Nostalgia

I just started a book called Downtown, by Pete Hamill, which I am already deeply fond of, in part because the subject – downtown Manhattan – is near to my heart. (At the moment, my heart is in fact in downtown Manhattan, since I’m writing this on my lunch break at work). Hamill says something in the very first chapter that struck me as curious, and in the couple days since I read it, and this being the holiday season, has resounded further and further into my life. The title of the chapter is “The Capital of Nostalgia,” and in it he talks about the impermanence of New York. “The New York version of nostalgia is not simply about lost buildings or their presence in the youth of the individuals who lived with them. It involves an almost fatalistic acceptance of the permanent presence of loss. Nothing will ever stay the same.”

The part that I keep ruminating on is this thing he says later on the page: “New York toughens its people against sentimentality by allowing the truer emotion of nostalgia. Sentimentality is always about a lie. Nostalgia is about real things gone. Nobody truly mourns a lie.” I thought it was curious at first because I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, and it struck me as a little overly semantic. But lately, I’ve been overwhelmed by the urge to watch Christmas movies, and when I do, or even when I see one of those holiday commercials specially engineered to tug at your heartstrings, I feel an ecstatic sadness well up in me. Ecstatic! I want to watch these movies, and I want to weep and weep over them, and I can’t figure out why.

But I think, now, that it’s sentimentalism (in which case, I clearly have several more years here before New York toughens me up). I’m mourning a lie. I’m weeping because there is an idea of Christmas on screen that I miss deeply, even though it does not exist in reality and never did. But it’s difficult to tell where sentimentality and nostalgia end and begin. I got emotional last night trying to recall the words of Clement Moore’s “The Night Before Christmas,” and I couldn’t tell how much of that was triggered by the imagery it provokes and its place in our culture as a holiday classic or if it was because mine is a family that cherishes such imagery and such classics, and that owns a beautifully illustrated book of that poem that my parents would read out loud come Christmastime. It was and still is easy to picture my parents, whose version of nightwear is delightfully old-fashioned, as “Ma in her kerchief and I in my cap,” settling their brains and so on. Something mass-marketed becomes something close to home, and vice verse. (Just for fun, this is a close approximation of what we looked like on Christmas morning)

So I’m finding it hard to suss out, this December, the things I am truly nostalgic for, but I feel I should. I want to be reminded, as we are often called to do, of what’s important to me, and I want to honor it. Having said that, I’m inclined to indulge the sentimentalism as well. It’s fun. I just bought three cheesy Christmas movies online, for instance, and I do intend to watch all of them.

A new entry

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but my sister is one of the coolest people I know. There are so many reasons for this that listing them seems like an insurmountable task, but I bring it up for a specific reason: My sister has a blog. I have a blog. Neither of us have updated our blogs in a long time (with me being by far the worser perpetrator). In fact, the last time I talked with my sister about how I hadn't updated my blog in too long a time, she said "Why? Haven't you eaten any good food lately?" Like I said, my sister is cool. And funny.

Anyway, she just called me to say "Hey! I haven't updated my blog in a while and you haven't updated your blog in a while. Want to hang up, each write a blog entry, and then call each other back to talk about it?" It was an offer I couldn't refuse. And here I am.

This brings up a kind of poignant issue for me, which is my lack of motivation to write. And when I say "lack of motivation," I think that I mean "big tangled bundle of fears, worries, defeatist thoughts, and habitual avoidance." I'm not totally sure. I find it a difficult thing to think about, in a pretty literal sense. I was once asked, point blank, "What are you scared of that makes you not write?" And all I could offer was a tearful "I don't know." Trying to answer that question felt like trying to pin the tail on the donkey and not even being able to find the wall.

But I've been making myself think about it a lot more, lately, and those seem to be my basic roadblocks: fear, worries, defeatist thoughts, and the subsequent, habitual avoidance. In fact, all of them are habitual, and there's some comfort in the familiarity of that. Enough that when my sister called me to say "let's blog!" I felt a small panic: this would mean setting myself up for failure, again, when I feel I've already failed at blogging. What if I write this one post and then never again? What does that mean about me? Nothing good, I am sure. And on and on....

It's so hard to break that negative thought cycle and so easy to stay in safe habits. Easy except for that part of me that wants to write and isn't getting enough oxygen. So thank you, Tasia, for making me take a breath.

HELP!

Friends, for the seven-thousand-millionth time in my life, I am wishing I could be in two places at once. This Saturday (the 22nd) evening, I am going to the second bachelorette party I have ever been to and am psyched! Bachelorette parties, I am coming to understand, involve many of my favorite things: girly-time, drinking, over-the-top entertainment a la drag or burlesque, and penis pops. (Just kidding about that last one. I find the penis-shaped accoutrement to be pretty awful, and I'm not just saying that because my dad reads this blog).

HOWEVER. I then came to find out that a band I would pay ten whole dollars to see is playing this same night - Saturday, the 22nd - for TEN DOLLARS!! At 10pm, at Pianos. I would actually pay more than ten dollars to see this band because this is my friend Dave's band and I have heard rumors about Dave being in a band for quite some time now, and they are finally coming to fruition, just beyond my grasp.

So, dear friends, if you happen to be in NYC, will you go to this show and then tell me all about it? Please?? Dave is very talented and knows much esoteric music, including but not limited to the math rock movement of which Polvo is a part (remember?), so it should be pretty great. Plus Pianos is a good venue, and you can eat somewhere great before/after. Like the Pink Pony.

