Today marks the fourth year this blog has been in existence. That means it’s starting kindergarten, asking about its private parts, and wrinkling its nose at vegetables. Oh, toddlers, nature’s little marvel.
Petit Hiboux has changed a lot since I started it over on blogger. I’ve gotten less chatty but I like to think I’ve gotten more down-to-earth. I blog a lot less about the minute effects other people have on me, like heartbreak in all its various forms, but I also see more honesty, less subterfuge, in my daily writing. My life has changed considerably but some nice things have remained constant – my friends, my family, my apartment (ours, now).
In 2002, this blog was all about frippery and hidden meanings directed at boys I liked. There was a lot of song lyric quoting and a lot of silliness. This is because I was 22 and still learning what blogs were. In 2003, there was a lot of linking and high-school-like blog friendships forming, and towards the end there was a lot more heartbreak and subtle digs and coy intrigue. In 2004 there was sea change – from moments where I’ve never been more disconsolate about my life to the highest points of elation. In 2005 there was a lot of work, a lot of slow necessary changes and adjustments, and a lot of happiness. And in 2006, there will be more sea change.
So through four years, the blog has changed as much as I have. It’s brought me some marvels and it’s taught me that I’m not only capable but nigh addicted to writing something every day, writing out my reactions to my own life and the lives around me. It’s taught me to take my writing for a certain necessary level of granted – to take my status as a writer as a given. That’s no small thing.
But I won’t make some pat reflection about writing this completely for me. I don’t. If I needed to (and sometimes I do) journal for myself, I’d do it on paper, in my living room. If I need to write fiction, I also do that in my living room – not here. Here, I blog for you guys. I blog for the community, for the experience of sharing my personality and seeing what pings bounce back, for the feedback. I blog because I believe it’s a radical thing to take your life and share it – it’s something we do on many levels all around us and blogging is one of the ways I do it. I don’t really believe bloggers who say they do it solely for themselves – did I mention the part about paper and privacy? So I do this for you, which is why I’m thanking you today.
There are some of you that have been reading this since its frippy, early days, there are some that read Petit Hiboux through all the moany self-reflection and intrigue, there are some who liked that and haven’t liked the lovey-dovey crap, to paraphrase all the back-handed compliments about my current love life. So there are probably some of you that don’t read this site anymore, because of that. I respect that. And there are some that started coming here right when the lovey-dovey crap started and perhaps for you, that’s all pH has ever been and you enjoy that. I appreciate you, too.
That’s the thing. I appreciate everyone that’s ever visited this site, linked it, commented, loved it, become my friend through it. I don’t get any hate mail so I presume my detractors are the smart kind of detractor, the kind that just move on. Really, simplistically cheesy and totally without ironic content as this may be, I appreciate you for reading, for following along, for being the wide spectrum of humanity at the other end of this little megaphone.
You rock. I hope we can do this for another four years. Thank you.
Consider this your fair warning that this entry discusses my uterus. Put down the computer and back away slowly if this startles you in any way. Most women and you select men can read on.
This morning there came about a method of divining – wait, let me try this again. In every woman’s life about once a month there comes a moment – no, that’s not right. Let’s say that if there are two states, pregnant and not pregnant, and there’s no real overlap between the two – …
… what I’m trying to say is that this morning, I was given incontrovertible proof that I’m not pregnant. Now, this happens every month without fanfare because I’m a responsible modern dame with responsible modern contraception, which we use responsibly to prevent any grandkids for our parents for another couple years, please. But at the beginning of this month, there was a small snafu that involved the pharmacy being closed the exact Sunday and Monday that I needed it open to pick up a prescription, and some secondary contraception that didn’t really do very well what it was supposed to do.
Like that responsible modern gal, I called my Ob-Gyn and was told to just make up the missing pills, use secondary measures all month, and oh, he ended the phone call with, “good luck!”
Ladies of the world, take a moment to look in your souls and see the exact precipice he put me on with that falsely cheery “good luck!” and you’ll have a general idea of the mild torment I’d been suffering for exactly 22 days. Stuart knew about the phone calls, and the developments as they progressed. I followed the doctor’s directions to the letter but it didn’t prevent a smattering of conversations that stumbled mid-sentence:
“So, I mean, if we ARE, we’d have to ….”
