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

Why my father kept this poster-sized cursive chart stashed away for decades could be considered a questionable choice by some: Cursive chart found in my parents' basement before they moved last year. I was there when Pop tried to gift his find to Jack and Ella, otherwise known as his grandkids. They squarely refused to take it.  It soon came to light that kids these days no longer learn cursive in school. They can't write it. And they can't read it. It didn't take too long for me and my pop to capitalize on this learning. We tormented the children for the rest of the afternoon by writing secret notes to each other "in code." I'm pretty sure the kids took the chart after that.

Take a look at this find: "Always be polite."  Written 100 times in 1952 by my mom. It was discovered at the bottom of a box at my grandmother's house.  Not everyone would have kept the evidence her eldest's incivility for 70 years. But my grandma was always an iconoclast when it came to collectables. She lined multiple shelves with empty Aunt Jemima syrup bottles. She piled up every National Geographic printed since the end of the second world war. Maybe she liked the symmetry of multiples (?). In any event, while the caliber of her archives is unrivaled, I have one small grievance with this latest unearthed family heirloom. "Always be polite?"  Seriously? I want to know what my mother was doing, exactly, that warranted such a grueling just dessert. For example: I will not spank others. I will not aim for the head. I will not conduct my own fire drills. I will not prescribe medication. I will not eat things for money. No one is interested in my underpants. ...

Walking back from outdoor dining on the UWS with Bruce and Nardo last week, something reminded me of an incident, ages ago, in Chelsea. A man in a full-on purple suit stopped Tom on the sidewalk. He asked Tom if he knew of a club that was open, and also, did he want to come along to this club. It was 8am. Tom was holding a bagel. A club, pre-pandemic totes obvs. We all laughed and recalled the good old days before the pandemic. A decade before the pandemic. When the clubs were legal, indoors, and open until 11am. Bruce said he used to go clubbing.  My eyebrows shot up. Bruce goes to bed at like 9:30pm. He's one of those annoying early morning risers. Bruce gives me a look like I've completely underestimated him. He explains his clubbing routine: Go to bed at 9:30, as usual. Get up at 5am, as usual. Eat breakfast, put on a slinky outfit, and head out to a club. I stood corrected. I told Bruce it sounded like a brilliant strategy. Bruce said it was. He was the freshest one in the...

Our professor Dr. Sharon Latchaw Hirsch teaching a class in a pink blazer and a skirt separate. She usually wears her open toe low-heeled pumps with this ensemble. Wanda and Derek said they were taking an online art appreciation class and I was all in. I have never taken an art appreciation class and always wanted to. Then Wanda and/or Derek said they were taking the class online and the subscription costs fifteen bucks a month.  I signed up immediately and commandeered Tom to be my fellow co-ed.   We completed all 34 lectures in the course and I'm looking forward to commenting knowingly on art of all kinds. Henceforth, when I see a sculpture in the round, I will walk the whole goddamn way around it and study the pedestal before I make any premature evaluations. And don't even with the rococo. I can spot those cupids from a mile away.  Our professor, Dr. Sharon Latchaw Hirsch  certainly knows a lot about art, we appreciated that from the get go. But as the ...

Hi there,   It’s been a little while, but I think about you and hope you’re doing well. Isn’t it crazy that it’s been almost fifteen years since we hung out together in Seattle?  I’m ok. Tom is good.  We just got back from visiting my mom and dad in the Utah desert. They retired a few years back and they are now volunteer park rangers. They go from park to park for 3-6 months per gig. They love it, but keep getting bizarre bacterial infections and unusual injuries resulting from life in a cabin in the wilderness.  Petrified Forest Desert Scene Recently, My friend Erin invited me to a polo match. (yes, this all connects, hang with me here).  I never attended a polo match before, so I asked her if I should dress up like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Interestingly, she said yes. Everybody dresses like that at polo matches.  So I went to TJMaxx and for $12.99 bought the hat with the biggest brim I could find. I swear it’s as big as a pizza.  Tragical...

  Dried Split Peas in an attractive little pile Yesterday I was halfway through a shower when all of a sudden, there was something digging into my heel. I lifted up my foot and picked off one (1) dried split pea. Later on, I told Tom about the split pea. I wondered where it had come from. The whole incident had a very mysterious vibe.  Tom immediately responded, "Do you think it fell out of your hair?" WTF.

The results of the dialect quiz I took For those of you who wish to validate that you actually live where you think you live, here's the quiz link:  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/dialect-quiz-map.html The main reason "Philadelphia" is showing up on my results page is because of the "what do you call a sandwich in a hot dog bun" question.  I put down "hoagie." Even though of course it's a sub. Everybody knows it's a sub. But I felt a wave of Pennsylvania hoagie nostalgia when I saw the question and thus clicked on hoagie. In my defense, we had hoagie sales in my elementary school that paid for field trips. Maybe I liked field trips. I felt an obligation to my heritage to go with hoagie. And thus the Philadelphia. I also have a sense for why the Yonkers, which is probably code for "the Bronx." It's because my pop comes from the Bronx and he was a very prolific teacher of words to young me.  That's the thing wit...

