a reporter's question on rumors that he was dead broke.

75-8 a -c

2010-04-03T14:01:00.000-07:00

Whenever I venture back to the city that I left, I have to go in and stop to visit the dust and old scents of the museum I left behind. Though according to the curator I never left. I am a "consultant". I just live far away. Thus begins the usual playful banter amongst oil paintings of men long gone, a giant 100 year old cash register that has to sit on a dolly to support its weight and other unknown nick knacks whose purpose are written on faded old cards.

"Can I go visit my baby now?"

"Sure, no one has been up to see it since you were last here."

" That's why you should give it to me. I will take good care of it. Anyway, you have at least twelve of them, you won't miss it."

He smiles and gently shakes his head like a parent. But he gives me the keys to the vault to go "and say hello."

So I make my way through the maze of tunnels to the 77 year old Otis elevator, pull the heavy gate and push the knob to the 4th floor. It bounces and clicks until dropping me off in a dark tunnel. I went this way a thousand times and know where to go until I reach the gate that says "museum artifacts are happier in the dark."

Unlocking the gate and going past light bulbs, model airplanes, 90 year old typewriters and city replicas I make my way to the back to the heavy graphophone featured in the 1896 World's Fair that won my heart all those years ago. And with slight touch of an old spring it hums back to life and warms my heart until the next visit.

ying, ying, ying, ying...

check list

2010-04-01T20:12:00.000-07:00

small bag packed.

box to fold myself into in place.

Notes on subject in folder are tucked in the side seam. that should maintain my sanity.

a large bottle of patience sits on top of bag.

sticky note reminding me of whatever I need to remember stuck to my head.

ok, think I'm good to go...

plunging into murky waters

2010-03-29T19:14:00.000-07:00

How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?- Meno

Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That's where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from and where you will go.- Rebecca Solnit

Sometimes I feel like I am a blind bat flying in the dark, not knowing what I am going to stumble into, but something pulls and pushes me against the current and I always end up where I am meant to be. I guess because I never have a pre-disposition to know what I am seeking. I just know something is waiting to be discovered even for a moment.

in the presence of ghosts

2010-03-28T19:25:00.000-07:00

I always wanted to go in and never got the chance. A invitation to an honored event changed that. Once upon a time it was a theater, ornate columns and moldings on the ceiling and along the perimeter of the amphitheater. If you listened closely you could hear the faint echo of the talented giants that passed through its doors and had congregated under its bright lights hoping to be recognized.

Now it is a house of worship, hearing the private hopes, dreams and heartaches of those in its pews. And while a limited selection of talented women were honored for their lifetime achievements, I looked up and thought of the specters looking down on everyone making their own paths.

the thread that leads to everywhere

2010-03-27T17:10:00.000-07:00

People need to put a little bit more time and effort into following what their heart wants verses selling themselves short to go down the easy path. I got to thinking today how many times a dream or goal is swept to the wayside because someone else wants to pull the strings. Look how often children are told ( or in most instances, just humored with the "aww aren't they cute" looks) that they can do whatever they want when they grow up: be a firefighter, an astronaut, an explorer. Fast forward 15 to 20 years and the tolerance evaporates along with the glass ceiling that is put up as a barrier, you are told you can only go so high. Don't think different thoughts than us, don't pursue different things than us. Just make enough to take care of yourself and someone else and leave the dreams for the kids.

We all have to do things we may not like in order to survive, but that doesn't mean you sell yourself short. The dreams that are in your heart is what sustains you. Just live it and everything else will work out if you want it to. And it doesn't matter what it is, you could enjoy staring at earthworms in a jar all day or going through a box containing the stories of dead men who did bad things or learning how to turn nothing into something. You never know where the road is going to lead you. It only takes a single thread spun in different ways to make something magical.

the unexpected question of the evening

2010-03-21T18:50:00.000-07:00

It was a surprise birthday party in an old building on the Upper West Side. The hallway was turned into a makeshift extension of the apartment, with notes stuck on the doors of the neighbors to join in, you know in case they complained about the noise in the hall. The cat made her way around everyone's legs jumping up to have her head rubbed.

I didn't know any of the others, the usual awkward silence when you only know the host of the party. I stuck to the wall, a party hat on my head waiting for the birthday boy to arrive off the elevator. Lost in my concentration on focusing on the elevator buttons I hear the hostess say:

" You should really talk to her, she's writing a book on Jewish gangsters."

Meaning me, the only gentile in the group. Looks of interest my way turn to rushed excitement as the doorman phones to say the birthday boy is on his way up. Then for the next four hours I hear variations of "so how did you get interested in Jewish gangsters?"