I mean, that's how I would do it anyway, if I wasn't busy sucking on a penis pop.

Not incidentally, they're called Saturday Astrology. Incidentally, Dave happens to have just married my friend Ixiana, the afore-mentioned pet photographer, AND they just got married. Please tell the happy couple hello for me!

Holy more corn Batman!

Readers! No sooner had I finished my poetical corn waxings of last night than Lance and I went out for some gourmet dinner bites and old-fashioned cocktails at the Clover Club. This is a generally delightful spot in our hood where they take great care with their prohibition-era cocktails (I say generally because of one bad service experience there, which was made up for by the cheerful and competent service of our waitress yesterday eve). We all know how I love a jazz-age cocktail, and the ones at the Clover Club are very good. Their food, I think, is even better. Up until last night, I had tried the crostini, deviled eggs (four ways!), cheese plate, lamb burger, mac&cheese and "Oysters Rock Your Face Off" - their deep-fried (and thus extra decadent) take on Oysters Rockefeller. All of these things have been truly special treats.

Last night I had my heart set on the lamb burger, but just for fun I added something I hadn't seen before: corn fritters. And oh. my. god.

I tried making corn fritters once. They were not very successful. I had done what the recipe said and boiled corn on the cob to subsequently take the corn off the cob by hand, which resulted in too little corn and was a big pain in the ass. I had also fried the fritters in a pan, which made them ooze into pancake-like discs, even though I used a good amount of oil. I don't know what else went wrong (I don't deep-fry my own food often, so that's probably a good part of it) but they were just incredibly disappointing. I remember disgruntledly vowing that if I ever made those fritters again, I would at very least use frozen. Corn freezes exceptionally well.

But at the Clover Club, I could tell they used fresh sweet corn, and the flavor of those tiny pearls of sugary corn popping in your mouth and mixing with the crisp salty fritter batter and the creamy/smoky/salty remoulade - THIS was happiness in a single bite! Plus they clearly have their own deep-fryer, resulting in perfect, evenly-cooked, light little spheres of goodness. I couldn't get over how completely palate-pleasing and mood-enhancing these fritters were, and given that I'd just shared my literal corny-ness with y'all, I felt it essential to follow up with this account.

Now if I could just figure out how to have those fritters and the fried cheese curds from Char no. 4 down the street in one sitting (the only fried cheese curds I have found in the entire eastern seaboard!) I would be in Midwestern heaven.

Steamy Corn in the Cup!

I know it is a crazy steamy day here in NYC and probably elsewhere, and you may not be in the mood to read about a tasty hot treat. If so, please to revisit this post when it's raining. I'm sure, given how this summer has been going, that you won't have to wait long.

It was raining to beat the band two Fridays ago when I had plans to meet my buddy and her buddy for the free Polvo concert at South Street Seaport. (Note: I did not know about Polvo prior to these plans being made. You may not have heard of them either. You should find out.) It was pouring with no signs of stopping, and it was a little cool, too, and by the time I got to the seaport my feet were soaked and I was a good half hour early. So there I was feeling a little pathetic when I took shelter under the highway and noticed this:
This is a terrible picture, but do you see what it says? Do you see? STEAMY CORN IN THE CUP! What IS this, I thought to myself, and do I need to investigate? It took me very little time to come up with the answer: why, of course.

You won't hear waxing poetic about savory snacks very often, not because I don't enjoy savory snacks but because sweet ones usually take mental precedence. But as a general rule of savory thumb, I can't get enough corn. I once proudly declared to Jamie Oliver that I was a corn-fed girl, and because this was at a reading when I was getting an autograph and not over an intimate dinner (as I would have preferred), I did not get a chance to properly explain when he looked properly baffled. Had we been at dinner, I would have said, "You see, Jamie, I'm from the great plains of the Midwest, where fields of corn reach as far as the eye can see. I was raised eating the choicest of sweet, seasonal corns, and running through the fields with my friends on warm summer evenings as the sun turned the corn tassels gold." Then he would have kissed me, obvi.

Anyway, when they say steamy corn in the cup, they mean it. This amazing gent, who's name I failed to get because I am a shoddy reporter......raises that silver, domed lid you see in front of him, and in a swirl of delicious, corny-smelling steam, dishes piping hot, fat and juicy kernels of corn into a cup in front of you. Then you get to choose your toppings. Yes, toppings!

I got the Firetastic. It was phenomenal. I mean DANG it was some tasty steamy corn in the cup! It was all I could do not to get a second one. I especially can't wait to go back and try the one with honey. Here is a picture of the corn that remained when my friends finally got there and I could borrow one of their cameras:
Believe me, it took everything I had to leave even this much left. All for your viewing pleasure, dear readers!

Incidentally, the Polvo concert got moved to Brooklyn Bowl later that night and we went and it was EFFING GREAT. Not the venue, just the band. Srsly, check them out.

Country Donuts

I think I said in an earlier blog that I was off donuts and onto ice cream for the summer - oh how foolish! You would think that on a recent steamy-hot day, as my friends and I made our way to St. George Stadium in Staten Island for some BK Cyclones vs. SI Yankees action, that ice cream would be on the brain, but this was not the case, for as we rounded the corner to reach our designated stadium entrance, I saw something I found very exciting.