 As a sequel to my earlier reporting on the  Restaurant Land Grab  transpiring in and about Chelsea, Manhattan, may I present an update on current curbside goings-on in the area of fine dining. First of all, the field of play has leveled up. The ramshackle tent cities are a thing of the past except at the most Jesus-take-the-wheel establishments.  I also appreciate the variety in both architecture and decor. You have your woodsy "cabin" styles, juxtaposed with kind of fresh greenhouse looks and then your more thematic construction efforts. Here's a bunch of photos I've taken lately: There's a whole sushi bar in there. Each little compartment has a table and old-timey photos on the divider walls It kind of looks like a doll-house from this angle. Except for the cone. This is a gigantic establishment, amiright? It being situated right on the bike lane could get interesting. Hopefully everybody has insurance. Here's another "both sides of the sidewalk" ...

 As a sequel to... Movies I - Mom, Dad and Tom discuss Steve McQueen on the porch Movies II - Dad's Top 3 Favorite War Movies  ; and Movies III - Favorite Fights! . ..may I present  Family Favorite Escape Movies *As discussed during Family Zoom Nite* Great Escape Shawshank Redemption Escape from Alcatraz Stalag 17 The movie where Sylvester Stallone is a soccer player. Mom notes for the record: "This was the worst movie I ever saw." The movie where Woody Allen is in a chain gang. They escape and tell people they are a giant charm bracelet. The movie where Paul Newman escapes with 50 eggs.  The movie where Paul Newman escapes with 50 eggs.  "No, wait, he eats 50 eggs." "It had a weird title." "Technically, if he ate the 50 eggs, he did escape with them." "It was Cool Hand Luke." "Whether he escaped or not with the 50 eggs would really depend on the timing." "Oh right, Cool Hand Luke."

 My mother gave me an actual, non-kindle paperback book for Xmas by Jonathan Safran Foer : A real paperback book by Jonathan Safran Foer I was finishing up reading The Warmth of Other Suns and also Den Jag Aldrig Var  as well as some stories by David Sedaris so I only cracked open the book a few weeks ago. On the left inside cover I noticed an adorable note from my Mom: "I thought you would enjoy this book, Love Mom." Aww, hearts and warm smiles. On the right hand side on the first page, a red rubber stamp said, "Property of the Community Library."  So there's that.  I read the whole book in record time, as I am not daunted by questionable provenance. I loved it, as my mother suspected I might. I liked it so much, I suggested to Tom that he should read it too. I must have sounded convincing because he took me up on it. He opened the book and stretched his arms out to maximum length. "This type is really small," he said. Tom refuses to get the reading...

 As you probably may have guessed given my general dislike of damp socks and broken bones, I'm not the best cross country skier on the planet. Not the worst... It would take a lot of effort to be the worst when you've been skiing for thirty years. But a vast and unfathomable distance from the best.  I know this for a fact because we have skied up in Craftsbury VT on the same trails as the US Olympic biathlon team. They pass us so fast you sort of wonder if you imagined it. They also travel with such beautiful grace. It's like they are floating above the snow. Unlike some of us who are unmistakably on the snow and occasionally in the snow. But forget all that for now. In the vicinity of High Point, NJ, Tom and I are gold-medal contenders. The odds would be heavily in our favor should any sort of cross-country skiing contest ensue. I probably don't even mean a contest of speed or distance. I probably just mean a contest to see who can stand up in their skis without fallin...

 I was chatting with Bruce the other day about this whole minimalism trend wherein people go around their abodes and throw things away. I am no minimalist. If there's a flat, unoccupied surface I aim to put something there. So I told Bruce I was a maximalist when it came to interior design. Bruce suggested I might be a maximalist in life.  OK, I'll own it. I enjoy: brocade as many kinds of tea as possible on hand at any given time gargoyle statuettes old birthday cards that are actually pretty funny a large assortment of tote bags CAPS LOCK We were at brunch this morning with Derek, Wanda, Matt and Helen at this adorably maximalist place called Ladurée  in Soho. Maximalist = pastries stacked on top of each other There is a white fur throw on the backs of the chairs these days. Definitely maximal. I mentioned to Derek that we were looking to pop into MacKenzie and Childs on the way home. Derek grimaced. He is not a maximalist. And this MacKenzie and Childs is about as max...

 You can just call me Laura Ingalls Wilder. Each evening we're here in the heezie, I venture into our gutted former kitchen: No kitchen left standing! The only thing left standing in there is a slop sink. I fill up two glass jugs of water and the Brita water pitcher: Hauling around jugs of water I haul these back to our makeshift "kitchen" in the living room. I told Tom the other day that our "kitchen" reminds me of the kitchen in an off-off broadway theater production. There's a shelf full of canned goods, a folding table with a microwave and a toaster, and a dinette set from 1978 that is the full-on epitome of a dinette set from 1978. It's great, frankly. Very well made. The other daily event is the washing of the dishes. We have a tub of water in our "kitchen": Prairie "Sink" in the "Kitchen" Throughout the day, we toss our dishes into the tub and then, after the contractors leave, we lug the whole combobulation over to t...

