Sad Blog

Did you all know that I have another blog - sort of a secret blog? It's about missing my dad and I update it very infrequently. (You're surprised, right? I know. I am such an avid blogger.)

I have felt very private about it; I disabled comments and never really meant it for public consumption. For some reason though, I feel like sharing it today. Missing my father is such a big part of who I am now - who I'll be forever, I guess - and it feels inauthentic to pretend it isn't.

I might post some more writing there soon; it will be kind of rough and ugly. Grief is rough and ugly. No one has to read it, but maybe it will help someone. I know there are people out there grieving hard every day and pasting a smile over it. Sometimes it helps to talk about it, and sometimes it doesn't. We shall see.

You can click on the title of this post to go there if you want.

(I took this picture of my dad when we went to Antarctica together in 1994. I love it - and I love that I know he was looking at me.)

The Happiest Place on Earth

Nope, it’s not Disney World. It’s Sephora. Next time you’re having a terrible day, do yourself a favor and pop into a Sephora (New Yorkers are lucky – we’ve got 15 just in Manhattan) where you can sample makeup and perfume to your heart’s content. Is there anything better than makeup and perfume? I think not.

I may be a tool of the patriarchy, or I may have been warped in my formative years by a big box of Mademoiselle back issues given to me by my aunt, but nothing makes me happier than looking and smelling pretty. I'm sorry, Gloria.

“You smell like candy” someone said to me recently. “Really?” I said, batting my eyelashes. “That’s funny.” Of course I smell like candy – I spent an hour at Sephora, dipping my fingers into tester pots of solid perfume, slathering myself with body lotion samples, and spritzing eau de toilette onto tiny sticks of paper and waving them in front of my nose, trying to create the exact combination of smells that produce the sugary scent that emanates from me. Call me crazy, but when I smell good, I feel good. Put on a little lipstick and a dab of perfume, and the world seems brighter.

I suspect that the other parents at my kids’ school think I have it all together because I’m wearing eyeliner and lipstick when I bring my kids to school in the morning, but all it really means is that I took five minutes to moon in front of the mirror, ignoring the demands of my daughters on the other side of the bathroom door. God may have given me one face, but I have no qualms about making myself another, even when lunches need to be packed and breakfasts made. Take away my makeup and perfume, and I’ll be tempted to do my Ophelia impression at the bottom of Prospect Park Lake. Come to think of it, maybe that’s what happened to her. She was so fixated on those flowers; she was probably just jonesing for some good perfume. Forget the nunnery, Ophelia - get thee to a Sephora!

Illustration © Jaeman Park

Things That Make Us Go

The other day, our coffeemaker died after a long day of gurgling, steaming, sputtering effort which failed to produce even one drip of coffee. We knew it was coming – first the on switch stopped working and we had to set the auto timer and trick it into turning on every time, then there were several unprovoked incidents of grounds overflowing into the pot, and finally there was the death rattle that produced first a half pot, then a quarter pot, then no pot of coffee at all. Our coffeemaker gave us years of faithful service, and we worked it hard, sometimes making several pots a day. All that time I never realized how much we depend on that machine – until the day it died, and our lives seemingly came to a halt.

We dragged our French press pot down from the cupboard and tried to remember the correct grounds to water ratio, but failed most of the time, either making it too weak or too strong – usually erring on the too-strong side, we sometimes were unable to push the plunger down all the way. The French press made a smaller quantity of coffee – not enough even to get us through the first hour of the day; plus, we couldn’t set it up at night to brew us a pot before the alarm went off in the morning. The corner of the counter where the coffee machine used to sit looked so desolate, I could hardly bear to look at it.

If You Can Make It Here . . .

Last week I dropped in on a little neighborhood party where I met a nice young family who were about to leave Brooklyn. They live (or rather, lived) very close to us, which means they were in the PERFECT family neighborhood: right next to a library, a school, a playground, a pizza place, an ice cream shop, a dance studio, a sweet little wine shop, a coffee shop, a gourmet takeout shop, and, hello - Prospect Park. All those things are a few short blocks from each other, with an F/G subway stop smack in the middle of them - twenty minutes to Manhattan going one way, twenty minutes to Coney Island going the other. Why would anyone leave?