“We’d be okay, it’d be a change, but we’d …”
“So, what about school? If we are, do I ….”
And of course, all the jokes we made along the way about how the office was really going to be a nursery, damn you Jen, about how our lives would change upside down, about how we were totally, inconcievably (HA) not ready for this step in our lives but if the foot was lifted for us, by accident, we’d take it and we’d take it in style.
You already know the step has been deferred. If you’re smart and you know about a woman’s reproductive cycle and the effects of oral contraceptive, you know we weren’t really in the hot water to begin with. But you might also know that the heavier the odds are stacked, the more thought-power you give even the slightest chance of …. and there I go, not finishing sentences.
What’s remarkable about this is that I’m generally, well, baby-crazy. They’re adorable. I love them. I can’t wait to be a mother. Except that, well, I can. I very much can. And nothing makes you realize how much you’re not ready for something when the heightened possibility of that something is staring you straight in the face. Before you know it, you’re not finishing sentences, you’re wondering about the reactions of your friends and family, and you’re looking in the mirror thinking, can I do this if I have to?
It’s scary to know that the answer was yes, and it’s a relief to know the question hasn’t been asked yet.
I can’t imagine that there’s a grumpy New Yorker out there today. We’re all like sailors on shore leave, running around gawping at the brisk breeze and the sixty degree temperatures and the sun, oh lord, the sun!
This morning I left the house in a black tee, a brown cord skirt and black tights and boots, and even though I knew it was already 52 degrees outside, I threw on my wool coat, out of habit. I was only four paces from the front door when I wisely changed my mind and ran back inside to switch to a black sweater instead. I didn’t even wear the sweater when I went to lunch with the divine Stephanie Brown, or when I spent the morning in our magazine’s art department, moonlighting as the assistant art director (who’s out) by mounting the pages to the edit wall, which gave me extreme satisfaction because I’m a fiddly, visual person and it was a fiddly, visual job, very different from my usual drudgery at the magazine.
It reminded me of when I lived in Houston in high school and worked at the Gap (yes, I was that girl). I used to tag along behind my wonderful manager, Bernadette, as she set up the window displays for the store, and she got tired of me following her around so she just gave me the job. Oh, I longed for the days that I was scheduled to come in JUST to be the visual coordinator for the windows. The crisp guidebooks that came from corporate, detailing the look for that month, the long pins we used to rouche the shirts just so to the mannequins, the personal touches that I sneaked in to every window. Loved it possibly more than any other part-time work I’ve ever had. Doing the wall today reminded me of that.
And in exactly twenty minutes, I get to leave the office and saunter over to Grand Central, one of my favourite and most memory-laden spots in Manhattan, to catch the 5:40 to Dobb’s Ferry with wonderful Jason’s loaned D-70, to shoot headshots for Barrie’s students. I get to ride that Hudson line train with the setting sun, speeding north with a coffee and the paper, and it’s two hours earlier than I’ve left work all week so I’m positively giddy with excitement. And it’s Friday, and I’ve got a night of birthday celebrations ahead of me, with Barrie and Belinda.
Are you sensing a theme? I’m twirling with happiness, it’s just bubbling over everything I do today. The coatlessness, the beautiful weather, the wonderful loaned camera, the lunch with Stephanie (veal and amaretto biscotti! raviolis! oh! my! god!), the satisfaction of the wall, riding Metro-North again, hanging out with Barrie and Belinda and their boys tonight … it’s all so much, look at all those commas!
I hope my glee isn’t infectious in the bad way, in that way where you’re having a terrible day and you want to fling monkey poo at me for being so goddamned annoyingly HAPPY. If you have the urge to fling monkey poo, I will hug you so hard that your monkey-poo-flinging urges will be squelched and you will be left hugged and loved with a handful of unflung monkey poo. If you’re sort of neutral about the world, I will also hug you and spread some sicky sweet sunshine your way and you will feel better. And if you’re riding on some bizarre drugged cloud nine with me, we can skip off into the sunset singing like some crazy Japanese animation where everyone has huge eyes and shivers all the time with glee.
