April 2008 Archives

Since I started this list last week, I've been more attentive to the opportunities around me. I've always been the sort of girl who carries a small notebook for various reasons but this list has had me pulling it out the minute they occur to me, so as not to lose my grasp on the wispy skirts of cool ideas.

26. Know enough about architecture to recognize the major schools and movements, particularly the churches.
27. Fill up a moleskine front to back with nothing but writing and story ideas.
28. Go back to the town in which I was born (BA, Argentina).
29. Own a Vespa.
30. Teach a writing workshop.
31. Drive a four-wheeled car through a shallow riverbed crossing.
32. Climb Kilimanjaro.
33. Have dinner with Bill Bryson.
34. Be involved with my alma mater.
35. Adopt a dog who suits the name Caspian (this one's about a decade old but still important).
36. Learn Greek.
37. Buy (and look great in!) a moderately expensive pair of amazing jeans.
38. Have Adirondack chairs, and a great porch to put them on.
39. Publish a short story in Granta.
40. Know my way around the lesser-known flowers.
41. Learn how to make perfect marinara sauce from scratch.
42. Hold a baby wild animal in my hands (or arms).
43. Throw the perfect anniversary party for Stuart and myself, in our tenth year, and then again at 25.
44. Serve on the Board for an organization close to my heart or ideals.
45. Live in England.
46. Give a toast at a close friend's wedding (Erin, Beth, I'm looking at you).
47. Take my parents to dinner at Peter Luger.
48. See the Alhambra with Stuart.
49. Take portraits of all my friends.
50. Own the complete unabridged OED, in twenty volumes.

I like going to the Greek church with my dad every year, which surprises people who know me but shouldn't surprise anyone who really does. I like the moment the lights go out and the old is extinguished and the new is brought out, and the slow progress of candlelight through the church. I like symbolism even if the deeper meaning isn't ultimately mine.

I like the sounds of the cantor, and the arch of the priest's eyebrows as he reads the Epistle of St. John, and the stiff, nervous altar boys as they progress through the church with the sacrament. I like singing the Christos Anesti bit, even though it's all phonetic, and I like seeing the origins of language in the words, like cosmos and photos and necron. I'm not crazy about the standing parts I confess but since a few Alexander lessons have lodged under my belt it's an interesting time to practice.

I like, most of all, being there with my dad. I hope it's not terrible to anyone that I don't say the Nicene Creed or the Lord's Prayer anymore because they feel so sacred, and personal, so meaningful if you're saying them right. I follow along with the Greek, recognizing the letters and recognizing my heritage and I hope that's alright.

Happy easter to anyone who's celebrating today. Let's all eat of meat! That part I'm wholly behind.

1. Sing an old Gershwin or Porter standard in a lounge act, just once.
2. Learn how to eat, and enjoy, seafood.
3. Write a novel and have it published.
4. Drive across the US. Slowly.
5. Walk across all the major bridges in New York City.
6. Spend New Year's Eve on a beach.
7. Own a boat.
8. Learn Welsh.
9. Have babies. Maybe two. Not at the same time.
10. Take a vacation in wine country. Any wine country.
11. Officiate a wedding.
12. Learn to bake bread, do it often.
13. Go back to Kenya.
14. Scuba dive.
15. Fill a whole wall in our home with photos of friends and family.
16. Learn to garden.
17. Gut-renovate a house, or at least a room in a house.
18. Ride a tandem bike.
19. Try colored contacts, even just for fun.
20. Learn some jazz songs on the piano.
21. Donate to WNYC during a pledge drive.
22. See Bob Dylan in concert before, you know, he dies.
23. Go back to Greece with my parents again.
24. Build my own darkroom.
25. Get a master's degree.

Inspired by the matchless Maggie Mason. Not inspired by that Jack Nicholson/Morgan Freeman vehicle. Suggestions welcome on how to cross these off, or do share some of your own.

One Friday night in early October when my occasional cigarette had become oh, a pack or two a week habit again, we were finishing dinner and Stuart was going to pop down to the store for something and I asked him, shamefully, if he’d bring me a fresh pack. I think that was Stuart’s break point; he’d been quietly un-judgies about my slide back into smokerdom but that night he asked if I was ever really going to stop. And no, he wasn’t going to buy those cigarettes.

He went to the store and my heart broke a little because I didn’t like the weakness and the addiction, although I did (and probably still would) always enjoy smoking itself. When he came home I said that maybe I should try the patch. I said I’d start the next day. Some part of me said it on a whim - maybe to redeem myself to Stuart, maybe to dare myself into trying. Regardless, I meant it. An hour or so later, when I was going batty from a few hours’ withdrawal, Stuart admitted he had bought a pack, and did I want just one, before bed?

It was the kindest thing he could have done, and probably the hardest. But I had that one and made him promise he’d take the pack and throw it away immediately. I didn’t even want to see it.

The next day, as I was tidying before we went out to brunch with a stop at the drugstore for patches, I noticed some books sticking out of the shelf. When I pushed them in, I realized there was something behind them. The pack, hidden by Stuart in the way I used to hide them when I was secretly smoking. My heart dropped out the bottom of my feet. Stuart was at the grocery store. Here I was in the house with them, freshly resolved to give them up. I could take one. I could smoke it and throw away the tough-cornered willpower I’d found last night.

I don’t know how long I stood there but something forced me to push down the ridiculous tears and put the goddamned things on the kitchen table. I kept cleaning. Furiously. I avoided the kitchen. When Stuart came home I told him, and he heard where we stood, Cigarettes and I. Maybe that was the first time we both realized I was serious. Then he took me to the drugstore and helped me put the patch on and took me to a delicious brunch and I haven’t had a cigarette in six months, today, not even one. Which, so that you have some context, is the longest I’ve ever gone. I don't think any moment was as hard as the one standing at the bookshelf holding my beloved Camel Lights, so it's good I got the worst out of the way first. It's also good to have my prize.

See, two weeks later, as he agreed that night of the last cigarette, we went to the shelter and came home with Nano. Stuart told me I couldn’t smoke and have a dog. Beyond the practicality of not being able to afford the two fairly expensive habits, he knew he could give me something on which to pin my resolve. It worked. He still jokes that if I go back to smoking, he’ll take Nano back to the shelter but we both know Nano is for keeps. So are my slowly recuperating lungs.

Anyone else facing the crushing purposeless ennui of Not Quite Spring? You might not believe this but I’ve survived all winter on about six sweaters because I’ve been too lazy to unpack our winter stuff from the storage unit - and hey! Before you get all whiny at me for having a storage unit, our bedroom is the size of a postage stamp. When relatively compared to my sweater collection.

Where am I going with this? Oh, I’m sick of wearing six sweaters! April, sack up ho.

However there was plenty of convivial laughter at drinks with my crowd last night and it reminded me that even when we don’t all make it into one dimension we are a multi-petaled flower of awesome! Especially when I realized I was showing off pictures of someone’s new someone on Luke’s iPhone like some kinda crazy yenta grandmama. Look at those cheeks! Puddemthere.

Did you know Stuart is going to the fair and pleasant land next week? You people should send chocolates and puppies oh wait! I have both. Maybe I will post little two-hundreds here for Stuart to read from Old Wighty. Maybe I’ll just call him. Love! It ages well.