City Wendy

Insulation

Lately I've been feeling like there's no enough insulation in my life. It finally occurred to me today that that's what my problem has been lately. For example, since I moved to New York, I seem to have developed a bit of agoraphobia. For a long time, I thought it was the pace of the city, the crowd, the way the buildings tower over me and I get lost in their shadows during a mid-afternoon stroll. But it's really more about not having an insulation between that world and my inner world, between the mad city streets and the sanctity on my apartment.

I step outside my building and I'm immediately smack dab in the middle of one of the busiest blocks in the city. There's a high school on my block, a post office, a large produce shop across the street and that big delivery trucks sit outside of all day long running their engines noisily. Broadway is less than 2 blocks away, Times Square is just a 5 minute walk from my place and Central Park is 5 minutes in the other direction. And when I step outside, I'm immediately in the middle of it all. And sure, sometimes it can be kind of fun, but mostly it feels oppressive to me. If I had even just a block -- a relatively quiet, residential, tree-lined street in which to transition from the peace of my own world to the madness of the one outside, I know I'd feel a lot better, a lot more comfortable.

I've been having a lot of intense dreams lately — exhausting dreams — ones that make me toss and turn and kick in my sleep. They're the typical anxiety dreams, which makes sense, I guess, as my subconscious works out the kinks of starting some new chapters in my life. Drew and I started looking for apartments to buy in Brooklyn, one more thing I associate with other people, not me, I thought I'd be a renter forever. Anyway, we don't plan to get anything right away, at least not before we get married, and I'm relieved to have some insulation. Growing pains would hurt a lot more without it.

Alphabet: A History (L)

Alphabet: A History (L) Lake Michigan

It's May, 2008, and I'm visiting Chicago for the third time since I moved to New York less than 8 months ago. May is tied with October for my favorite month here and the colors at the lake today are a big reason why. I'm with Chad who took a day off from work and we're the only people here. We run around and cartwheel with our shoes off and do a photo shoot on the spread of bright green grass between the water and Lake Shore Drive and for a moment it feels like I never left.

I don't feel at home in New York yet, not like this. From the lake I can walk to three of my old apartments in less than 15 minutes. I can peek into the windows from the street below and imagine the lines of my bookshelves, the curve of my couch, the shape of my cats peering from behind the pane. These images are like lifelines across a palm, filling the gaps between stories I tell, the moments between the events.

At Lake Michigan I can see half a dozen summers stretched across the beach, and countless rides through falling leaves all along the bike path. There's a grocery store a few blocks from here and if I went there right now and bought some cheese to have back at Chad's, the cashier would ring me up and ask where I've been. I could stop at the Middle Eastern Bakery and pick up some baklava and pita and hummus and the beautiful Palestinian owner with the black eyes and raven hair would hand me my change and say, "Thank you, my friend."

One time, when I still worked at the flower shop, I took home a small bouquet of white roses that only had one day left. Chad picked me up from work and we stopped by Bi-lo to get some wine. When the owner eyed the flowers, I told him we just got married and he raised his eyebrows at Chad, who flung his arm around my shoulder, kissed my cheek and said, "It's true, we did." For months after that, every time we'd go into Bi-lo together, we'd call each other "hon."

At the lake today on the grassy part between the water and the road there's only one tree that's in full bloom. The first weekend Drew came to visit, we lay on a blanket under that tree and he told me New York had a lot of stuff, but it didn't have anything like this. 

Over the next year, I went to the lake more than ever — every day when the weather was warm, usually in the mornings, sometimes in the late afternoons, always on the weekends. Sometimes I'd go alone, sometimes I'd meet friends for happy hour and we'd sit on the beach and hide our beers in bandanas until the sun went down. In September, the month I moved, fall took its sweet time coming. Each day we'd head to the beach and think it was the last, and the next day it would still be warm enough for bikinis. I moved on the final day of the month just as the leaves were starting to turn. It hasn't been warm enough for bikinis since.

T Minus 4 Months

Hi, I'm going to talk about my wedding now, so consider yourself warned. It all goes down 4 months from today. According to various checklists I've read, by now I should have a venue selected for the reception, finalized a guest list, selected the wedding party, started looking at dresses, chosen an officiant, booked the honeymoon flights, considered music, started registering for gifts, thought about how to wear my hair, locked down photography, figured out flowers, confirmed cake plans, and worked on invitation wording and design. You know how many of those things I've accomplished? NONE! Not one goddamn thing on that list. That's right -- I still haven't even finalized a guest list, although I've had one person already send her regrets that she won't be able to make it — someone who was no way in hell going to be invited to my wedding, so that was a little weird.