"Does that say 'Country Donuts'?" I asked my friends, shielding my eyes and pointing across the street, while trying not to freakishly jump up and down, squealing.

"Looks like it!" They replied. Lance just laughed. Luckily, these friends were on my wavelength, and we headed over to grab some samples to take to the game with us.

"Will they let us into the park with donuts?" I asked.

"Sure, they don't care!" one friend replied.

Wrong. But I think the security guard was amused. So, despite a preference to eat donuts while watching minor-league ball and gazing out over the field to the water and the city in the distance, we gobbled our fried, frosted cakes in the blazing sun outside the stadium. Four donuts, split four ways. All of them DELICIOUS! If you do the math, that adds up to five stars to Country Donuts, with extra props for the chocolate glazed, which won the Best Donut contest of the day, though by, of course, a small margin. The others were plain glazed, vanilla-frosted raised, and chocolate-frosted raised, and they were each fresher and tastier than your average donut.

Seriously, these donuts are worth the trip. I'd put them up there with the Donut Pub, quality-wise, and if you'd heard me extol the virtues of the Donut Pub, you know that's saying a lot. The selection is smaller, but the off-the-beaten-path thrill is pretty good. Here's a map. Let me know what you think.

P.s. I'd never Yelped the Donut Pub before, but anyone who gave it less than five stars is now on my shit list, especially three-star David L., who, if you'll notice, mentions both that he can't remember some of the kinds he tried and that he rarely eats donuts! David L., please spare us all your inexpert opinions.

Summer eats

My blog! My readers, if you're out there! I have neglected you worse and worse this summer! And I have so much to say! For instance, I am currently eating a bowl of what is my favorite breakfast every summer: cereal with blueberries and peaches. I truly do this all summer every summer, as long as the blueberries and peaches are available, and it makes me happy every morning, a happiness that lasts sometimes right up until I get to work (as opposed to when I realize I really have to leave the house and GO to work)! Of course, warm weather and sunlight help, too, quite beyond description. I love summer so much I tend to spend as much of it outside doing as many various activities as possible, especially if they involve fresh and summery cocktails. I cannot count the number of mojitos I have imbibed since June, and last night, Lance took it upon himself to make a white sangria with St. Germain and about eleven different kinds of fruit - best sangria (that didn't really taste like sangria) ever!

But it is this constant activity that has kept me away from my wee, dying compy for the purpose of blogging. A lot of this activity has also involved eating and playing dress-up, but for now I'm I'm going to focus more on eating, mostly so I don't have to deal with uploading photos.

Yesterday two delightful coworkers and I decided to try out DBGB* - Daniel Boulud's new upscale-pretending-to-be-downscale "Kitchen and Bar"/gastropub/cafe or something. I think this restaurant has a bit of an identity crisis. The front room has an airiness that gives it the right casual feel, but the back room where the majority of the seating is is dark and somber, decor-wise, while not doing anything about sound insulation, so it looks like you're sitting in a modern steak-house but sounds like you're in a cafeteria. The menu is short and relatively straightforward, consisting of mostly burgers and sausages, but the waiters still emphasize the wine list and wipe down your leather placemats while rearranging your silverware between courses. Don't get me wrong, I love these hospitable touches in the right situation, but we were there for the burger - everyone was there for the burger - so messiness seemed more appropriate than fussiness, which did nothing to enhance our casual burger lunch, and it drew our attention to the service, highlighting how insufferably snooty and neglectful our waiter was. Before I talk about the food, a final pet peeve: we were offered only sparkling or still water, not tap. In a time and place where it seems somewhat common knowledge that bottled water, even spring water, is questionable in its environmental friendliness, authenticity, and certainly price, and that the tap water is some of the finest available, I do not want to have to ask for tap. Certainly not twice.

The food, though was very, very good. Since it is restaurant "week" in Manhattan and since I can not turn down an excuse to eat three courses, I ordered off the prix fixe menu, choosing butter lettuce with chives, the burger, and a ginger ice-cream sundae. The salad was delightful, the lettuce perfect, maybe a tad overdressed in a mustard and tarragon dressing, which made the chives get a bit lost, but I'm a tarragon fiend, so i didn't mind. The burger was quite an experience. I got mine with Vermont cheddar, and for the rest of the parts, they thankfully do not mess around - good quality lettuce, tomato, and onion on a sesame seed bun. This is my favorite way to have a burger - simple - but in this case it went further to show off the burg itself, which was simply the highest quality burger patty I have come across. The temperature was perfect, the patty even in its thickness, and the meat so tasty, and so lean-seeming, but incredibly juicy and texturally fine. In a way, it was almost strange - a bit like the restaurant itself - to have such a fine thing masquerading as a greasy, plebeian American classic.

Dessert was delectable, my ginger ice cream came with a berry coulis that was bright in both color and flavor and complimented the ginger perfectly. It also came with a handful of neon-green lime-flavored mini-marshmallows and about three tiny, tiny vanilla cookies, but they were mostly just fun things to find in a sundae, and didn't add too much to the overall flavor experience.

So I guess maybe this restaurant exists for people who want to have a pub-like experience without actually setting foot in a place so gross as a pub, but myself, I prefer one or the other. I might have to go back, though...there were some cocktails on the menu I'd very much like to try.

*Dear readers, I wanted to provide you with a site for this as well, but my compy is so sad that the one for Monsieur Boulud practically broke it.

