Archive for November, 2008

“It will whittle away your waist.” Magical phrase, that. Besides being highly alliterative, which I like, it also goes straight to my fresh desire to tone up and slim down after taking a job where they lock you in a room and exploit your weakness for chocolate and mixed nuts for 12 hours at a time. So when my mom dropped this phrase several times via phone conversation and email, I was chomping at the bit to try her proposition: take a Zumba class.

Zumba (ditch the workout, join the party) is an hour of Latin dance. The idea is that you meringue, salsa, tango, cumbia, reggaeton (is this a verb?), and hip hop with a big group of people so you can break a sweat and burn a bunch of calories while having fun. Plus, it tones every muscle in your body from hip swiveling, fast stepping, and arm movement. Perfect right?

I need to preface this experience with this: I can’t dance. And I don’t mean that in that cute I’ve-never-been-taught-steps-but-can-follow-a-partner kind of way. I am half German, half Scandinavian, and 6 feet tall. There exists not a single gene of rhythm in my entire body. 10 years in dance lessons made me the oldest (and tallest) kid in the 6-year-old class before I finally gave up because they wouldn’t let me advance. My friends used to take me to Modern African Dance in college so they could laugh at my awkward contortions. For social situations, I’ve perfected the awkward flail-your-body move that gets some laughs, but only because people think I’m joking around. I’m not. So maybe I should have thought twice when former dancer Mother told me to try a dance class.

Honestly, I resisted the idea for a long time. But after hearing the aforementioned magic phrase enough, I decided that the worst that could happen would be I would go to a big class of people, be the worst one there, and have to hide in the back. Best case scenario, there would be someone else just as bad and I would make a new friend on the premise of mutual awkwardness. So I selected a class, at a dance and Pilates studio in Gramercy, and went on my merry way.

I showed up a few minutes early and quickly realized this wasn’t going to be as big of a party as I thought. Mostly because like all privately owned exercise studios in New York, the room was tiny, and filled with Pilates apparatuses that would have to be moved out of the way for the class. My chest tightened a little, but I filled out the physical history paperwork (why do you need to know how much I weighed in high school?) and waited alone in the sitting area while the high society clients finished their private training sessions.

Did you catch that? Alone in the sitting area. Solo. No other people there for the Zumba class that was starting in 5 minutes. After she finished with her client, Joy, Zumba instructor and studio owner, came and introduced herself. She was a tiny and perfectly toned Latin American, likely hailing from the Caribbean and/or Queens. After some very awkward small talk, she said, “I usually have some regulars, we’ll give them a few more minutes.” I started sweating. Like, can we call those people? Because the only thing I can imagine to be more awkward than trying Zumba with a big group of people when I can’t dance is trying Zumba ALONE when I can’t dance.

8:05 and still nobody there. In all fairness, Joy gave me a chance to bail. But knowing that if I didn’t Zumba I wasn’t going to get to work out at all (plus realizing how deliciously awkward this situation was going to be), I decided to stay. “I warn you, though,” I said, “I’m a terrible dancer and I’ve never done this before.” She told me she was sure I wasn’t that bad. Ha.

Joy turned on the stretching music and my lack of coordination became immediately apparent. “No, tuck your tailbone UNDER. UNDER. Make your hands like this. Put that awkward double jointed thumb away. I said RIGHT foot.” Yoga I can do all day long, but simple dance stretches, maybe because they’re permanently mentally blocked, prove impossible.

The first actual dance number was a meringue beat. Meringue is, apparently, a lot of marching in place while moving your hips. My hips don’t move due to the lack of the rhythm gene. And then when you try to add arm movement into this equation, what you get is essentially the tin man trying to dance to feel the Latin beat (if I only had soul. And a booty…). Joy noticed. “Ooookay. Well. Just march in place. We’ll add the arms next time.” Modifications for the coordination challenged. Hooray.