I guess I should feel some pressure at this point, but I'm oddly okay with having nothing figured out yet. Well, maybe not "okay" exactly. Actually, it'd be nice to at least know where we're having the lunch reception so I could figure out how many people we can afford to invite and, you know, let people know. But the place I have in mind is still "working on a menu" for us, which I'm imagining is going to be fucking spectacular since they've been working on it for the last week and a half. On the dress front, I'm pretty bummed out that as of today, a top contender for The One seems to be sold out, at least online. I didn't want to start trying anything on until I dropped some of my winter weight, but had I known this particular dress was in danger of selling out, I'd have bought it in the size I plan to be and returned it later if it didn't work out. Hindsight and all that. Anyway, I have a feeling finding the right dress will be a lot like finding the right guy and things seemed to have worked out on that front, even if I did have to try on a few bad fits first.

I did kind of think about music a little bit last week -- or at least what song I want to walk down the "aisle" to (there actually won't be a real aisle, so I'll have to improvise). I found out about this band that does string quartet covers of popular songs and for a minute I thought it might be kinda cool to walk down the aisle to their version of Viva la Vida before deciding that, no, that'd actually be pretty cheesy, actually. In the end I think I'm gonna go traditional on this part — a little Canon in D.

I'm pretty sure I've decided against having a wedding party, figuring our wedding will be so small, everyone who's invited should already feel like VIPs or whatever, and frankly, I don't really understand what a wedding party is supposed to do anyway. But I've already been met with some resistance to that decision, so. I don't know. It's weird, this whole "prove to me how important I am to you" aspect of weddings, from the guest list to the choice of officiant to the selection of a wedding party to the seating and all the little jobs you're expected to invent for friends so they feel more included in the event. I never really know when a job is an honor or a bother, and I fear I'm just destined to offend no matter what I do. Like, do I ask my photographer friend to take photos because I think she's great and would I'd rather have someone who actually knows us taking the photos? Or, is that just annoying for someone who'd rather enjoy the ceremony and not spend it working?

Anyhow, I wrote a little essay today over at the Frisky about my decision on the whole name-change thing, in case you still haven't gotten your fill of wedding-related talk.

That's all.

Spring Cleaning

I started jogging again since I've been back from vacation. I started at 2 1/2 miles and I'm working up to 4 miles a few times a week.  If you've been reading this site for a while, you might remember shortly after I moved here, how I started losing my my mind. Finding a job was taking WAY longer than I anticipated and I was frustrated with he stand-still my life seemed to be at after taking such a leap of faith and making such a big move. And so in an effort to sort of shift focus a little bit and keep what thin strands of my sanity I still had in tact, I decided to run in a half marathon. I'd been running off and on for 4 or 5 years, but had never done a race or ever attempted to run more than 6 miles at once. In fact, I only ran that distance once in my whole life and I think I was still a little drunk off vodka and red bull from the night before.

So anyway, I decided to run a half marathon even though I really wasn't much of a runner. I think I "trained" for all of about 6 or 7 weeks maybe, getting all the way up to a 5 mile long run. And then I quit. I ran one morning in late February last year before I caught a flight to Chicago for the weekend, and when I came back, I just never got around to running again.

But going to Costa Rica, where I pretty much lived in my swimsuit for a week, made me realize how much my body has changed in the last year and half and how unhappy I'd become with the way I look and feel. Before I started hating jogging, I really kind of liked it. I was never good at it, but I always liked the way I felt when I was doing it regularly. I didn't need much of it -- a few 3- or 4-mile runs each week and things were good. I felt strong, my mind was clearer, and life just generally seemed easier and more pleasant to manage.

I've remembered all this in the last couple weeks as that ease and well-being return to my life. The days are definitely staying lighter later and it's ever-so-slowly getting warmer here. I've been doing a little spring cleaning around here — literally and metaphorically, revisiting some of my goals for this year, and daydreaming of Portugal and Spain for my honeymoon. I wonder what other excitement awaits this year...