Petless

Hey y'all! I can't believe I haven't posted something new in over a week! You must think I ran out of costumes. Not so. But that may have to wait until the next post, since there's something I've been meaning to write about, and it's really rather sad.

I have no pets.

See? You're already getting all teary-eyed. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause you any pain. It's not really that bad. Frankly, most of the time I don't notice the lack of pets in my life since I'm too busy dressing up and staring in mirrors for hours on end. But things are always conspiring to remind me that furry creatures can be a great joy in one's life, and that one's boyfriend is not always an acceptable substitute even if his hair is getting rather shaggy.

Item A: my friend Ixiana. She has a pet-photographing business and is ALWAYS having specials and deals for which she sends out adorable little email flyers that just kill me with their cuteness. I mean, look!


This was from the Easter special, obvi. I know it's demented, but that's one of the things I would do with a pet: put funny hats on them and then fall around laughing cause they're so freaking cute with stuff on their heads.

So if that's not torture enough, Item B: remember when I was talking about Herrell's like five thousand years ago? Well, I had a friend who worked there. Of course I hadn't remembered this because she worked summers and I was always back in the Midwest over summers, but I had NOT forgotten a few salient facts about her. 1. She was really cool and pretty. 2. She was wonderful painter with a really gorgeous style. So this particular girl finds me on facebook recently, which couldn't make me happier, and guess what she's doing these days?


That's right! Painting beautiful portraits of peoples' pets! Also she's still cool and pretty.

So tell me, what am I supposed to do with two amazing pet-commemorative options and no pets to commemorate?

Anyone out there I can live vicariously through?

Places

First of all, MASSIVE THANKS to all you wonderful readers, whether or not you have made yourself known (of course, if you haven't made yourself known there's a chance you don't exist and I am inventing you out of my legendary vanity, or that you exist and are not wonderful, but let's, for the sake of making this thank you as grandiose as possible, assume you do and are). It is bringing me great joy and excitement to write out little ditties for public consumption, and that joy and excitement are quadrupled (minimum, respectively) every time I hear from someone or just imagine someone reading these ramblings. So, thank you thank you thank you.

Now, on to the ramblings...

I get places stuck in my head like songs, sometimes. Does this happen to anyone else? It's always happened to me on and off, but it seems like it's been on, lately, extra on. Places are stuck in my head all the time these days, for reasons I really can't guess, and there's a trend, too, that I never noticed before: the same actual places triggering the same head places. An example: for the past I don't even know how many times I've "come to rest" in savasana - that pose at the end of yoga where you lie on the floor and try to do and think nothing - I don't just not think nothing, as is my wont, but I find myself envisioning Thornes, the homey-yet-upscale little shopping complex in Northampton, MA, where my friends and I used to go in college to look wistfully at things we couldn't afford. And not just a general picture of Thornes, either, no, once entering the place my mind goes straight to Herrell's, the ice cream shop around the back on the street level where they hand-chopped candy bars to smush into your hand-made ice cream on a marble countertop - like Coldstone but before Coldstone.

I realize as I write this how few times I treated myself to this deliciousness, even when with friends who did, and that the reason was that I was always trying to avoid my one true addiction - sugar - a practice that I maintain to this day, as unsuccessfully now as I did back then. It is truly bizarre to me that I have been able to successfully avoid Mr. Softee for two summers running now and yet succumb to eating donuts nearly regularly. It is like I am constantly using up what I mentally consider my sugar allotment on donuts or, much worse, cookies or brownies left over from meetings at work, and have no room left for ice cream.

But I have been changing that this summer, indulging in ice cream more often because it makes summer SUMMER, even if most of June is rain. So maybe that's why Herrell's has been showing up in my savasana dreams. Either way, I'm sorry, donuts. I'll be back for you in the fall. And Herrell's, I'll see you in yoga.

And for my next trick...

Ya'll, it's father's day, and the weather in New York is beautiful. Do you know what the weather does not actually need to be beautiful for? Father's day. No offense to my father or any other wonderful fathers out there, but we could celebrate and love you just as much in the rain. Do you know what is harder to do in the rain? The Mermaid Parade.


So I'm going to try to make this quick because I still have to call my dad because I couldn't earlier because my phone died and I was cat-sitting at someone else's house...and Poppy, if I don't reach you tonight, I hope you know how much I love you and think you're a terrific dad.

I also love the Coney Island Mermaid Parade with all the fibers in my wee heart, but I have to say that it has always produced several challenges, first and foremost it's being held every year on the same weekend as my birthday (or whatever weekend falls closest), which means that I am either hungover for the parade or have to leave earlier than I'd otherwise choose to in order to have a bday party. Either way, I always miss the Mermaid Ball. (I know I could have a bday party at Coney, technically, but I am vain and on the one day of the year when I feel completely allowed to be openly vain, I don't want to share the glory with such fabulousness as the Mermaid Parade.)


THIS YEAR, the parade did NOT fall on my bday, lo and behold! Once again I uncharacteristically made plans in advance to go, bought a dress, the whole thing. Only this time, my chosen companion fell ill, none of my other friends, including Lance, wanted to go (who are these people and why are they my friends?), and I had last-minute guests arriving that night. Fine. I adjusted my goals, decided to go to the parade on my own, and hoped to convince the guests to join me later for the ball. Then what happened? It POURED. And was cold. And I'd like to count my blessings and be happy for the miracle of the rain stopping just as the parade started, but by that time my dress was soaked through the sequins, a serious wind was coming off the ocean, and my back hurt (due to being on my feet most of the previous day, in heels, at a stupid work function, oh, and the fact that my dress was so tight I couldn't sit on the subway). Oh the agony!