First, Bruce and I trudged across the park dodging little kids on sleds. I was glad I wore my hiking boots. The overland journey was mostly ice and required a real rugged approach to footwear. Nonetheless, I wore a dress and fur collar. Because I felt like it.  Sadly, at the Met, all the timed tickets to  "About Time"  were sold out. That's what I get for 100% not bothering to plan ahead. In retrospect, it probably was a little optimistic to assume we'd get in. The show closes tomorrow. Luckily, there's the whole rest of the Met. Bruce and I both agreed the Clyfford Still called "1950-W" was the stand out of our afternoon. We stared at it for awhile and played a version of Ten Thousand Dollar Pyramid. Bruce muttered 10-20 words that began with the letter P until I shouted "Patina" and we both agreed it was a good word to describe the painting: Clyfford Still at the Met Museum of Art I was very pleased with my keen eye after noticing that, in al...

 Found these tucked away in a drawer yesterday: Tickets to dance performances at the Joyce Theater that we never saw It would take seven to ten sad emojis to reflect the melancholy I felt when I ran across these little white envelopes and the unused tickets inside them. Shows canceled due to a raging pandemic. I remember walking over the Joyce Theater box office and buying these tickets last January. Online ticket purchasing is all well and convenient for those who don't live a block and half from the theater. But for me, there's something infinitely earthly and corporeal about marching into an honest to god box office.  In a physical box office, you get to talk to the earsplitting electric voice of a cashier behind a double plexiglass wall speaking into a shitty but super loud microphone. You get to review laminated seating charts and chat about relative pros and cons of various rows. You get to slide a credit card down a shoot and moments later, receive actual tickets. Not ...

  Slush puddles Tom and I arrived on the scene a couple hours ago. Notably, as soon as we drove into Chelsea, the streets suddenly were not plowed. The West Village? Plowed. Above 14th Street? Not plowed. It was definitely a thing. Here's another fun fact: All the merchants shovel off the sidewalks, but they don't shovel off the snow on the corners of the block. So you step off the sidewalk into a six inch ice dam of dirty water. It's like this every year, I'm not sure why I remain surprised. Later on, we went back out to pick up some take out. We navigated the same exact corners from earlier. Our socks cried out in fear and trepidation. They hadn't signed up for a polar bear plunge. I said to Tom we should be Shovel Vigilantes. We should just get a f*ing shovel and f*ing shovel out the damn corners already. We'll pass those two exact same bloody corners 95 times a day. Why does nobody do this? How long could it possibly take?

 Everybody was saying to watch Moonstruck. They were saying it's the perfect spaghetti romcom for global pandemics. I mean, there are articles on this topic with a lot of custom web design. They call for Cher to get an Oscar for her role in this film for chrissakes. Cher was 41 when this movie was filmed in 1987. So, ok. We rented it. And when I say "rented it" I mean that due to it's trending status, we paid $4.99. So the movie starts out with boring Cher The Accountant getting proposed to by boring Danny Aiello whose hair is really itchy.  Then like a thunderbolt, comes the scene where Cher, in a fit of moxie, meets young Nicholas Cage. Except you don't know it's Nicholas Cage yet because his back is to the camera. He's sweaty and manhandling an underground bread oven fire pit. Flames shoot everywhere. These flames, like all flames, represent light and darkness, the uncertainty of life and its delicacy. It also represents Nicholas Cage's penis. When ...

  Mike drop. What more can I say?

 Bruce wanted to go see this exhibit at the Whitney:  So we decided to go on Saturday afternoon. We went alone because nobody else wants to hear us cackle about extremely arcane healthcare policy goings-on that we think are hilarious. Or egregious. Either way there's a lot of acronyms and snorting.  I met Bruce in the Paper Source on 14th because it was too cold to wait for him out by the subway. While in the store, I purchased a handy contraption to open up doors without touching them. It looks like this: An amazing thing: https://amzn.to/38cJsPP My God geniuses do exist in this world. With this beauty, you can grab a door handle, poke an elevator button, open a can AND sign your name on the credit card machine, ALL WITHOUT TOUCHING ANYTHING. I was completely in awe and opened up every single door for Bruce the entire afternoon. He appreciated my chivalry, but I mainly was looking to amortize my purchase. We both really liked this photo: by Anthony Barboza It's a shot b...

A teacup with fur in it  This teacup with fur in it is supposed to be the quintessential Surrealist object. The artist, Meret Oppenheim, is said to have transformed a common, utilitarian item into something "simultaneously disturbing, attractive and sexually charged." So fine with the disturbing. I'm disturbed thinking about drinking tea out of this thing and winding up with a hairball. Anybody who has had a cat will right now be conjuring up memories of thunderous "Bootsie has a hairball" barf howls.  If I squint I can see the "attractive." I mean, not in any sort of minimalist way, but when I picture this teacup and saucer and spoon nestled amongst golden things on an elaborate table strewn with grapes and velvet and surrounded by masked burlesque dancers covered in glitter... I mean, you can also almost get to "sexually charged." This whole surrealist art movement rose up in the 1930s. Everybody was captivated by the same idea -- that cert...