Star-crossed Lovers

Drew and I have a St. Patrick's Day tradition — if two times makes a tradition — of getting green margaritas at the little Mexican bar on the corner. It makes sense for two people who had their first date on Cinco de Mayo at a Japanese restaurant. Anyway, we were at the Mexican place yesterday after work, enjoying our St. Patty's margaritas when this cute little old Irish man came inside decked in a green sweater and ruddy Irish cheeks. At first I thought maybe he got confused by the green balloons strung outside the door and thought he was wandering into a Pub for a Guinness, but when he started talking to the lady owner, I realized they were friends and started eavesdropping on their conversation.

"What are you doing tonight?" the elderly Mexican woman asked.

"Oh, you know, meetin' up with some friends, havin' some drinks, somethin' like that," he replied.

"Maybe you should stop by here again later," she suggested.

"Oh, I don't know," he answered, "We'll have to see."

Then they just grinned at each shyly and waited for the other to make some kind of move.

"You should get out of this bar sometime," he finally said, "Go somewhere else for a change."

"I did once, remember?" she said, "On your birthday. I went to your bar."

"Yeah, well," he replied, "you should do it again sometime."

"Okay, well, maybe I will," she said, "Sometime."

And they grinned at each other a little more until the little old Irish man in the green sweater left the restaurant, and the Mexican woman he's clearly taken with returned to the paperwork she'd pushed aside. I wonder how long they'll let their worlds keep them apart?

Moo-Moos and Yoga Pants

This is the first weekend in 6 weeks that I haven't had something pressing demanding my time and attention. Six weeks ago it was the proposal and making all the calls and whatnot to tell people I finally suckered someone into marrying me. And I didn't mention this at the time because it would have embarrassed him, but Drew got so sick that Sunday after he proposed (maybe nerves, though he denies that, possibly food poisoning from our brunch, though the jury's still out on that one since I ate practically the same thing and was just fine) that I had to spend the whole day cleaning up his mess. We're talking 5 loads of laundry, scrubbing the bathroom floor multiple times, the works. I mean, who gets proposed to and then has her new fiance vomit all over the place for 8 hours straight as soon as she says 'yes'? Me! That's who! Anyway, it was exhausting and then it was Monday.

The next weekend brought some bad family news that made it difficult to relax and then the next three weekends in a row were spent traveling — first to Austin and then to Costa Rica and back. The latter trip was a vacation, sure, but the commute home was so bad I felt like I needed another vacation just to recover from it. And it turns out I AM getting another vacation since I wrote a letter of complaint to the airlines and scored us $400 in travel vouchers. Ha, who's barfing at the thought of marrying me now, huh?! A lifetime of complaint letters and vouchers for free shit doesn't sound so bad, does it?

Anyway, my point is this is the first Saturday since January I've been able to just do nothing and I AM SO EXCITED. I might even get a wild hare and go to a yoga class. God knows I need it. I haven't weighed myself in ages, but I'm guessing I've probably put on 15 pounds since I moved here a year and half ago. About 6 months after I moved here I realized most of my clothes were getting kind of snug, so instead of cutting back on my calories and maybe exercising a little, I just bought new clothes one size bigger. And now, a year later, I am sad to say that I cannot even fit into those anymore. And then last week in Costa Rica, Drew took a couple pictures of me on the beach and I just about died when I saw them. "I don't really look like that, do I?!" I exclaimed, to which Drew just gave the same dumb response he always does: "What? I think you look great! Better than ever!" I mean, God, what an enabler.

People keep asking if I've tried on any wedding dresses yet and the answer is a resounding "HELL NO!" And I don't plan on trying on a single wedding dress — or anything else, for that matter — at least until I can squeeze back into my fat clothes again. Right now I'm not even wearing real clothes — it's all moo-moos and yoga pants (even though I haven't done yoga in, like, over a year). You can get away with outfits like that when you work from home. You can get away with a lot of stuff when you work from home, like sleeping off hangovers until 11 and having wine and cheese popcorn balls for lunch. But no more, I say. No more! I'm determined to lose weight and get healthy if it kills me.

So, yes, there may be some yoga in my future today. But definitely not any ice cream. That would just be crazy.

Researching and Planning

Was it only a few days ago I was lying around on the beach in Costa Rica, shading myself from the sun and dusting off sand from between my toes? Oh, how fast the mighty fall. Our commute back to NYC was nothing short of disastrous, jarring us from the slow-mo vibe of the tropics to the hell-hath-no-fury temper of reality (if, you know, reality were a woman scorned). Long story short: it took 24 hours to get from our hotel in CR back to our apartment in NYC, including a 5-hour stay in a crappy motel in Miami where I found not 1, but 2, pubic hairs in the tub when we checked in. One of our flights was delayed over an hour because, get this, the captain and a flight attendant just never showed up! But I guess it's not like anyone in the airline industry should be concerned about his or her job these days. Then, to add total insult to injury, we didn't even make it home before a call in the cab ride from the airport brought some bad family news.