Class progressed. I had the privilege of trying to correct my form in the wall-to-wall full length mirrors. Instead of helping me, however, these mirrors took a psychological effect. Mostly because I was watching half-giant Amazon girl lumber awkwardly around, swinging her arms and body as if she were a tree felled by a lumberjack, while tiny Latin diva did every step perfectly. I think she was throwing in flourishes just because she knew I couldn’t handle it. I mean, I couldn’t even spin in a circle. How was I supposed to ball-and-chain and switch directions and move my arms the opposite of my legs? Or swivel my hips? Or shuffle?

Halfway through the class, I was dripping with sweat, as always during workouts. Normally, this is totally fine because I’m doing something like running or biking or working with the trainer and you’re expected to sweat. In a dance studio, however, sweating is only for big dirty men. Joy looked at me in disgust. “Looks like you’re getting a workout, then. Do you need a towel?” She handed me an old towel and I mopped my face. She was still perfectly done up, I might add, as she had also inherited the “I’m perfect” gene.

We spent the rest of the class in virtual silence. I finally let go of all inhibitions (because at this point, I’d been beaten down) and flailed wildly to the music. Joy asked me several times to move forward because I was in danger of crashing into the Pilates gear and injuring myself, her, and the equipment. Finally, after a tango number that I basically just stood and watched, we got to the end stretching song. And guess what? I still couldn’t tuck my tailbone.

“Well,” she said, “You made it through.” I couldn’t tell if this comment was directed at me or she was simply affirming her inner strength out loud. I mopped up while she tidied up the studio.

“It was better that I got a private lesson,” I joked, “So I didn’t have to embarrass myself in front of the regulars.”

“Ha,” she said. And then with complete sincerity, “Well, yeah.” Painful silence followed.

Then came the time, as with all small studios, for Joy to sell me on buying a 10-class pass. So I was expecting her to tell me how it got better, how I did great, etc to build up my good feelings and sell me on her product. Instead, she looked at me awkwardly and said, “Well. Maybe you’d like to try Pilates.” I usually have trouble turning people down, but it was time to cut my losses.

“I think I’ll have to come back and try a Pilates class before committing to that.”

“Well, okay! Here, take an ‘I Love Zumba’ bracelet for your effort.” I picked up the plastic bracelet, knowing that I would never wear it as I don’t, in fact, love Zumba.

“I’m sweaty,” I said, “I’ll save it for later.” Adventure over, I hit the streets, swearing to stick to running from here on out. I can tell my mom is right, though, it’s a good workout. So I’m probably doomed to repeat my awkward situation, over and over again, in the name of whittling away my waistline.

Hands down, the most common pick-up line I hear is, “You’re tall. How tall are you? Do you play basketball/volleyball/water polo/[insert sport requiring massive height here]?” This pick-up line has worked once. And it’s only because it came from someone who also happened to be freakishly tall (6’10”) so I felt like we were part of the same club. Otherwise, I’ve practiced various responses to this tactic. Namely, “Really? You think so? I guess I always deluded myself that I was the same size as my adorable polly-pocket sized roommates. Thanks for setting me straight.” And “I’m not an athlete, I’m a model.” Usually, the deadpan makes it sufficiently awkward enough that I can slip away and avoid more small talk about my Scandinavian genes. Sorry, kids, my statuesque build is not an opening for an easy conversation.

Because my life never fails to entertain me, I got a new variation the other day. I was standing in line at Starbucks and waiting for my daily dose of caffeine to get my morning started. Naturally, there was a line 2 blocks long, full of Type A Manhattan-ites waiting for their fix. Bleary-eyed, I was staring down the cute barista, hoping to get his attention and perhaps a secret invitation to skip the line. The man behind me was short, squat, and Northern Italian, and he interrupted my daydreams by saying, loudly, “Look at thees girl! She could knock out Mike Tyson!” Oh, dear god, please don’t be talking about me.

“Hey girl! You a like to fight? You should box! You so beeg!” He was tapping me on the shoulder now. Finally cute barista looked up, as did about 95 customers, to see what humongous human could warrant such a show. What I should have said was: “You want to find out if I can fight? Keep going on about my massive size, buddy. I haven’t had my coffee yet. I’m irritable.” Instead I shifted nervously and managed a small smile/pretend laugh. I think he realized he offended me.

