Waiting to Get There. Usually on the A/C/E in Chelsea, New York City.

Before I kick into the list of things I have failed to blog about, let me begin with a list of the critical barriers paralyzing my blogging effort:  I am also writing a book. Ha, yeah. Stick that between your judgy squished eyebrows. I got a food dehydrator that I need to amortize. Turns out, I wholeheartedly enjoy dehydrating practically anything and then stuffing it into little plastic baggies for the zombie apocalypse. On the downside all that chopping and zip locking is a hella time suck. Other miscellaneous pursuits which I cannot recall at this time. That was sort of a bust, so let us transition to the part where I list all the things I haven't been blogging about: Pascal's wager The twelve pack of colorful socks I recently purchased online. Basilica Hudson Soundscape Getting mistaken for a minister and having someone's father confess to me. The guy with the Gay AF t-shirt on and the high altitude straddle kicks Also other things that may or may not h...

I wanted to talk about the time I was supposed to have a video Skype meeting with this guy. We got on the call and he said that unfortunately he had to go.  He had badly burned his foot. The burn had turned into a huge blister and the blister had just popped and he needed to go to the emergency room.  He lifted his foot to the webcam and I got to see the bloody wound. 

Tom and I were over at Sloan Kettering meeting with one of the doctors for a consultation. We walk out of the exam room. "What did you think of the doctor?" I ask. "He favors one knee," says Tom.

Tom said he was going to write his name on the basketball with a sharpie marker. He didn't want to get mixed up in a who-owns-this-basketball fracas with the kids who always play on the half court on our street in Chelsea. We had just been talking about going down there to shoot some hoops. Good idea about the name on the basketball, I said, except it's my name that is going to get written on the basketball. Because it's my damn basketball. Tom disagreed. He said he was sure it was his basketball. And anyway, it had been pretty flat and he used his bicycle pump and pumped it up again. I said I know it is my basketball because I got it at the office Evil Santa gift exchange. I stole that basketball fair and square. I said there were probably a dozen witnesses and they weren't that drunk. They would remember whose basketball we were looking at here. I probably threw in a small fingerwag at this point because I even knew who brought the wrapped basketball to the ...

I am now fully into making yogurt out of soy milk. There are three to five reasons for this which I will make up right now: Store-bought non-dairy yogurt is super pricey. I prefer to spend my money on Dona chai turmeric latte supplies that come in totes adorbs bottles that look like tinctures from the days of yore. I love stepping away from my desk for a moment to transform myself into some sort of herbalist shaman centrifuging a potion on the rotating glass plate inside the office microwave. Store-bought non-dairy yogurt has all these weird gums and gellans in it and comes in plastic one-use containers which I dislike for all the same reasons some people wear organic bamboo shmatas and eat tiny scraps torn from Mother Jones magazine. Fresh Direct sent me 4 quarts of soy milk that expire in two weeks. I over-ordered to stock up and then noticed the tragic flaw in this plan. As with all my endeavors, this dream of yogurt also required a lot of online research, mostly on Amaz...

It’s a thing, you know. These days, when you look up a recipe on the interwebs, you don’t just get a straight up recipe with just the facts ma’am tablespoons and cooking temperatures.  Now the recipe is like the climax after paragraphs about grandmothers and prairies. There is talk about heading out to a well-tended garden on rainy days. After sniffing the fragrance of a good simple life, the recipe author will gracefully kneel to clip perky stalks of nostalgic vegetables sprouted from the pink hearts of homemade whole grain bread baked with love in shiny retro appliances covered with artfully arranged Hello Kitty stickers. Also there are a lot of ads for Pottery Barn for Kids and photos that make you want to paint your kitchen butter yellow and make yourself an apron out of gingham. Rhubarb dessert I love moss-covered table decorations as much as the next gal, and so I became inspired. May I present to you my first, and probably last, Recipe Novella: I went ou...

Corridor to Midsummer in Battery Park, NYC After we left the Midsummer fest on Friday, we marched up to El Vez for corn tacos. But we only made it half way there. Someone spotted a half empty patio with twinkling Christmas lights and Casey had us a table in T minus 20. Personally I couldn’t keep my eyes off the party of six next to us. Two gentlemen took turns slapping each other across the face for about ten minutes. Then a skinny Asian girl fell underneath the table and simply could not escape. The table legs were like the bars of her personal prison, impossible to circumvent when you're flat on the floor. Finally she managed some sort of yogic sunrise and rejoined the world of chairs. After that, they all did body shots of tequila. Earlier, at the midsummer fest, Anna Karin told me her American husband got the Swedish Rosetta Stone but he quit because he was learning sentences like “The girl is under the table.” Whoever would need to say “the girl is under the...

