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

My latest head and chest cold problem started a week ago. Last Friday, one of the buddhists breathed right on my face. We were over at the Rubin for happy hour when all of a sudden I felt this robust puff of air hit my nostrils. I think that was the start of it. I've been using my time in quarantine to bone up on cold and cough pharmaceuticals. Here's my collection: Impressive, amiright?!! I'm going to take this opportunity to spell out some important take-aways. You are going to want to study this post very carefully so you don't make the same critical errors I made and wind up coughing yourself into a sleep deprived wraith of the night.  I asked Tom if I kept him up and he just shrugged, but then I found all these ear plugs rolling around on our damp fever sweaty sheets. He's a trooper, that one. #1: Do not buy any combination remedy. That's my first tip. None of this Robitussin Cold and Flu or any of the other pharmaceutical grab bags. Y...

I have laryngitis. The upshot is that Tom gets to chat with himself during dinner. Tom: "I hated peas growing up. But they were canned peas. Very weird texture. Also not a good color." Tom: "And the name. PEAS. What kid is going to eat PEAS?" Tom: "They'd have more luck if they called peas something else. Something like ... Green Balls. I'd call them Green Balls." Me: (WTF look) Tom: "Ok maybe Green Balls is not the best name. How about Green Goblins? or Sargent Squishies. It would be better if they were crunchy because Crunchy is great in a name. Except Captain Crunch is already taken." Tom: "I'm going to single-handedly rebrand peas. I'd like to see them in the cereal aisle. Although if peas were in the cereal aisle, they'll probably wind up coated in high fructose corn syrup." Tom: "What are peas, by the way? A legume? A bean? I need to look this up." photocredit: https://summerharvest...

image credit: https://www.kqed.org/bayareabites/89705/ matcha-silky-and-smooth-its-not-just-for-tea-ceremonies-anymore I had just been handed my chai matcha latte at the matcha latte shop on the corner. The problem with matcha lattes is the green foam. I mean really green foam. When the foam spurts out the top of your to-go cup, it looks as if a leprechaun projectile vomited on your sleeve.  And so it happened. Ick. I needed to sponge off my sleeve before the damp green blobs became permanent. I headed toward the door of the matcha latte shop intent on getting back to my apartment fast. Only one block — my chances of success seemed good. I encountered an obstacle. A short young woman putting on her gigantic Canadian Goose puffy jacket blocked the doorway. I mean fully blocked the doorway. Her hood was up, so I figured she had the no-peripheral-vision hood problem and muffled hearing and did not notice my aggressive approach. “Excuse me,” I said....

We visited some old friends the other day and their daughter, maybe she's 12, started talking about the time she and her brother came over to our house. My niece and nephew and a few other kids were there too. We took all the pillows off the couch and the beds and the chairs. We made a huge pile of pillows. It was epic. And then Tom and I ran around and captured all the kids one by one and tossed them into the pile. This went down I'm going to say 8 or 9 years ago. Meaning 80% of our friends' daughter's life ago. At the time, I regretted the whole thing fairly instantly. It was a big ruckus and although no one was permanently injured, we caused certain children to go airborne for longer than they had clearly ever been airborne before. It occurred to me that not all children are used to being flung into a huge pile of pillows. Our sense of normal had been warped by my niece and nephew, who we had actively been tossing about since they were just bundles in diapers...

I promised my 11-yo niece Ella I would buy her one thing from the Harry Potter merch shop. It's mid-December and we've just spent half an hour talking about all the Pusheens Ella hopes to get from Santa. Ella believes in Santa, by the way. There are many reasons to clutch the jolly old man close to your heart. To let go of him is: to let go of childhood to disappoint her dad, who loves how much his kids love Santa a definite gamble. What if you say you don't believe and you turn out to be wrong and then you don't get any presents? There's a lot on the line here. It's like Pascal's wager but with much more immediate stakes. So we go into the Merch booth and Ella beelines to a sales lady in the magic wand section.  "How much are the wands," she asks. "$45," says the lady. "45 dollars?!!!," squawks Ella. "I don't think so!!!" She whirls around and stalks off. I scramble to follow in her indignant wa...

We took the niece and nephews to Harry Potter on Broadway for an epic 8 hour day of back-to-back theater. As we were walking in the super crowded lobby during the first intermission, I turned to my niece and said, loudly to cut through all the background noise, I said "Are you able to see?" I asked her this question because she's 11 and therefore short and a tall guy was seated in the row right in front of us in the theater. Suddenly, a woman whirls around and gives me a brutal stink-eye. I notice she has a blind-person cane. It was awkward.