Unrelated to all this but another indication of the giddiness: let’s just say that last night I drank rather a lot of wine, shall we? So this morning wasn’t a good time to try my balancing trick where I put my hose on, standing up. I had one leg in and the other foot inserted so of course I was not at a good time in history to be a little shaky, which I was, because I mentioned the wine, yes? So I fell over. On our bedroom floor, with my feet caught in some unintentional yoga Tree pose, lying on the floor, laughing so hard I couldn’t even sit up straight.
THAT’S how giddy I am. Let’s hope it lasts.
So, this is going to seem like an insane request, but does anyone have a particular brand of sock they’re committed to?
Anyone?
The thing is, I’m a brand girl. I’ve got my certain brand of shampoo, my preferred soap from Lush, underwear is best in not only a certain brand, but a certain style, and I rarely buy generic anything. Anyone who wishes to berate me in the comments for this can just gently leave the room and watch that door slamming you on the ass on the way out.
So considering that I’m a brand girl right down to my brand pantyhose, I’ve got an appalling blind spot when it comes to socks, and socks are always letting me down. My mom usually buys me socks, actually, and they’re usually pretty good, but they’re scattered brands from everywhere, and if I had ONE brand of sock I loved, then at least I’d know where to go when I needed good scks.
I like non-white, comfy but not thick, without tight bands anywhere. Anyone got a sock for me?
I’m discussing tomorrow night’s fondue extravaganza with Shana and Stuart, figuring out who’s going to bring what to the table, and Shana mentions a salad that’s making her drool – edamame with shiso and lemon vinagrette. I stare at the part of her sentence where she says, “isn’t that yummy?” and I decide our friendship can certainly withstand my gentle honesty.
“Let’s just celebrate our similarities, shall we?” And Shana laughs, because there is a Venn diagram between our two wildly disparate food tastes and it is clearly marked CHEESE so we’ll be okay, Shana, Wallace, and me.
The point is, I’m a picky eater. I see you out there, friends and dinner companions of mine, rolling your eyes into the rear recesses of your brain, falling over and dying from not being surprised. Saying I’m a picky eater is a lot like saying “Vietnam was a mistake” or “the Hulk gets cranky”. When I was young, we traveled through Greece every summer but you wouldn’t know it for how I refused to eat anything but spaghetti Bolognese and french fries. My first reaction to almost anything you bring near my mouth on a fork is “no!”, whether I’ve tried it or not. Mostly, I haven’t.
People who know me well (and have a sadistic streak) like to trump my “no!” by pointing out the part where I haven’t ever tried it. I’m forced to admit this is true and concede victory by sampling the contents of their outstretched fork. But this is done begrudgingly, and I’m rarely able to really taste the food for what it is, instead of the pulpy remains of defeat. Yeah, even THAT, whatever dish it is you love that you can’t imagine anyone else disliking.
Things I have tried to eat and enjoy to no avail, by no means an exhaustive list:
Every single kind of seafood prepared any sort of way, ever, yes, even that one
Cauliflower
Liver
Caviar
Doritos
Black licorice (really, anything that reeks of aniseed)
moldy cheese
lamb
eggplant
edamame
brown rice
did I mention the seafood thing?
The seafood thing bears mentioning again because it’s indicative of a larger problem. When I was 19, my brother took me on a trip to Key West with one of the provisos being that I try every single thing he ordered. I did. I tried all the seafood. Same brother and I ended up at a memorably horrific dinner at Nobu (made horrific by the fact that the woman who’d invited us insisted that the table order the chef’s taster menu, meaning I couldn’t order my own dish). I tried everything gamely, even when she pointed me out to the waiter and exclaimed in horror, “she doesn’t eat seafood! Can you imagine what she’s doing here?” to which I barely surpressed the urge to tell her that I wasn’t there by my own choice and I knew a political leader in 1940′s GERMANY she might get along with, I’ll bet he liked sushi.
The point is, I’ve tried seafood. I’m married to someone who will carefully study every item on the menu until he finds one he’s never heard of and promptly order it. Meanwhile, I’ve actually been to restaurants where there’s feasibly only two things on the menu I can eat. So my point is, I’d LOVE to like seafood. It’s healthy, trendy, plus sushi packaging is just so CUTE. If only I could bring myself to get past the distinctly fishy texture of fish (yes, even Mahi Mahi, no, it doesn’t matter how many times I try all the fish you claim taste “just like steak”).