It all started when my mom dropped the s-word in front of the kids. My bro tells grandma she could certainly come up better word choices. Almost immediately afterwards, he sends this text:

Coming home the other day, I ran into our neighbor Marilyn outside on the sidewalk. Her sad, matted little dog slumped over in one of those dog strollers while Marilyn chatted with a young woman I had never seen before. "This is my niece Dara. She's visiting from Virginia," said Marilyn. I said nice to meet you or something. Then we all stood there uncomfortably, like you do when you run into someone on the sidewalk but can't think of anything to talk about. "She's 17 and completely arthritic," interjected Marilyn. "She can barely walk." My eyebrows probably disappeared into my hairline. I looked at Dara the niece. "My goodness," I said. "That must be a challenge." "She's talking about the dog," said Dara.

In case you didn't know, Grant Wood was the one-hit wonder who painted American Gothic: American Gothic by Grant Wood. Grant Wood's other works are obscure. Perhaps for a reason. At the solo exhibit at the Whitney, this painting caught my attention: Grant Wood painting of George Washington I stared at the central theme - a young George Washington brandishing an ax after cutting down his pop's cherry tree. "I cannot tell a lie," he blabbers. This tell-all gambit seems like a totally straightforward best move, given that young George has just been caught brandishing an ax in the middle of the yard.  Let's zoom in on the action: Zooming in on young George And tighter: What head? Aha. Now I see what is so peculiar. If little George is so smart, why is he out cutting down cherry trees in satin Tory Burch ballet slippers? Not only are these a genuinely bad idea for ax-work, but they're also a crappy get-away choice. ...

Speaking of things not to do if there's someone sitting behind you ... Some lady on the plane back from Cuba Let me turn your attention to air travel, specifically civilized air travel. One rule of etiquette might be: Do not rub your fingers all over the screen on the back of your seat. I don't understand the contortions necessary for this sort of rear overhead relaxation. I envision the armpit in the stewardess's face though. "And ma'am, what would you like to drink..." cough cough cough. I showed the above photo to someone and they said I should have leaned forward and licked her thumb. I would have considered this course of action had it not sounded so truly unhygienic.

Never man-bun at the theater. Never woman-bun either, especially a topknot of any kind. Hair should be low slung and, if possible, damp so as to avoid frizz. Someone is sitting behind you for chrissake. They might have a short torso. Also, do not move around your head like you're listening to polka music. You are not listening to polka music. Everyone with a view including your head now also appears to be listening to polka music, just in the opposite direction. It's a chain reaction. It would be a terrific play-by-play commentary: "The gentleman in G105 with the long spiky haircut-- he's at again with the agitated bobble-head moves. The woman in H105 reacts to left. And it's I105 to the right...   But now for the flourish! G105s girlfriend, there she is with the head tilt aaand... SHE PUTS HER ARM AROUND G105. The crowd goes wild.   It's a cascade folks, a veritable waterfall. Everyone in the 103 and 105 seats madly attempts to catch a glimpse the c...

Usually, I sit down to write these blog posts and a theme comes to me. It's not usually an effort. I just think about the goings-on and notice a peculiar pattern. Or an odd outlier. I try to find some meaning in life, which might seem unbelievably quaint but usually I give it a solid college try. So far, 2018 has been a neurotic cat totally unwilling to get herded. Maybe Mercury is in retrograde or something. When I try to recall yesterday or last week or last month, it's all choppy and poorly lit. Probably normal people don't attempt to summarize their calendars. But when I don't or can't, it makes me harshly aware of the nature of earthly things --  mainly that anything I can touch with my fingers, hear or see is as mesmerizing as it is vacuous. Everything tangible I'm preoccupied with at this exact moment, I know I won't remember in a month. And time disappears without even a poof. Despite all my faults, which are numerous and occasionally spectacul...

Oh and BTW, I’m now the mayor of the Met-Breuer on Four Square. Not sure who this says more about - me, the Met Breuer or the four square app. Nonetheless, I’m not one to walk away from fifteen minutes of fame, so hell to the yes. Here's the only screenshot I got of my inauguration, it's not that great. There was this apoplectic frenzy of a screen that came before this one with cash register noises and trumpets. I had to shut that shit down and fast. All the racket was not going over well in the middle of a gallery on the 2nd floor of the Met Breuer. I was getting a lot of stink eye. Not a good way to begin my term in office. There's a new Mayor in town! I visit a lot of museums. I love museums. I especially love my membership to the Met where I get to flitter into the members-only Balcony Lounge for tea and a snack. I show my member card to the very disinterested volunteers guarding the entrance and disappear into a sanctuary of quiet and mid-century mode...