“Oh, I am sorry! You bee-you-tee-ful! Tall and bee-you-tee-ful! And strong! Like good woman.” Customers were now stifling their laughter. I turned to the man and stared him down. It was easy. He was approximately one foot shorter than me. This made him nervous.

“No, not bee-you-tee-ful. You, how you say, RAVISHING. Hee hee hee!” He was yelling now. How nice. This man is calling me a beautiful Amazon. Lovely.

“Let me buy you coffee. I am so sorry! I did not mean it!” I mustered some coolness to tell him it was all right, and asked the cashier to make it a double shot. She looked at me sympathetically, but in that way that’s like I’m-sorry-you-just-fell-down-the-stairs-but-I-can’t-help-laughing. Unfortunately, he didn’t stop. And now he was talking to the cashier.

“I no understand American girls. I say to them they are bee-you-tee-ful and they no want to hear it.” Maybe, my friend, if you didn’t open that whole “you’re beautiful” convo by telling me I look like the Incredible Hulk, I would accept your compliment.

After what felt like hours, I took my coffee and prepared to leave, all patrons’ eyes still on me. My new friend wouldn’t let it go. “Good bye, American girl! Thank you for exeesting!” Good bye, Italian man, thank you for entertaining the crowd at my expense. As old as it gets, I think I prefer the classic version of the pickup line. I have no witty comeback for the new variation, except maybe “Yeah, I did knock out Mike Tyson. And you’re next.”

Thanks to dear friend David (who’s devoted to excess and bacon) and living in New York, I get to be at the forefront of food trends.  This event sounds to me like a foodie fashion show:  http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/thomas-keller-and-protege-to-go-20-rounds/?hp

It’s like, hey, Keller and Achatz, please show us your spring line.  No doubt the head-to-head invites drama and opportunity for trendsetting.  I may not have been front row for the showdown, but, naturally, I want to discuss.  Personally, I think we’re going to see a new garnish trend.  Thank god.  Foam has been in style (you know, rhubarb foam, asparagus foam, perhaps salt foam), and I’m over that crap.  It’s glorified Cool Whip.  Cornichons and mustard seeds and frisee, a tribute to quaint little French bistros, no doubt, have run their course.   And hopefully we’re not doomed to repeat the 80s in parsley like we’re apparently repeating the 80s in clothing.

Anywho, here’s the menu from the event:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/11/11/dining/Mentor_Protege_Dinner.pdf

I have my answer to the garnish question, but I think my question begs another question:  What the hell is coffee-scented air (see the lamb dish)?  Finally a food trend for the models!  Come on, anorexic girls, lunchtime!

Scented air has become the new foam?  I’m sure the aromatics are lovely and the technique is quite modern, but if this starts replacing dessert, I’m going to be very upset.

Thanks, David, for the links.

Maybe you know my good friend Evan.  Even if you don’t, you probably have a friend like him.  You know, someone with whom you do a lot of semi-irresponsible but always extremely interesting things.  Evan and I have seen a lot and done a lot together.   Places we’ve been together include:  the southern hemi, the northern hemi, the east coast, the west coast, the ocean, the desert, the mountains, Disneyland, the Las Vegas strip (sort of like Disneyland), Napa (drinking Disneyland), parks in many cities, Chinatown in both San Francisco and New York, sketchy caves in the wilderness, and sketchy alleys across the globe.  Situations we’ve found ourselves in include:  accidentally getting drunk while trying to learn about wine, accidentally hiking 3 grueling extra miles with 50 pounds on our backs because of our inability to read a map, accidentally getting robbed while trying to get home in a large South American city (okay that was just Evan), free climbing rocks in Joshua Tree, jumping across exposed gaps on cliffs while free climbing boulders in the Lost Creek wilderness, camping under boulders, camping without shelter, camping in a lightning storm, attempting to navigate I-70 in a Volkswagen Jetta during a blizzard so we could hit the first major powder day of the year, drinking whiskey and ginger ale in a family theme park parking lot, coming up with evermore creative roadtrip games, consuming raw and undercooked foods and hoping for the best… We also attend the occasional classy affair, have the occasional manic conversation over 95 cups of coffee, and watch the occasional season of something like “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.”