And then there’s all that other food I wrinkle my nose at the minute I’ve tried it. Eggplant? Slimy and tasteless. Edamame? Tastes like packing peanuts. Snowpeas? Just taste GREEN. Liver? Tastes like… well… innards. Do NOT get me started on broccoli. The more astute amongst you will long have seen through that whole “makes me feel like I’m eating little trees” routine to the true aversion behind. I hate broccoli. Most green things, in fact, rarely touch my plate.
Are you starting to get a picture of how incredibly picky I am? And in between berating me in my comments for being so close-minded, could you begin to picture how dissatisfied it makes me? How much I wish I truly loved all the varied, healthy colors of the food rainbow? I’m not one of those people who blame my parents for any and all adult flaws I possess, but I grew up in a very meat-and-potatoes household, very old-school European. Spinach was the extent of our vegetable contributions to the dinner table. And I only recently decided I like spinach. When it’s raw. And in salad. And that was a BIG STEP.
I tell myself that I make up for this narrow-mindedness with passion – the foods I love, I adore. I will actually daydream about a new kind of potato I’ve never tried. I can talk for hours about the kinds of steaks I like, with what sort of marbling, and what I think about seasoning and sauces. I tweak and trim recipes until they’re perfect, and by then I’ve memorized them but every time I smell their distinct smells, I’m incredibly happy. I love food.
I’m just selective. Exclusive. Right? But it’s crippling, sometimes, so I’ve made Stuart my sherpa into the world of crazy foods I don’t eat (instead of just catering to my weaknesses). For months, he wanted to make me his celery apple soup. I thought I’d hate it. I loved it, and humbly apologized for ever having doubted him, or celery. We’ve started making recipes with ingredients I never thought I’d allow on my chopping block – fennel, fish oils, radishes. And every chance we get, I try crazy cheeses, even moldy cheeses, trusting my favourite chefs at places like Otto and Celeste to bring out delicious cheeses even if they smell weird. I don’t want to pass on my … shall we call them peculiarities? … to my children, making them wrinkle their tiny noses at broccoli just because Mom does. And so, I’ll even eat broccoli, and god willing, fish, at our dinner tables of the future.
Perhap the trick is wrapping things in bacon, something I love fiercely with all my heart, something I think is missing in the global quest for peace and harmony. One of my favourite things to do with bacon is to wrap it around soy-sauce-and-brown-sugar-soaked water chesnuts and roast them. They’re like crack, and they’re the perfect winter-party snack. When I make them, they’re gone in about eight seconds flat. So at Christmas, I walked into my cousin’s kitchen and there were some gleaming, bacon-wrapped, wait until I get my mouth on you…
“… honey, those are scallops,” said Stuart, knowing how sad I’d be that they weren’t water chestnuts.
“How bad could it be, right? It’s wrapped in bacon,” so I popped one in my mouth. The world held its breath, or at leasst, Stuart and my dad did. “Tastes… like… fish.” I grinned weakly. I’d tried! A scallop!
And so with meek, mewling steps, I’m trying to get better. I’m holding on to the small, nearly insignificant victories I’ve made – fish sauce in my Vietnamese takeout, actually eating the sprouts and onions in chicken-fried-rice, the spinach thing and the celery soup thing. I’m hoping for a day when fresh dark green broccoli looks as delicious in the grocery aisle as a flaky red potato or a wheel of parmesan Reggiano. Hey, you never know, right? Crazier things have happened.
Right?
We’ve just finished a late dinner and a couple episodes of Doctor Who when Stuart takes the dishes into the kitchen to start washing up. I flip to channel 11 (o, SaTC at 11PM, how you torture me) to watch a few minutes of the episode where Carrie finds out about Natasha when a plaintative bleat comes from the kitchen.
“The cheese is OUT. On the COUNTER.”
I blink for a minute. I’d cooked dinner and grated some parmesan to go on the dinner and in my hurry to eat a warm meal, I’d left the parmesan block on the counter next to the ziploc bag it came out of. So I laugh.
“Cmon, you left the cheese OUT!”