Turned out they were tired of how expensive everything is here. They felt like their money was spent before they even earned it. They wanted to drive to a grocery store, park in a driveway, and be near family who will babysit for free. They crowed about moving to a house (a real house, with a yard and a pool) that costs less than half their Brooklyn rent. They said that life here was just too hard. I smiled sympathetically, but inside I was screaming, "Yes, but you are in NEW YORK CITY! You'll have a house and a pool and you won't have to step around dog piss every day or ride the train with schizophrenics or smell the garbage baking on the curb in the morning, but you won't be in New York! You'll be in the middle of NOWHERE!" The place they are moving, as far as I know, is mostly renowned for snake handlers and incest. (Oh fine - I guess it has pretty countryside - that sort of thing is lost on me. I always think a serial killer will get me when I go to the country, and there will be no one to hear me scream.)

Watch Your Step

In the city, you've really got to watch where you’re going. Sure, you might get carried away having an animated conversation with your husband on your way to the train for a hotly-anticipated date, but if you don’t pay attention, you might just slip in a lake of vomit on the train platform, and it might splash up onto your legs as your husband grabs your elbow and valiantly keeps you from falling down into the puke. Then you’re going to have to look for a patch of grass or some rainwater so you can clean off your shoe before you go into the restaurant. And forget about eating. You’d better just have a cocktail, because every time you think about those fleshy-looking chunks swimming around beneath your feet, you’re going to feel like barfing too.

Oh, and when you’re looking for that patch of rainwater to clean off your shoe, don’t forget that time you took your daughter to the playground after school and the other kids were splashing around in a big puddle, and another parent told you it was pee. Some kid had dropped his drawers and whipped it out right there in the middle of the jungle gym. If you wash vomit off your shoe with urine, is that an improvement? Maybe – you do always hear that urine is sterile. So okay, go ahead. Look for a puddle of rainwater, or possibly pee, to rinse your foot in.

Do you ever wonder what you’d do if you stumbled on a crime scene? A dead body, a blood-spattered room, a murder in progress? Would you faint? Become hysterical? Maybe you’d be very rational and composed and call the police and keep it all together until you got home. Me, I’m a screamer - here's how I know.

One rainy Sunday we stopped at the Diana Ross playground in Central Park – a playground we’d never visited before – and the girls played happily while I went through my bag and cleaned out the detritus of an afternoon with children. My hands were full of used tissues and granola bar wrappers as I walked around the unfamiliar playground, casting around for a trash can. I was looking, but I was looking for a trash can, not looking right in front of me. I was striding around purposefully when I stepped on something that rolled beneath my foot and felt disgustingly squishy; soft but sinewy and inexpressibly icky. I whipped around to see what it was, and it took me a second to comprehend what I saw: something hideous and partially flattened, with nasty little scrabbly claws, trying desperately to crawl away – I didn't know if it was a rat or a squirrel or a mutant creature from the sewer. It looked like the Eraserhead baby, with claws. True to the cliché, time stood still, but probably less than a second passed. I looked at the gruesome creature, drew a deep breath, and screamed for all I was worth. I screamed as if someone was being murdered. Heads turned toward me as I pointed and shrieked.

Of course, it was a squirrel. A sick squirrel, surely. A regular squirrel doesn't just hang out and wait to be stepped on, does it? I suppose I broke its back. I’m sure it suffered, and I ought to feel sorry, but really I just feel affronted – indignant that that horrid little rodent had the nerve to get in my way. Thank God it had been raining that day – what if I’d been wearing something besides rain boots? What if I’d been wearing flip-flops?

That night I dreamed that there were rats in my shoe. I couldn't get them out. They kept multiplying; fur and claws and fleshy, swishy tails against my skin, crawling, trapped between my shoe and my foot. When I woke up, I could still feel them.