The point to this rambling explanation is that it would naturally be Evan that would be responsible for my foray into a New York experience that no one plans on having:  seeing the inside of a Brooklyn hospital.  Given the nature of our usual antics, this experience started off uneventfully:  we were standing on my porch while Evan smoked his last cigarette of the night.  I was wearing my pajamas, which included a pair of Nebraska Cornhuskers boxer shorts unsuitable for public, and I joked about my costume as I threw on my Ugg boots and fleece to join him outside.  Once on my porch, in his true fashion, Evan jumped a couple of times between the railings (so nimble given his lung capacity has been deflated by 5 years of cigarette addiction), and then we just stood there, making jokes about feelings, until he laughed so hard he took a bad step backwards, fell off my porch and stabbed himself in the chest with the top of my fence.  Given that I have incredibly inappropriate reactions in moments of duress, I didn’t know whether to scream my head off or double over laughing hysterically at his clumsiness.  When blood started gushing all over my porch, however, my cool-head-in-a-crisis gene kicked in and I dialed 911.
This was remarkably unhelpful.  The dispatcher didn’t even have the technology to know what borough I was in.  This made me wonder how the ambulance was going to find my street, a place that even taxi drivers think is off the list of locations they are responsible for navigating.  After asking several useless questions like, “where’s the nearest hospital?” I took matters into my own hands, grabbed Evan’s keys, and started walking him to his car.  This was a challenge.  If my reactions are inappropriate, his are offensively so.  “I just need a bandaid,” he insisted.  Oh really.  Your blood is streaming out of your chest onto my porch and you just need a bandaid.  Somehow I don’t think that’s really going to help.  A stitch or 50, maybe.  But a bandaid, my friend, is not going to be sufficient.
On the way to the car, Evan insisted on taking about 100 photos of himself.  This slowed us down.  Especially when he had to pose giving gangster signs, smoking a cigarette, and playing dead.  This is when I started to get antsy.  Like he was probably fine, but I’ve seen Grey’s Anatomy.  I know the patients that come in laughing eventually die in the Cat Scan.  But despite this, I finally shoved Evan in the passenger seat of his car, camera still flashing, and faced the fact that I still had no idea where a hospital was.