Thank god for the paraders, who are worth the trip every year. I took as many pictures as I could before my teeth started chattering, then boarded the subway to stand all the way home. I still love the Mermaid Parade with all the fibers of my wee heart, and still hope to one day make it to the ball, but I might start lobbying for it all to go down in July.


p.s. Mer-hons, no? Worlds collide.

I am not allergic to fish

I know you were worried. I was, too, after I ate a rarely-done tuna burger yesterday (a delicious, rarely-done tuna burger with wasabi aioli, natch) and noticed near the end of it that I was feeling a little flushed. Gee, I thought, next time I'll remember not to rush into finishing a giant tuna burger just because it's delicious and I have to get back to work. In general, I thought, a good reminder that I don't need to eat what's on my plate just because it's on my plate even if it's delicious.

Back at work, I run to the bathroom before returning to my desk and see that my cheeks have an unusually rosy glow, the kind I usually have to apply blush to get. Actually, on second look, my whole face looks a little red, and not even in the way that it does on the rare occasion that I do aerobic exercise. "Does my face look red?" I say to my co-worker on the way back to my desk. Her response indicates that it actually looks a bit purple and is freaking her out.

Mayhem ensues; I'm getting recommendations from everyone on the floor, I'm having to tell my brief tuna burger story repeatedly, assure people repeatedly that no, I have no other symptoms and no, I don't have any allergies, and purple? Really? Meanwhile, I can't tell anymore what's an "allergic reaction" and what's embarrassment. A nurse on staff recommends I go out for some Benadryl, which I do, and according to the instructions, take 2. "You took two?!" my boss asks when I give her the update. I nod. "You're going to be asleep in an hour." I am shocked to hear this. "Oh, I say, I guess I should have gotten non-drowsy...I just didn't see any on the shelf." "There is no non-drowsy Benadryl," she says. She is disappointed. Understandably - it's only three o'clock. And I am further embarrassed for not knowing this, and defeated, since I had evening plans I was looking forward to. Later I found out that the friend I'd been to lunch with who had the same thing, also got flush and, what's more, sick to her stomach, which is a fate I avoided.

So I went home early, slept for two hours, and was fine. I had read on the internet that there are some types of fish-related food-poisoning that mimic an allergic reaction, and I was clinging to this hope because there are certain things that getting older has brought to me that are unpleasant (needing more sleep, carpal tunnel) and I know there are more to come, but if seafood allergies was one of them, I would truly have a nervous breakdown.

GOOD NEWS! I am not, as you may have guessed from this post's title, allergic to seafood. How do I know? I just had sushi for dinner.

It's Honfest, hon!

Some of you might have heard mention of my unnatural love for the city of Baltimore. Well, hon, this is the icing on the cake. (Above, me and a pack of young hons, brown-bagging it and wearing a necklace I bought at a vintage booth and later realized was a belt).

I don't remember how I stumbled upon knowledge of Honfest, but I knew I had to go. This was what, three years ago? It was at the height of my lust for Bawlmer and I was devastated that I had - typically - just missed it. Another year passed, and something came up that prevented me from going, probably one of those weddings people keep having. Then a curious thing happened. I was writing a blog post, yes the very same blog post preceding this one, yammering about how rarely I actually find out about and then attend these annual-type events, when suddenly said yammering reminded me of my most egregious case of annual event non-attendance, Honfest. You, good readers, might not have been able to tell, but WHILE COMPOSING THE PREVIOUS POST I was also finding out that, lo! Behold! Honfest was in TWO DAYS!

I did the only rational thing I could think of - I set off a flurry of texting that resulted in sudden plans for me and Lance to take the bus down on Saturday, stay with some friends, and Honfest it up.

Honfest is in the Hampden neighborhood where, as our host jovially put it, the freaks live. The nabe is a good part of my reason for loving Baltimore and the presence of the freaks is surely a good part of why. So after arriving on the bus, we traipsed across the Johns Hopkins campus to Hampden and encounted an enormous street fair. At first I was disappointed - Honfest is just a street fair? But it was a fabulous street fair, which lots and lots of fun artsy-crafty booths, Bawlmer kitsch, and stands selling crab cake sandwiches with giant tins of Old Bay seasoning as the only condiment. Also, funnel cakes, re-named for the occasion.


Part of the problem with my obsession with Baltimore, hons, and Honfest, is an inability to fully describe what they are, much less why they are so great (yes, people know what Baltimore is, but often in only the crudest sense). There were many varieties of hons at the Honfest, from young rockabilly hons to the truest type of hon - the woman in the purple housecoat with matching fuzzy slippers and rollers in her hair that, despite all the purple and despite the festival, seemed to be merely in her usual get-up. As if, should you walk through Hampden on a different day, you would see her wearing the same thing, hanging up laundry and saying "Hot enough for you, hon?" while her younger floozy sister was down at Cafe Hon wearing a slightly sexier version of the same outfit and asking patrons "you need more coffe, hon?"