Success! 30 days of NaBloPoMo in the can. I would like to thank my entire fan base, which basically means Tom, Sean and Wanda, for their support throughout this journey. I also would like to thank the many readers who arrive at this blog by searching for "Is Cher an Indian?"  I love these readers, who have no idea who I am or how they got here on their quest for answers. They don't stay long and leave confused, but I cherish their tiny digital footprints during their one and only visit. I especially love the reader named Julie Bless who became incredibly irritated with me for insinuating that: Cher may not be a true Native American considering it looks like she can barely ride a horse in the half breed video; and Cher may not be entirely trustworthy about her ancestry given that she also claimed she was a gypsy, tramp and/or thief and that turned out to be a lie. I leave you with Julie's comment, the longest and most heartfelt comment I ever received on this...

When I was studying in Stockholm, I recall a lesson about the difference between friendships in the United States and in Scandinavia. Imagine different levels of friendship on a target with a bullseye. Picture your best most cherished friends smack inside the bullseye. These would be friends you talk to all the time and share your deepest secrets with. The ones who would sit with you in the Emergency Room all night. Then as you move outward, the first ring are good friends, but not as good as in the bullseye, continuing outward until you get to the outermost ring which is basically for acquaintances. In Scandinavia, there will be a few friends in the bullseye and then like, nobody else. In the US, basically nobody is in the bullseye but then dozens of people are in the middle rings and hundreds in the outer ones. I've discussed this concept with Swedes and Americans over the years and everyone agrees that it's largely accurate. I just thought of something tonight. Y...

Am reading the Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky. I've been reading it for days and hours and weeks and am still only 45% done. If I were reading the hard copy and not the Kindle I'd probably have major guns hoisting that fat ass book around. In Brothers Karamazov, the Father Zosima died. Spoiler alert there but the book is 150 years old. If I've now ruined it for you, I'm not overly sympathetic. This Father Zosima was a really respected Elder and everyone loved him when he was alive. Because of this, the town had the expectation there might be a miracle and his body might not stink in his coffin. I guess this is the mark of a saint, that your coffin doesn't stink up the place. Sadly, Father Zosima stunk. No miracle. And everyone started to question his greatness. Whereas the day before the town defiantly and wholeheartedly loved him, suddenly people began to doubt the worth of what he'd done for them. It reminded me of an article in the Onion about how...

Historic moment, my treasured blog readers. I just wrote 100,000 words of my second young adult novel and put them in some semblance of a format. I may have even spellchecked. Here's a snippet: From where I lay, I could see the bottom of one soft black leather boot. My eyes peered up. And up. The boot went thigh high. Above the boot were dark green leggings, a skirt made of raw leather skins, and a glimmer of sharp metal and white gold hair. Afraid to move from my spot on the floor, I cowered at the feet of the slender woman occupying the middle of my bedroom.   She rose up on her toes and then settled back upon her heels. She cocked her head to the side, lifted one eyebrow and her violet eyes stared down into mine. Her movements rolled with sinuous grace and raw power. I knew right away she was not of the Earthen.   “By what name are you called?” the woman asked. Her voice sounded like chocolate milk. It took me a heartbeat to realize her mouth had not moved...

My orchid had a baby! Here's a photo of the orchid while she was still pregnant. I should have removed the purple ribbon so you could see the baby better, but it grew right off the stalk of the mama orchid. It got so big! It had gangly roots flopping everywhere.  The baby orchid growing from the Mama orchid's stalk At some point, conversations ensued about when the baby would be ready to get clipped off and planted. Or born, if you will. The orchid resides on the table in my office, so of course this decision required at least ten people to weigh in and took a week to finally pull the trigger and induce labor. Someone brought in all the tools necessary for a successful orchid c-section. Hydrogen peroxide and alcohol to swab off the clippers (orchids are prone to fungus). And then cinnamon to dab on the "open wounds" if you will, because cinnamon is a natural fungicide. We laid out the equipment and got to work: The operating theater We plan...