The good news is we scored some travel vouchers out of the ordeal and I've been researching and planning what I hope will be a terrific 4-day weekend getaway somewhere fabulous in mid-April. I'm realizing that the key to being truly happy in New York City is to get out as often as possible. That, and avoid H&M on 34th St. during the lunch rush.

The other research project that's been taking up most of my time since we got back is finding a place to have our wedding lunch reception. Without really meaning to, I think Drew and I have sort of agreed on a "theme" for our wedding, which, believe me, is just as nauseating to write as it is for you to read. But, we figure since we're already getting married in Central Park and we'll have guests (like my family) who will be visiting the city for the first time in decades, it would be fun to sort of play it up. So we'd love a lunch spot that has kind of an "Old New York" feel, whatever that means. A place that would sit around 40-ish people comfortably, doesn't cost a fortune (like, under $75 pp), has great food, isn't too prententious, serves alcohol (or would allow us to bring our own!), and would be open for a 3 PM Friday lunch. Ideas and suggestions are very welcome!! I keep going to Yelp and, like, typing in all of these requirements in the search function and ending up with three restaurants in Chinatown, which, you know, maybe isn't such a bad idea. But, really, if you have any other ideas, I'd love to hear them.

A Strange Customer

It's the morning of our last full day in Costa Rica and I'm having my breakfast up on our balcony for a change. Usually I eat it in the dining area with the other guests where I can refill my coffee and gather evidence about the lives and relationships of everyone else staying here. But this morning I'm staying up on the balcony, just outside our room where Drew is still fast asleep. It's only 7:30 AM, after all, and we had a big day yesterday.

We started the morning with a trek through the national park where we finally saw some goddamn monkeys. We also saw: iguanas, sloths, hummingbirds, mammoth butterflies, lots of birds, deer, and one raccoon drinking from a toilet. Our tour guide's name was Ricardo and he was an expert at training his telescope on critters camouflaged in trees and taking National Geographic-quality photos for us with Drew's simple point-and-shoot Canon. Each time he'd take a picture, he'd admire his work and say in a thick accent, "Can-own is day best!!" before handing the camera back to Drew. Accompanying us on our tour was a nice lesbian couple from Maine who happened to be staying at the same resort as us, and at the eat-fruit-and-chit-chat portion of the tour, Ricardo asked us what we thought of said resort. "It juiced to be different owners," he informed us,"with very strange custoomers," referring, of course to the mostly gay clientele, which I already knew about. Drew and I exchanged looks with the lesbians and then quickly stared down at our empty plates. "Jew know what I mean?" he pushed, "Strange custoomers??" I spit out a watermelon seed into my hand and suggested we ought to get a move on. "Strange," I should have said to the man who makes monkey mating calls for a living, "is relative."

Later in the day — after a swim and lunch and a nap at the hotel — Drew and I went parasailing. It was only he who was supposed to go as I'd convinced myself after the god-awful seasickness I suffered through on the catamaran tour, I shouldn't do anything else that might risk my barfing all over myself. But after watching three other people sail above the ocean for 20 minutes each and seeing how exhilirated they all looked when they landed, I decided the good must outweigh the bad, and so I slathered on some sunscreen, paid my 90 bucks, and got buckled into the parachute. And really, the good did outweigh the bad! It was everything you'd expect: gorgeous, peaceful, exciting, private. In New York, where I can't turn on the radio without all my neighbors knowing what station I'm listening to, it was a real treat to sing my entire Karaoke repetoire at the top of my lungs without anyone hearing a single note.

Everything was great up there in the sky until, for seemingly no good reason at all, the boat that was pulling me slowed to a near-stop far out away from the beach. Suddenly, I started drifting — no, falling, really — very quickly towards the ocean. And the closer I got, the faster I talked myself into believing everything would be okay. After all, I had a parachute and a life jacket and seemed to still be attached to the boat with a bunch of cables and stuff, so surely all would be fine! Besides, I felt certain the boat would pick up speed again and a gust of wind would lift me back up to my safe spot in the sky where I could belt out the words to "Dream a Little Dream" and no one would be the wiser. But, no. The boat did not pick up speed and a gust of wind did not save me, and I, in fact, was not only dropped unceremoniously into the ocean, but was dropped on top of a STINGRAY. A stingray, people — you know, one of those things that happened to kill Steve Irwin?!