“Are you serious?” I yell as I turn down the whining Carrie. Surely he’s not seriously taking issue with the cheese thing, for reasons I will soon reveal.
“YES.”
“So -” I get up from the couch and wander into the kitchen. “I was cooking dinner. We ate dinner. I left the cheese on the counter. Seriously?” He’s got just a HINT of a smile but no! He’s seriously taking issue! I strap on the relationship equivalent of a bazooka.
“Wait. The cheese, it’s on the counter. And you’re objecting to this? YOU … are objecting to this?”
Stuart is now staring down the barrel of my bazooka wondering if his troops really have enough ammo. He’s radioing the RAF for backup.
“YES! Look, the fridge is right here, you can just put the cheese back in the fridge!” He opens the fridge to demonstrate his point and my men launch a full-scale attack. Except we’re both laughing so hard at this point it’s difficult to hold my weapon straight.
“YOU. Stuart, every single time you put any sort of newly-opened cheese packet back in the fridge, you just PUT IT IN THERE. You never wrap it! Or pull a handy ziploc bag -” I swing around to indicate the handiness of the bag cabinet, “- out of the bag cabinet and put the cheese in it! Mozzarella has DIED a slow, hardening death in there! SERIOUSLY, you’re still objecting to my hour of cheese-on-the-counter neglect?!”
We starts laughing harder.
“But,” he says, valiantly holding the line, “it’s so easy to just put it back in the fridge!”
“YES,” I yell, “which is exactly how you do it, you just PUT IT IN THE FRIDGE. Do I need to bring up the DEAD CHICKEN IN THE FREEZER episode?!”
Stuart sputters that frostburn on chicken (which he simply PUT in the freezer in its open original container without the all-holy assistance of wrapping HOLY GOD THE WRAPPING) doesn’t diminish the value of the chicken either way.
“THE BACTERIA… it…”, but I can’t talk for laughing now, because it’s my turn up against the wall, I genuinely don’t know WHAT the bacteria will do, it’s a flawed argument, I just don’t like FREEZERBURN CHICKEN but I had to go haul the bacteria into it. Nevertheless, I press on. “Raw chicken has bacteria!”
“And they’re going to, what? Suddenly come alive in the frying pan only to DIE SECONDS LATER?” He imitates bacteria here, which may be the last recognizable straw of my ability to technically count this as a fight, because I’m sputtering and laughing and pounding his chest: “Oh, hello, I’m awake -AUGH AIE FIRE DEATH,” and the bacteria go dead.
The thing is, technically this is a fight. Technically, we have a real communication breakdown about the need to WRAP THINGS BEFORE YOU PUT THEM IN THE FRIDGE, and the need to not bring up pointless arguments about bacteria that you can’t back up with science. Technically, that was a fight. But it’s really hard to snarkily deccimate someone else’s argument when they’re imitating bacteria dying in a frying pan, or when you know you don’t stand a chance in hell arguing about the cheese on the counter because all I have to do is BRING UP THAT DEAD WITHERED TEN DOLLAR MOZZARELLA, you know the one.
I think it’s fair to simply conclude that both factions have winning points. My winning point is the dead mozzarella.
The very astute amongst you will have noticed that the navigation bar right up there has changed a little, with the addition of a Books button. That’ll take you to a page where I’ll do my damndest to update the books I’m reading, as I read them. I’ve always been asked for book recommendations by friends but it’s gotten more frequent now that I’m writing for gothamist and when Stephanie asked today, I had to rack my brain for what I’d really enjoyed recently. Reviewing, too, is clouding the list because I spend so much more time thinking about the books I review, I can’t remember which of the books I’ve read for pleasure are worth recommending.
So if you’re looking for recommendations and you think you might share my taste (Erin, back away from the list), you’re more than welcome to keep an eye on that page and pick out a choice treat. I’ll star each book roughly from one to four. And if all else fails, you can always read Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife.
Unrelated to books, I’d like to blush and stammer with pride for a moment and say that after a gentle nudge in the right direction from Biscuit, I built the Books template myself. And by “built”, of course, I mean “copied and pasted from my Links template”, but still. Baby steps down the hall to website-maintenance independence. I also rebuilt all the navigation buttons myself which was hard because it required math. And I went to Sarah Lawrence, bitches, I don’t do math.