My first instinct was to ask the derelicts on the corner.  Surely they’d been there before, right?  If only to try to con the place out of morphine?  Then I remembered that the other corner had a police precinct.  Probably a safer bet.  And then Evan, in a moment of clarity likely due to blood loss, announced that he had a GPS system.  And the GPS system showed about 10 hospitals located within a mile.  Split second decision-making brought us to the one in Fort Greene.
My experiences in Emergency Rooms have been mostly suburban.  You go in, an army of nurses and doctors subject you to 9000 different tests, and your care is thorough, even if you just have a sprained pinky.  The moment we set foot in the Brooklyn hospital, I knew this was going to be a whole different ball game.  For starters, in every other emergency room I’ve been in, they tend to take care of you immediately if you have an issue like blood is all over your shirt and you’re clutching your chest.  Here, however, the security guard didn’t even look up.  She just pointed us toward the manual check-in station so Evan could be processed in the order he came in.  Given that Evan was covered in blood, I assisted him.  Name and age?  “Evan, 23.”  Medical problem?  “Hole in chest bleeding.”  Okay, now go sit with the room full of drug addicts and sex workers.
The triage nurse had a little more of a sense of urgency.  “Oh boy, you got stabbed, huh?”  I am quite certain this would not be the assumption in the hospitals of my youth, but ok.  “Better go back to acute care.”  No kidding.  So I took my seat in the waiting room, still wearing my boxers and ugg boots I might add, to wait while Evan got fixed up.  This was somewhat uncomfortable.  First of all, my legs were causing a commotion.  Maybe because they were snow-blinding people.  But more likely because it was the kind of night when most people were wearing parkas and I was half dressed.  Then there was the actual real life crack whore.  The first one I’ve ever seen in my life.  She had her child with her, and the child, though androgynous, was exhibiting a lot of its mother’s characteristics.  “Is that a camera phone?” it asked me.  Um, yes.  “Take my picture!”  Ok, just don’t shoot me.  Please.  You’re 5.  The child proceeded to pose then grabbed my phone out of my hand to show its mother my artwork.  She eyed me suspiciously as I arranged my face in an expression I hoped read, I swear to god I was just taking its picture because it asked me, I’m not some kind of sick pervert who likes to photograph children posing.  Luckily, I was able to smooth the situation over by giving the mother a dollar to buy a high-fructose corn syrup beverage for promiscuous junior.  I didn’t even have to tuck it in her g-string.
Thankfully, a nurse came out that very second and yelled my name to go comfort Evan as he was poked and prodded.  The security guard buzzed me through the door and I found myself in a hallway.  With absolutely no guidance as to how to find Evan.   I started wandering the halls, poking my head behind curtains, until finally someone said, “Oh yeah, the white guy.  Follow the red line.”  Whew.  My relief was so strong I barely heard the guy in the wheelchair say to the nurse, “Did you see those legs?  Wheel me back so I can get another look!”  So I get back to the Acute Care ward, pick my way through the hoards of dying diabetics, drug addicts, and this woman who apparently just liked to spend the night in the ER on occasion, and found the only curtained-off “room” which ironically contained the only white person, Evan.  He was hanging out, bag of bloody shirt in hand, and still bleeding out of his chest hole.  No big deal, we’d only been there an hour at that point.
And then the Jamaican nurse came over.  “Boyyyyy, you lucky.  You the luckies person ah know.  You coulda die.  You know tha?”  Then an army of “doctors” looked at Evan’s chest hole and declared that it was probably shallow, but only a cat scan would tell for sure.  Given the concern over internal bleeding, one would think this would speed the process along a little.  So imagine my surprise when we averaged 1 event per hour in this order:  hour 1:  Evan gets a bandaid.  Hour 2:  Evan gets an IV.  Hour 3:  Evan gets to drink some cat scan liquid that would make his insides radioactive.  Hour 4:  Evan gets rolled down to the hallway outside of the cat scan room.  Hour 5: Evan finally gets his cat scan to see if he’s bleeding internally.   Luckily, by this point, I already knew Evan wasn’t bleeding internally because Evan wasn’t dead yet.
In the meantime, we entertained ourselves by guessing the ailments of the other patients (the man next to us was getting a very uncomfortable-looking procedure that involved a lot of lubrication and no pulling of the curtains) and taking occasional cigarette breaks.  This was a new one for me.  I assumed if you had a big hole in your chest and they were testing you out for internal bleeding, they’d probably take away your cigarettes.  Given that it was a hospital, I thought they might also give you a pamphlet on how smoking gives you 97 different kinds of cancer and makes you ugly.  I was wrong.  When Evan asked if he could go smoke the first time, the “doctor,” who had spiky black hair, looked around and said, “Just tell the security guard Dr. Spike sent you so he’ll let you back in.”  So Evan marched out, wearing little more than a hospital robe and the IV in his arm, and smoked a cigarette in the ambulance driveway.

When all was said and done, test results showed Evan just had a deep gash in his chest that couldn’t be stitched up.  He narrowly missed his heart, lungs, and general organs because of his sternum.  Thanks sternum.  They were all set to discharge him until someone who was actually dying pulled up in an ambulance and the entire motley crew rushed to try to save this guy’s life while Evan hung out for another hour and a half.  Then they gave him a $500 bandaid (turns out this really was all he needed, after all) and some antibiotics (those solve everything) and told him to lay low for a couple of days.  And off we walked, into the sunrise, as the waiting room looked on jealously.   Lessons learned?  I guess we better stick to pursuing danger since Evan can’t handle standing on a porch.  Evan should stop smoking cigarettes because they get him stabbed by the fence.  And I better find a different Brooklyn hospital in case next time sternum doesn’t come to the rescue.