From 20, maybe 10 feet away, I thought perhaps this stingray might just be a big leaf of some sort...just floating out in the middle of the ocean just the way Ricardo said the coconuts got here from India eons ago, but as I got closer and closer and spotted its beedy eyes and all, I realized it most certainly was not a leaf, and without any choice in the matter at all, I was going to land right on top of it. And just as my foot brushed against the stingray and I fell knee-deep into the water, the motor of the boat finally revved up again, that gust of wind I'd been praying for came sailing by and I was lifted back in the air again. Just like that. After it was all over and I was safely back on the boat, unbuckling my cables and so forth, the captain asked if I "saw anything out there." I thought about my near-death experience with the stingray and then of the full karaoke repetoire I'd been singing for the last 20 minutes, and I replied: "Hey, as long as you didn't hear anything, I didn't see anything." And that's just the way we left it.

Wish You Were Here

Time moves so slowly in the jungle it's hard to believe our vacation is only half over. But it is and we still have three whole days left. More than that, actually, if you count the hours on Saturday before our 3 PM flight back to the states. Speaking of flights, we took three to get here: one from LaGuardia to Miami, one from Miami to San Jose and then a 20 minute flight on a tiny little 8-seater to the small town of Quepos. We flew low to the ground on that one, just above the treetops, and I kept my eyes squeezed shut for most of it but when I opened them for the final five minutes, I was surprised by how calm I remained. I couldn't tell you exactly what I was remembering from my childhood, but the palm trees and mountains and tin roofs  that dotted the landscape created such a strong visceral reaction, I could practically feel myself as a kid again. If my parents were here, I'd ask them: Is this what Okinawa was like? Is this what Chinhae was like? My memories of those places are fuzzy with stories and dreams and photos and I'm not sure what's real and what isn't. But here in the heat, near the Pacific ocean, I think I can imagine.

In Quepos, after we landed, we caught a ride to the even smaller town of Manuel Antonio, along a winding road that snaked around the coast. Here in Manuel Antonio, we go to sleep at 10 and wake up at 7. We eat fresh fruit all day and wear our swimsuits under our clothes. Freckles have exploded all over my nose and cheeks and my skin is pink and warm to the touch. We have a friendly bartender at our resort named Oscar who makes killer Mojitos and gossips with us about the other guests. Just in the knick of time, I discovered we get American TV on satellite in our room, so I caught The Bachelor finale on Monday night, much to Drew's chagrin. Earlier that morning, I think I spotted a former Bachelorette sunbathing by the pool. I'm not gonna lie — I may have spent some time on the internet trying discern if it was really her or not. I found this photo and showed it to Drew and he said, "Yeah, it looks just like her." Do any Bachelor fans out there remember her name? I asked Oscar if he knew whether the girl in the red bikini was ever on The Bachelor and he just cocked his head and poured me another Mojito.

Every morning I wake up with that horrible Phil Collins song in my head — that one that goes "it's just another day for you and me in paradise..." I hate that song. I thought of it our second morning here and sang it to Drew and now i can't shake it. Any anyway, it's not all paradise here. Yesterday I got seasick! Like, seriously, horribly seasick. I didn't barf all over myself or anything, but I came close — so close, that I frantically searched for a bucket and gave the captain a panic look of desperation until he gave me a glass of ginger ale and directed me to a seat that miraculously cured me for a few blessed minuted. Drew was sick, too, and between the two of us we were the total outcasts of the sunset catamaran ride. All around us, kids from Michigan with popped collars and tramp stamps drank cheap rum and danced the Macarena while Drew and I clutched out stomachs in the corner and swallowed back our barf.

Speaking of barf, I'm going to test the limits of my digestive system again and try parasailing today. I'm afraid of heights, get terrible motion sickness and burn at even the hint of sunshine, so this should be good. If I survive that, tomorrow we're going for a tour through the national park where we hopefully will finally see a monkey or five. Can you believe we've been here 4 days and still have yet to see a single monkey?! I've seen 3 lizards though and a middle-aged couple from New Jersey, so it's not like I'm not getting my money's worth. And Friday! Friday, we go horseback riding on the beach.

Anyway, it's beautiful here and my husband-to-be is waiting for me down by the pool. This is the time of day when we usually begin to wonder aloud: "Is 10 AM too early for a Margarita?"