That, anyway, is my own interpretation. The other part of the problem is almost too shameful to admit. We'd missed round one of the Best Hon competition on Saturday, but we were sure that on Sunday, which was the day of the 2nd, final round, we'd finally see some hon action that would elevate Honfest from a streetfair to an EVENT (the two stages had otherwise been filled with kid dance troops or folk singers - not bad, but not EVENTful). Sadly, when the time came for the competish, the only thing I could see getting elevated was hair. I waited in line for an hour for this beehive, and missed the Best Hon getting crowned, but it was worth it.


And it didn't stop me from brazenly getting my picture taken with the Hon of the Year. Note her flamingo gown.

I love the flamingo butt.

So the mystery remains on what makes Bawlmer's best hon. Is there a talent portion? Do they have to answer a question about hons and politics and world peace? There's only one way to find out, and that's to return next year. Baltimore, I'll see you soon.

p.s.

Did I mention Tove went in drag??


Though she did end up putting on pants and a tie.

Also, more pictures on Metromix of all the fabulous revelers including yours truly and my merry companions.

Jazz Age Lawn Party!

In my life it seems there are endless things I learn about after the fact that I wish, wish, wish I had known about in advance, even if they are things that I am actually unlikely to go to if given the chance. It's the missing them that makes it poignant.

Not so with the annual Governor's Island Jazz Age Lawn Party!! I was thrilled to catch wind of this a full month ago in a rare fit of web surfing and immediately acted upon it with equally uncharacteristic organization, adding it to my google calendar with a reminder, and emailing my friend Tove who is my equal, nay my superior, in the love of all things 1920s. Tove, by the by, has her own blog which I feel safe in saying is also superior to this one, as it is both beautiful and intellectual (while I can say the same for myself, I am not sure I can fully claim this for my wee rants/raves).

So, not only was Tove on board with her swell fella, my man was on board, too, proving his own swellness by taking me out for a brunch and hat-shopping date. Yes, even writing it makes me swoon. Incidentally, this is the second time we have patronized The Village Scandal, the second time I have tried on and fallen for a hat, and the second time Lance has said "Please let me buy you that hat." Ladies! Hands off, he's mine!

Okay, this isn't him, though, this is me with the best costume there - a vintage hobo. He had a can of peas and a wooden spoon, string suspenders and everything.


HERE'S my man, lookin' stern:



He is serious about his gin.

Strangely there was actually no gin to be had at event, but it wasn't missed too much by me, a) because I am (gasp) not the greatest gin lover and b) because what they had instead was a St. Germain and prosecco cocktail - by far my new favorite. There was also an old-timey band with an old-timey microphone that was very hard for me to not jump in front of and start singing. There was dancing OF COURSE and lots more fancy dress, and in general I would like there to be many more events like this. Next time I will remember to dance and drink more! Jazz age lawn parties are not a time to be shy.

Mais oui, j'adore le cirque

I did not mean to be sly in continuing to mention the circus without specifying that it was not anything so grossly plebeian as those three ring affairs with the animals. Non! This girl got to go see the new Cirque du Soleil show, Kooza. Koooooooooza! It is, I am told, a Sanskrit word meaning "box" - in the literal sense, as my friend was quick to point out, either because he is a dirty thinker himself or saw the dirty question forming in my mouth.

My friend is in the circus. Or, rather he is behind the scenes of the circus, though that does not mean he can't hold himself upside down on one hand. I had last seen him when he was going to l'Ecole Nationale de Cirque and had come to the city for a visit along with a handful of acrobatic friends. They were all gorgeous and they all spoke French, and I would turn around to see them crossing the street two-people high, standing on each other's shoulders, or dangling artistically from the handrails on the subway. At the time, though I fought it, the thrill and pride of touring the city with this magical bunch had a niggling negative undercurrent -- the feeling of being hopelessly monolingual, inflexible, un-muscular, and afraid of heights.

So when after five years I heard from my friend again, saying "if you're still in New York, I have a ticket for you," well, first I was obviously ecstatic. I couldn't wait to catch up with him, and I had never seen a Cirque du Soleil show before (a fact which, now that I've seen one, I find inexcusable. I MUST SEE THEM ALL!). But I also thought oh god, I am going to look frumpy and I am going to be tongue-tied and I am going to turn into the type of person I mock in Times Square who just can't believe they're in the big city or, in my case, the big top.

I would now like to assure you that this did not happen. Okay, I was tongue-tied for a minute, but then I just enjoyed it - seeing my friend, roving the grounds before the show and checking out the boutiques. And then, my god! The show! THE SHOW! If it is even possible to be so city-wise and cynical that you don't enjoy a show like that, I will happily remain in tourist mode forever. There were moments of almost religious grace, and there was an act that was more bad-ass than the most bad-ass punk show, and there were clowns that legitimately made me lmao.

Afterwards, brag, brag, brag, I got to go backstage and drink beers with some more circus people (acrobats: they're just like us! They drink beer!) and was shocked to find, once again, that I was just enjoying myself, my friend, and all the people around us. I did not feel overweight. It didn't bother me when they spoke to each other in other languages. I was having fun. At the risk of sounding cheesy, if I haven't crossed that line several times over already in this blog, it seems possible that in the last five years I may have gained a modicum of confidence. Though le Cirque deserves a heap of credit, I think - c'est vrais magique.

You should come!

Circus news must wait! I can delay no longer in sharing my excitement about an upcoming event that I'm lucky to be involved with: The GEMS 10th Birthday Party benefit!