I was talking to Petrina about shoes. She wears a size 14, which isn't all that surprising when you consider she's 6'2. Petrina said it's mostly her in the shoe store aisle and then a whole bunch of crossdressers. While we're on the topic of shoes, here's a video that at one point I thought was totally hilarious. It doesn't hold up:

After Ma and I headed into the Met to see the Armenia exhibit, Pop decided to walk back to Chelsea all by himself. He documented the journey. Here are the sights he saw fit to commemorate.  BTW - Pop enjoys the selfie. I'm just not exactly sure if he realizes he will be in the selfie. Pop took a keen interest in the signs hanging around Central Park Then this happened. "RockaCentaFella" as my grandma used to say my uncle called it when he was a kid. Arriving in Chelsea from 7th Avenue. Nearby. Pop blows past our place and visits the High Line. He likes Chelsea Market, but only from the outside.

Went back to the Warhol exhibit at the Whitney for round 2 with my entourage. Mom and Dad decided to pop into the city for the weekend.  Except Mom has a concussion and should not be exposed to flashing lights or quick movements and so our visit was punctuated by my brother texting with health tips. He's had like 19 concussions so he's familiar with the ground rules. He suggested we cover mom's eyes. That makes the visual arts somewhat less interesting, but we did forego Andy's movies out of an abundance of caution. I say an abundance of caution because I watched one of the movies the last time I was at the exhibit. Nothing much happens during these movies. The introduction to the exhibit. Cool! The original screen for the flowers. Collaboration with Jean-Michel Basquiat The second Basquat joint effort. Now this was a danger zone for the concussed. Andy into skulls in the 70s. Definitely ahead of his time. I love these shoes. I ...

Many years ago I decided that Cards Against Humanity would be a great game for the whole family. There were certain cards, like three quarters of the deck, which needed to be removed, of course. Grandma was definitely up for a game and so were the niece and nephews. That's usually all the peer pressure it takes to make everyone else grudgingly show up at the table. But tonight I finally roped in the in-laws. I decided it would be a good idea to take a conversational pause because. Some people don't quote Bill O'Reilly, some don't complain about the price of ammo these days, while others certainly have trouble believing that anyone would pray to a god who is ignoring all the starving children in Yemen. Things were heating up, is my point. Tom's dad was suspicious about the whole game idea at the start, but Tom's step-mom is a fierce competitor, so she was fully in. We had fun. But I have a lingering fear. What if they go out and buy the real uncensored ga...

Photo credit: http://sewingtheseedsofchange.blogspot.com/2011/03/ It's Thanksgiving week. I quit work on Wednesday, so Wednesday is like the new Friday. Which is why I was all confused this morning when I inspected my bean sprouts. I usually start the sprouting on Monday morning so by Friday, the sprouts are very sprouty. Salad-ready. But this morning, the bean sprouts were totally small. I said to Tom, "Something is wrong with my bean sprouts." There I was, all ready to harvest, staring at stringy and very tiny vegetation. It took me a good minute and a half to realize that although it feels like Friday, it is not Friday.

Friday night we went over to the Rubin to drink with some Buddhists. They're a lovely bunch, these Buddhists. Or at least they are when inebriated. The Buddhists have collected many groupies, such as ourselves, who turn up at the Rubin too. Everybody over there knows that I'm not a buddhist. Not that I look the part or anything, but one time I turned up at an alleged Buddhist book reading. I recall the title of the book was a very long word with a lot of squiggles above the letters. One of the Buddhists told me the writing was great, so I decided to pop in on the book reading. Why not, right? Except it was a book CLUB not a book READING. These terms are not synonyms. It became abundantly clear to most during the book club that not only had I not read the book, I had no idea what the book was nor did I have any intention of actually reading the book, at least by myself at home. I like drinking with Buddhists but I don't think I could be one. I have too many pairs of...

Photo you do not want to use when selling a coat on eBay: No. If you ask me, the part about how you were snug despite the chilly morning probably doesn't outweigh the part with the dead fish. Recently I met the director of photography at Century21. Next time I run into him, I'll confirm my thinking on this matter.

Pop with Mom in background this summer getting ready to leave for a bike ride. In the middle of a conversation with Pop, he says he has to go. He and mom have lunch plans. I hear Mom in the background yelling to hurry up. Dad abruptly says goodbye. He's irritated, I can tell. He's half way through a good story and now the last part will have to wait. The ending will be ruined when he has to rehash the whole thing next time we talk. In my imagination, I see my pop press the button to hang up. Then he walks out to the car and gives my mother her cell phone back. She tucks the phone in her handbag. They drive off. #MobilePhonesWorkInCars

Andy: "If I stage dived today I'd be arrested for manslaughter."