Something that I found super charming in my fantasies of New York was the notion of taking public transportation everywhere.  I imagined myself leaning jauntily on poles, listening to my iPod and intently reading classic literary works like Hemingway’s short stories or maybe a little War and Peace.  While waiting for trains, I expected to have 15 second relationships with other attractive passengers, waving coyly at some sexy man going uptown while I’m headed downtown.  And I expected to dart down into the magical hole of the underground train station and appear instantly at my destination, no time passing at all (and when I think of it, I expected to be able to do it for free).  All this while saving the earth by cutting down my carbon footprint.  What could be better for a liberal arts college graduate who spent the last year working on sustainability initiatives?  Some girls imagine candle light dinners when fantasizing about romance, I think of train rides with thousands of passengers.  To each her own.

Upon reaching New York, I marched immediately to the closest Subway station and purchased my unlimited ride pass.  Sure, calculations made me realize I would have to take the train twice every week day to make it worth it, but it was a sunk cost at that point and I was free to ride the trains seemingly gratis.   For awhile, it was novel.  I spent hours staring at the crazies talking to themselves and peddling everything from TV dinners to salvation.  I smiled to myself “knowingly,” as I felt a real New Yorker would do, as I passed the “musicians” banging garbage cans or scraping forks on dinner plates (at least that’s what it sounded like to me) while yelling the lyrics to Beatles’ songs.  I worked on perfecting my sexy pout coupled with blank stare that was supposed to be associated with whatever emotionally deep music was emanating from my headphones.  Maybe it was the fact that I was listening to Journey 9 times out of 10 (and I WON’T stop believin’, thanks), but I don’t think I quite nailed it.  I even pretended to love the stations that could have been better titled “swamplands” or “blazing inferno of hell” because it was all part of the experience.

When these activities began to fail to bring me amusement, I tried to reenact my fantasy scenes, one by one.  To play the literary city dweller, I selected David Sedaris’s new book, because it was neither too pretentious nor too banal.  This went okay for awhile, and I soon found myself judging others by their reading selections.  Please, you actually read trashy romance novels?  Lighten up, Nietzsche boy.  Oooh, I wonder what I missed in US Weekly.   These are the thoughts that would captivate me as I pretended to read while leaning against a pole.  The whole thing went to hell, though, one day after happy hour.  As usual, I got on the subway and pulled out my book.  There was no way I was in any shape to read.  Frugality had trumped common sense at a rare NYC open bar and my vision was blurred.  Adding the book to the equation proved a lethal combo.  As the train pulled out of the station, I lurched forward and then fell face first to the floor.  Lying on the ground and probably getting covered in someone’s bodily fluids, I realized that David Sedaris or no, my inability to hold my balance while reading worked against the image I was trying to portray.  I decided to stick to the blank stare.  Besides, this made it much easier to judge others because I didn’t have a pesky novel to glance at.

I had a chance at scenario number 2 one night when I was waiting for a train home from Manhattan.  I looked up and to my surprise, a very attractive man was smiling at me.  I grinned back, and batted my eyelashes.  He started laughing.  Wow, I thought, I have animal magnetism across the subway station!  This is great!  I was about to toss him a flying airplane with my number when I realized that the passenger next to me was smiling and batting HIS eyes.  And then when I looked closer at my uptown lover, I realized with dismay that he was too perfectly coifed to be straight.  It’s so hard to tell in New York.  I slumped back against the bench and started muttering.  The homeless man 10 feet down the platform nodded at me- he understood my language.

As for the magic tunnel, I’ve yet to find it.  Sitting in the station in the middle of the night waiting for 40 minutes for a train to arrive has a psychological effect.  Sometimes I find myself longing for the traffic jams of LA because at least I’d be encapsulated in a bubble world with air conditioning.  The other day, some idiot threw up on my rush hour train and we were stuck for 45 minutes while they got him off and cleaned up.  Had I been a tourist, I probably would have found this remarkable:  gruff New Yorkers helping their fellow man.  The only thing I thought, however, was that puke boy was making me late and they should leave him to be helped by the station police or eaten by the rats, whichever happened first, and get the show on the road.  I think it was that moment when the romance began to crumble.