The first time I got locked in the bathroom in Israel, we were at the Isrobel Hotel on the shores of the Dead Sea. We weren't staying there, we just had day-passes so I had to change and put all my stuff in a locker in the locker room in the basement. This was the women's locker room; Tom was therefore not around. Nor was anyone else. The entire time I'd been in the locker room attempting to figure out how to get the locker combination lock to work, determining it was broken, walking out to the front desk to get a new locker, getting a new locker, getting that one to work.... the entire time this whole preparing to take a dip in the Dead Sea had been going on... No.One.Had.Come.Into.The.Locker.Room.  So I'm in there all by myself.  I figure that very few other ladies, maybe nobody, had done the day-pass thing. Everyone else was an overnight guest and therefore had no need for the public locker room. It's nice to have an entire locker room to yourse...

It's almost midnight, the Saturday before St. Patty’s day. At an Irish Bar packed with actual Irish people. Accompanied by a swarm of Scandinavians. I know, this sounds like a truly bad idea, but fear not, I have lots of experience with these kinds of dangerous scenarios. Jo, one of my favorite Norwegians, breaks into this story about his trip home for the holidays.  Jo says that he was up with his family at their “ hytte ,” the cabin in the forest that every single solitary Scandinavian has and talks about all the time. So these neighbors of Jo’s family drop in and invite Jo back to their family's hytte for a drink. Jo went to school with the kids. Jo’s mother is like, “go, go over to their hytte.” Jo is hesitant because he knows that one of the main reasons they are inviting him is because Jo has a posh Norwegian accent and they think he is a…. Three people start imitating posh Norwegian accents. After about ten minutes someone realizes we're in the...

Overlooking Jeruselem During its history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times and captured and recaptured 44 times. And it shows, for example, in the bullet holes from 1948 by Zions Gate built in 1540. But mainly it doesn’t show, which might be my main point.  What there is to see in Jerusalem is often what you don’t see— the long-gone ancient temples, palaces, marketplaces. In a timeline that will boggle the brain, most of what was built here was ripped to shreds by invaders. You walk around suddenly very aware of the empty space. Blank sky or rearranged stones that once were feats of engineering and centuries of history.  By the way, the rearranged stones I’m talking about are Jerusalem stone. All white. So it’s very easy for your minds eye to see the blood on them. Here’s the difference between a visit to Jerusalem and one to Paris or Istanbul or one of the old norse temples nestled between trees. In Jerusale...

There was lots of action during our trip to Israel last week, so let me begin with the low point... and by low point I mean 1300ft below sea level low. We spent a morning in the Dead Sea amidst a flotilla of citizens from post-Soviet countries. It was kind of great. There are apparently dodgy public beaches around the Dead Sea, but it was made clear to us that you don't go there. You buy a day pass at a hotel. You have a buffet breakfast and lavish yourself upon their facilities like any self-respecting retiree from the Uzbekistan. The lobby was marble, the cushions were orange and the carpet was plaid. The crowd had their plan down pat: Sauna, Sea, Jacuzzi, Steam room (dry), Steam Room (wet). Repeat for one weekend. We changed into white terry bathrobes with the hotel name embroidered on the lapel and walked across the street to the beach. We got to wear our water shoes , which was a big deal because we didn't wind up going through that water tunnel in Jeruselem. Our gui...

photo credit: https://www.bibleplaces.com/heztunnel/ About three weeks ago, Tom announced that he had booked a business trip to Israel. Of course I immediately invited myself along. I suggested that he book our flights before his meetings started, so we'd have some time to tour around. Tom's meetings were set for Monday, so he booked our flights the Thursday before. Those reservations didn't last long. I am not going the whole way to Israel for a long weekend. We compromised and Tom booked the tickets so we'll have a full week to take in the birthplace of about twelve religions and an outpost of the Roman empire.  Speaking of the Romans, here's what I just learned reading  Sapiens : Christianity only became a real deal when one of the Roman emperors, Constantine the Great , for some reason, decided Jesus was his man. By all accounts, this was an odd choice. The Christians at that time were just this weird little sect tooling around on the fringes. I...

Image credit: http://axtschmiede.com/meditation-2/ I’m a half decent meditator. I know this quantitatively.  In December, 2014, I attended a digital health trade show and purchased a headband which tracks brainwaves while meditating . Then it gives you an EEG style reading after you’re done, including a score. So if you’re me, you can get all competitive about it.  A couple Fridays ago, I met this very large party of Buddhists drinking at the Rubin Museum happy hour. One of them was also a vegan wearing a shirt with a giant fluorescent green Under Armor logo emblazoned across the front of it. It vibrated my eyeballs, this logo. I would not have expected a vegan Buddhist to sport such a large area of fluorescence. That’s one stereotype debunked. Anyway, subsequent to two bourbon on the rocks, generously poured, I decided to become a Buddhist. Then I read up on it. Buddhists are all about not suffering. Because not suffering is a synonym for happine...