GEMS is Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, which frankly sounds a bit tame when you consider what they do: "empower young women, ages 12-21, who have experienced sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking to exit the commercial sex industry and develop to their full potential." That's from their mission statement, so no, I didn't make it up. Ages 12-21. 12. And they are right here in NYC. Not Bangkok, not Mexico City, here.

It's hard to write about it without getting too worked up. Some of you know that I helped with another GEMS benefit at the beginning of the year, which was a screening of the Showtime documentary about GEMS, Very Young Girls. It was extremely difficult to watch, but extremely eye-opening, and - like a good cause should be (not to mention a good documentary) - hopeful.

Which is why I'm on board for another event, especially one that's also a celebration! 10 years of doing what GEMS does deserves a hearty party, so this one's going to have a DJ and cupcakes, as well as readings from GEMS founder Rachel Lloyd, organizer Janice Erlbaum (who in addition to being my favorite author introduced me to GEMS in the first place) and some of the girls themselves.

You should come. Really.

The peculiarities of this peculiar week

My favorite professor (Romance Literature) when I studied abroad in Ireland used "peculiar" a lot in terms of its 4th and 5th definitions according to the mighty and all-powerful dictionary.com:

4.	belonging characteristically (usually fol. by to): an expression peculiar to Canadians.

5.	belonging exclusively to some person, group, or thing: the peculiar properties of a drug.

He liked to say things like "Mary Shelley, here, addresses a problem she felt was peculiar to her sex." Peculiar to her sex. I freaking loved that.

Anyway, this is holy week in the Greek Orthodox Church, which despite assimilating to the commonly used Gregorian calendar in order to have Christmas on the 25th of December, still insists on using that old standby, the Julian calendar, to calculate Easter services. The result is an Easter that is always 1-4 weeks later than American Easter, giving me a great source of confused pride as a child.

I am not a practicing Orthodox Greek. I am not a practicing Greek in most senses that don't have to do with food, which to its credit, does count for a lot. I am not even fully Greek. But mostly, I am not fully religious, and this is a quandary when it comes to holy week, because, growing up, it was pretty special. There are services every night and we went to all of them; it was one of the few times in the year that anyone from the congregation did readings, and my sister and I were often honored with this task, trotting up to the front of the church to use our best diction in the name of God. On Good Friday there are services all day long, and we would get out of school especially to attend, joining all the little old ladies in decorating the epitaphion with hundreds of carnations while Father Nick shushed us and jangled the censor so that tufts of sweet smoke enshrouded the almost-life-size cutout of Jesus on his cross. In the evening, we marched around the church singing a beautiful dirge, we went to sleep with heavy hearts.

And then Saturday, the somber baking of the braided bread, the deep-red dying of dozens of eggs, going to sleep in our slips and tights with our hair already done so that my mother could wake us up before the midnight service, slip our dresses and hats on and prod us sleepily to the car. Or, when we got older, if we were lucky, Mamma would do our hair late at night before we left and we'd get to catch a few clandestine sketches on Saturday Night Live. The quiet, dark drive to church, the service full of mystery and candlelight while we sang in the choir and tried (unsuccessfully for my sister one year) not to let our perfectly curled, waist-length hair catch fire. Our hunger from fasting all evening was teased by the garlicky smell of lamb from the kitchen directly below the altar for the dinner we would all eat at 1am. And after all that, exhausted sleep followed by Easter Sunday afternoons, with family and egg hunts, easter baskets and more lamb, and the game with the red eggs that bestowed upon one child good luck for the entire year.

I miss my family from this era - the grandparents and aunts who are gone. I miss the ceremony of it all, and I miss the unquestioning that allowed it such weight. It is no wonder that I feel odd this week; more lacking in purpose than usual with none of my other plans seeming to fit. Not even the one involving the circus - another oddity of this week that shall have to wait for the next posting.

Louisiana or Bust

Y'all!!!

Terrifically unable to concentrate at work today due to a raging SPRING FEVER fueled by my recent, all-too-short trip to NEW ORLEANS and BATON ROUGE, in the Great American South, an area of which I cannot get enough. Here I sit at my desk (on my lunch break, of course, as I am a tres diligent employee), having attempted valiantly all morning to focus on the nit-picky tasks at hand when all I can really think about is:

1. When will my life become a place where I can afford and have places to wear the obscenely fantastic hats and dresses at Fleur de Paris in the Quatier Francais?

2. Why did I promise the friend I was visiting that I would be peppering my language with as much French as possible and then neglect to do so, and when can I go back to correct this grievous error? Mon Dieu!

3. Should I be so obnoxious as to try to learn Cajun French slang? They surely have some brilliantly bastardized version of "Mon Dieu"

3. Could I make a hat that good? Will I ever get around to investigating the options?

4. Could I have eaten more if I tried? I think I should have tried.

5. POURQUOI oh POURQUOI didn't I stay longer?

Having said that, we did manage to go on a swamp tour (avec over 20 alligators) , see an incredible sculpture garden, drive to the bottom of Louisiana (a different part of the state than New Orleans), drink Abita beers and drive-through daiquiris, eat boiled crawfish and boiled shrimp and Oysters Rockefeller and fresh beignets and OH MY GOD BANANAS FOSTERS, and walk around the French Quarter and drive around Baton Rouge and see my beloved Mississipi in both places (plus the view from the plane over Memphis, if you count my otherwise very trying layover).