"It's a long story. But a fun one."

my easter present

2010-03-14T19:55:00.000-07:00

it is over fifty years old, made by a woman long gone for my father when his hands could barely hold it and filled with easter eggs and fake grass. Sat in the giant cupboard in my grandparents dining room for years, next to the letter dated from 1945 from my great grandfather to my great grandmother. And after a weekend curled in my grandparents room watching Joan Blondell, Dick Powell and Carole Lombard, she reached in and said I should have it as I would take better care of it than my father. My grandpa gave me wrapping paper and I carefully tucked in my bag, holding onto a piece of my family before it vanished into thin air.

My dad won't mind, he misplaces things all the time anyway.

catching sight of yourself by accident

2010-03-07T18:53:00.000-08:00

"...she described you by your shoes. Said look for a woman in sneakers because you walk everywhere."

It was true, in a sea of heels and boots I was the only one in sneakers. Was the best description of myself that I've heard so far.

"none doing"

2010-03-06T23:03:00.000-08:00

Mr. Agent,

Lemme take a few moments to introduce myself though I'm sure you've heard of me...I'm the Dutchman, my researcher's cranky, unpredictable, frustrating and fun subject of a book. Oh yeah, and I'm dead, as in shot with a bullet 75 years ago dead. She was real honored to meet ya this evening courtesy of the lovely dolls that brought her to the Chow Bar. However you freaked her out with the dreaded "D" word: deadline. She don't do deadlines. It never entered her mind. Not near completion yet and she was already given good advice by Mr. Downey on that subject of offering a porterhouse steak when all she has is ground up meat.

If she was writin a fiction piece that might not be so hard..but a bio? and a first time writer at that? she ain't ready for that. She thinks she's Dr. Seuss' little sister right about now. Personally I like sending her on wild goose chases or giving the silent treatment, after all I have all the time in the world and there's only so many times one can play pinochle in gangster purgatory. So don't worry, when she is ready to show anything she will. But don't say the "D" word again or else she's likely to turn into Dorothy Parker, smokin cigs and throwin back orange blossoms. And that lady never turned anything in on time.

Oh geez, I better go tap her on the shoulder, she's singing some Ruth Etting song at the top of her lungs and the neighbors won't like that. And I gotta go back to gangster purgatory, there's a poker game goin on and that bum Julie owes me 20 grand. But, I'll see ya some time in the future, after she gets the run over from her buddy in Jersey, Jupiter's mother and that doll out in Cleveland. Till then try to decipher a boy has never wept...that oughta keep ya occupied for awhile...

peering into the rabbit hole...

2010-03-03T19:04:00.000-08:00

has yielded all kinds of interesting goodies and still does. Think by my calculations I think I have inched over to the halfway point so now I can pull my hair out over the other half. Don't worry, I'm not getting done anytime soon. That would be way too easy and I don't believe in doing a half baked job at anything.

87 year old words of wisdom

2010-02-24T21:12:00.000-08:00

May your joys be as deep as the ocean, and your sorrow as light as the foam.

God made our relatives and I make my friends.

Never trouble trouble, until trouble, troubles you. For if you trouble trouble, trouble surely trouble you.

Friends are like melons, shall I tell you why? To find a good one you must a hundred try.

You may fall from a house top. You may fall from above. But the greatest fall is when you fall in love.

-All entries taken from the pages of an autograph book I own that was signed by the friends of a girl attending high school in Rye, New York from September to October 1923.

mourning prayer

2010-02-22T16:41:00.001-08:00

It felt like I shouldn't be there. I was lightheaded from the uneven walkway. The ground felt lopsided, as if at any moment in a fit of angry grief the ground would give way beneath your feet and send you tumbling to the street below. I rarely get to look up into the insides of a structural corpse from such a close vantage point. Covered in its mourning shroud as the thin beautiful clones around me lamented about everything being dead and "unpretty", sipping expensive drinks in wooden lounge chairs and oblivious to the angry winds around them, I captured what remained, being torn apart in the name of progress and said a silent prayer for it's imminent departure.

from one misfit toy to another

2010-02-19T20:53:00.001-08:00

the brassy ( since birth), blonde ( by choice) Latina has been my rock ever since I took this job in a corporate world and me the least corporate type, needing a blue print on how to navigate the suits and overblown egos of men and women who never grew up. She helped me my first week when the jock in the corner office wanted to drag me over the coals for answering his phone the wrong way and sat with me for over an hour in a conference room trying to figure out where the fuck I went wrong as I had no training on said phone with multifeatureswithnoinstructions.

She became a welcome reprieve, before I discovered the treasure trove the sourly gatekeepers were hoarding and listens with a co-conspirator grin when I ask depending on my mood (joking or serious) whether any of her Italian "construction" friends would like to come to visit family with me for the sole purpose of scaring the shit out of them and make them shut up about me living alone. Which mind you I don't live alone, I have very pretty, self containing plants to keep me company.