Still, the system creates some free and incredibly simple pleasures, which are hard to come by in this expensive city.  Timing your weekend ride to Manhattan with an arriving train, for instance, will bring a smile to the lips of even the most depressed hipsters in Williamsburg.  Finding a seat during rush hour feels like finding a $100 bill.  And once, a conductor saw me run to the closing doors of a departing train, winked at me, and opened them for me so I wouldn’t have to wait for the next one.  I was so happy I found myself praising the karmic gods and forgiving all the other ass holes who winked at me and then sped off into the dark tunnel.   You get used to the ride, I suppose.  Soon, while you may still want to shove the evangelizer’s book down his throat, you don’t even notice when the homeless crazy next to you is peeing in the corner of your car.  You might still spend every morning cursing the still humid air that’s ruining your perfectly styled hair, but then you really do smile at dinner plate fork man because, well, it’s just part of the ride.   And then you’re back to the iPod and blank stare, congratulating yourself for braving the jungle to save the earth.

So here’s a little story about my life.  Last week I was compelled to write a letter the old-fashioned way in response to a friend who sent me a letter the old-fashioned way.  I pictured myself skipping down the streets of Park Slope to one of the many paper stores, purchasing some homemade-artistically-designed stationery, filling a sheet with clever insights and witticisms, spritzing it with a little perfume so my friend would feel my presence, and then floating to the mailbox and sending it off.  I would likely be dressed in a flowing sundress, my hair would be in ringlets, and afterwards, I would buy some fruit and nuts at the farmers market so I could make friends with the neighborhood birds and squirrels, like a NY Disney princess or a hippie, who are the only two kinds of people I know that write old-fashioned letters.  Then I procrastinated through the weekend and my plan fell to shambles.  Yesterday, I had about an hour to kill before yoga so I decided that though I had no sundress to change into on my way home from work, it was the perfect opportunity to go to the paper store and write my letter.  In my head, I rearranged my scene, imagining a tea house instead of a trip to the farmers market, and dusk instead of sunshine.

Park Slope should have millions of paper stores.  There are more independent coffee shops than there are people, tiny “grocery stores” on every corner boast organic and kosher food on hand-painted wooden signs, and there’s space for everyone, including sustainable clothing-makers and exotic flower shops.  So when I went to the first store I saw labeled “STATIONERY,” I was expecting a lot of things, but construction paper and cards with a crying Hillary Clinton that said “I’m so sad I forgot your birthday” were not on the list.  Dejected, I decided to use my resources and began asking directions.  The yarn woman pointed me to a junk store.  The woman making pottery suggested a shop that was closed.  And so forth as the Japanese tea shop clerk, candle maker, and expensive cake shop owner all sent me on a wild goose chase.  Hiking around Park Slope getting sweaty while looking for stationery was not part of my romanticized vision of this whole send-a-letter thing.  I found myself beginning to complain out loud that due to the fact that it’s the 21st century, people should probably stick to emails.  At which point the mother walking toward me grabbed her child’s hand and crossed the street.

Finally, after my work clothes were torn and wrinkled and my hair was sticking up straight, I ducked into a gift shop boasting everything from pleasant smelling candles to metal jewelry and found a couple of options:  A hand-painted $5 card depicting 2 empty chairs or 19 sheets of light pink paper.  I’m not a pink girl so I took the chairs (frugality did not triumph), hastily wrote a few lines in frustration, and looked for something to spritz it with.  Would a few drops of the sweat forming on my brow have the same effect?  I decided that it would, smeared the card across my forehead, and dropped it in the mail.  No sundress, no clever insights or witticisms because I was too angry to think of them, and no birds or squirrels to do my chores.  So I guess what I’m saying is, if you want to keep in touch with me, don’t send me a letter.  A text message would be better… probably heavily abbreviated to cut down on the time and effort it takes to communicate.