Sadly, we did not see any nutra-rats with their crazy orange teeth. The alligators had eaten them. Next time!

slightly hungover, massively happy to be eating Bananas Foster

Shared obsession: Cafetasia

Oh my god I love Cafetasia. I can't even write it wittily. My two coworkers (who keep me afloat and sometimes even alive during the week) and I have been unable to tear ourselves away from weekly lunches there. Sometimes we have to go more than weekly just to feed the Cafetasia craving. O, Cafetasia, how are you so consistently good? You seat us promptly, your every dish we order is tasty, tasty, tasty, your lunch special comes with delicious appetizers. Your drink menu is so tempting.

I talk a lot about trying Cafetasia for dinner, since lunch doesn't seem like the right time to sample those fruity cocktails, even though I talk a lot about that, too - how I'm going to just go for it one day and have a two-mai-thai lunch. There are other, beckoning reasons to dine there for dinner - the extensive and enticing full menu, the candlelight. Then again, would I ever be able to tear myself away from those favorites from the lunch special? The green curry, the teriyaki, the petite cheese and crab rangoon? The Great and Holy Basil Udon (so good it inspired a mix CD)?

A downside is that it's pretty loud there - like, say, a cafeteria - which doesn't bother me much over lunch but might over dinner, though sometimes I wonder if it's the noise that's hampering my hearing or just my complete focus on my food. But mostly the problem is that I rarely want to stay in my work neighborhood longer than I have to. Maybe now that I no longer work in Midtown I'll finally start trying some of the fine eateries up there...then again, considering my financial situation, I'm probably better off sucking down basil udon until my belly is taut with happiness.

Department of My Vanity

I had to go to the DMV yesterday. Rather, I didn't actually have to go yesterday. It would not have been my choice to celebrate St. Paddy's at the DMV, but I had already unthinkingly scheduled some other things and put in for a personal day, so it seemed like I might as well time to hit up the DMV and get it over with. I had been meaning get a New York license for a while - had been trying to beam at bouncers in the city who carded me that I have actually lived here for quite some time - but the old one was due to expire in June and if I didn't replace it by then I would have to take a road test to get a new one. Considering that I failed my first three road tests on the quiet Midwestern streets where I grew up, my motivation was strong.

I know that the tribulations of dealing with governmental agencies has been widely documented, but here is the part I find most baffling about the DMV: In order to exchange my out-of-state license for a NY one, I had to take to the DMV my current license, my passport, and my social security card. In short, I WAS EXPECTED TO CARRY, ON MY PERSON, MY ENTIRE IDENTITY, including the part (SS card) that you're not ever supposed to carry, per the government's warnings, on your person. I have never been more fearful of getting mugged. Also, if you want to dress all scruffy to indicate that you have nothing to steal - careful. You're also getting your license picture taken.

That is why I had spent more time than almost ever getting gussied up for my close-up, strategically placing my documents in my undergarments, and cleverly hiding my natural glamor with a nothing-to-see-here jacket, then stripping the jacket off at the last minute to stand in front of the picture wall, that looked like all the other walls. Imagine my disappointment when the picture-taking lady didn't say smile, didn't tell me when she was taking the picture, and - worst! - didn't offer to let me see the result in case I wanted a re-do. I knew it was too much to hope for; this, more than the license exchange, is the real right of passage, the real evidence I'm not in Minnesota anymore.

I live in dread of getting a bad license picture in the mail and will be biting my nails until then.

Cup of Ambition

That could very well be the name of this blog - or maybe it couldn't since I didn't check to see if that name was available and it seems, on second thought, very likely that a Dolly Parton lover/coffe drinker/9-5er has taken it. Because it is, of course, my favorite lyric (and I'm sure I'm not alone here) from the song Nine to Five, by Dolly Parton: peerless rant about the day-job machine, theme song to the movie of the same name, AND, NOW, a Broadway Musical.

I don't know why I'm so excited about this. My mom and I watched the movie when I was too young to get why it made her laugh so much and now I'm left with merely the lingering suspicion that if I were to see it now, it would seem a bit too timeless a commentary on the slew of 9-5 jobs I myself have somehow wandered into and subsequently hated. Plus, I've been solidly in the snotty "why can't they come up with an original Broadway musical anymore?" camp for some time now.

But I love Dolly. The woman's a natural. If you haven't seen the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, you really owe it to yourself (it stars Burt Reynolds as the Sherrif). And I do work 9-5, still, and am starting to feel like I could use a full-fledged musical in my resentful little corner.

Here's the two things that really did it, though, and they're both right there on the discount flier that showed up in my mail last week:
1. Allison Janney. Allison Janney! This is almost enough said, but on the flier there is a picture of her doing some cabaret number in a white three-piece suit. Now enough said.
2. I'm ashamed to admit it, and I will say that at first I was insulted by the very concept, but if you order tickets with the discount my flier offers, you get a bonus discount on DINNER AT TGI FRIDAY'S. That's right. I'm going to look past the obvious conclusion that the target demographic for this show is Midwestern tourist so set in their ways that they will eat at national chain restaurants while visiting New York. Because, let's admit it, this is the target demographic for most Broadway shows and probably for the majority of New York's entire necessary-evil-tourist-industry. So instead I am giving the producers props for not only copping to it, but putting it right out there on their flier. It seems like the perfect evening to me, to couple a goofy country musical with a combo platter at Friday's. Their onion rings are great.

p.s. I've heard that the discount is also available on www.broadwaybox.com. Just saying.