She grew up in Harlem when most of the surrounding structures were burnt out shells of their former selves and you would never wanna face her in a fight. She has the tough as nails persona I wish I had sometimes, though I've been told it's obvious I don't know my own strength. Put me in a corner and I push back with all my might. So this time she came to me, the year starting off shaky, seeing her tough as nails father break at the death of a grandmother she wasn't close to, to the passing of the tough as nails grandfather who raised her being buried in Florida with her money and bringing her grieving, self raging mother back to her ancestral home in New York.

" Listen darling, I became you. I raged and I finally broke." She smiles up at me, perched in the corner...snippets of said conversation spilled to me, rage held in for over twenty somethin years:

"Who the fuck are you to judge me? I'm tellin ya, I love my mother, she's my mother, but I've been seeing the truth for thirty fuckin years and it was time to come out."

"Your other daughter may have a Ph.D in business, but I got a doctorate in life, I know how to fuckin take care of my shit. The father of my son may not be perfect, but he loves me for who I am. Your other daughter? That motherfucka don't even respect her. And you want to put me under the microscope?"

"I buried my grandfather, cause that was the least I could do for that man, I will never get over my debts to him, cause he hand fed me many times. I came back to New York broke, wonderin what I was gonna do. And guess what? I get a call today and the money is going into my account. Now, who's the stupid one?"

"Lana, I had to go outside in the car after that and rage and cry, cause I think I never got a chance to mourn that man, and I had to let it out on her. I knew you would understand with your mother. You know what I mean mamma?"

Me: "Yes...yes I do, all too well."

With that she outstretched her arms in the air in a victory sign. " But listen darling, don't you go completely over the edge yet. I'm what? Less than ten years older than you? You gotta little while longer to let go like that." maybe not on blood yet, but I can on my adopted mother, the ever shifting world outside my door.

With all the punches from my adopted mother hitting my sides as I silently screamed up Sixth Avenue at 11pm at night, I threw my victory sign in the air. This misfit toy is pushing back with all her might and using the strength of the other one to know that after the raging comes the calm. Whether you see it on the horizon or not.

Ann and Gertrude

2010-02-14T18:42:00.000-08:00

I spotted them almost half a mile away. My first full day out and about, I decided to go to a familiar and difficult place to stretch my legs: the final home of such people as Foster, Dunlop and Mead. I don't know who these people were or what they did, but their elaborate homes are familiar markers in that vast community I have gone through many times before. Hence the easy part. No so easy if the pain were to return as I rarely see anything living in that vast city...unless you count the wild bird that startled me two springs ago on it's quest for nuts in the grass.

This time there was another human being, and a tiny canine wearing a red padded jacket to boot. The woman was trying to get the dog to move, but she refused, steadfast with her little frame, waiting for me to come down that winding road.

" Are you happy now? Here she comes...she wanted to wait for you." The owner said, as if they had been expecting me all along. The woman was very old, thin frame, with short cropped hair. She tugged on the leash. " Come on Gertrude". The dog looked up at me, now walking along side them and continued to walk ahead of me and my new companion.

" I walk her here every week, all the security guards know me" she paused and then chuckled as she looked around. " And all the dead know me too."

" I think I can say the same thing, at least about the dead."

" Oh you come here often too? Funny this is the first time we're meeting. I've been walking through here for almost 20 years. It's a nice place to get solitude."

We walked the entire length of that city, her giving me the story of her life: the husband she's had for 45 years, the small house with the 1906 parlor "thank god, not small enough where your knees would touch". Glad her husband was about to retire so that they can finally get away to St. Augustine, Florida.

Gertrude, pausing to make sure I was still between her and her owner, looking up at me and trying to jump up, though her paws barely reached my knees. At the end, the guards sure enough greeted her warmly and she said she hoped that she would meet me again sometime.

" You know, when I was younger I use to take laps around one of those pools in the city. This is your lap. You'll never get lonely or depressed here. You have a great way of clearing your mind. Hope to see you again." She told me her name was Ann.

I bid her farewell and made my way back through that city again to my entrance. The guard smiled and said " You walked the whole length huh?"

"Yup." Maybe he'll remember me next time.

another room, another story

2010-02-12T18:10:00.001-08:00

the reconstructing of a life usually has me confined to one room in my home, important documents and notes within easy reach of my fingertips to jump start the words. Tonight, my body made stiff with pain caused me to be confined to another part of my home where mentally I reconstructed the lives of some nameless and faceless people on the street, in the stairway and in the vast courtyard below. Broken promises, unexpected joys and the plain foolishness that people bring out when they think no one is or can be listening.

wishful thought...

2010-02-09T19:58:00.000-08:00

that I can wake up tomorrow like a kid and be told by the AM radio that I don't have to go anywhere. That was always the best, the news report with the ticker going off in the background, crouched on the floor staring at my little radio that I still have now, waiting for the quick, somber voice of the broadcaster on the other end to say those magic words at 5:30 in the morning.