Yeah, I’m going to try blogging regularly again. It used to be–dare I say it–fun. Fun is good. Besides, I don’t think I added more than a page to the current WIP this week. This way I can feel productive. Not much to say, though, so come wander through the park with me. I am not a good photographer, but wanting the just the right photos to go with blog posts taught me I enjoy playing with the camera. Between my terrible vision and shaky hands, I pretty much just keep clicking until the battery dies. When I want to run away, I grab the camera and go to Central Park. Sometimes in search of birds, sometimes peace, sometimes to wander through the trails of the North Woods–the rats are bolder and more numerous up there but fewer tourists and closer to home–so I can sob my way through. Today I took the train downtown, entered the park by Strawberry Fields. Not long ago I wrote a flash fiction piece about a woman who runs away to the park and stays there. I think one lit mag is reading it. I don’t write a lot of flash, so I tend not to keep close track of whether or not a piece is on sub, and rarely try more than a couple of places.
Anyway. You hear New Yorkers say you can forget you’re in the city when you’re in Central Park. Now, I do love it, but that’s a damned lie. People, traces of people, clearly manmade structures, bridges, gates and/or the shadow of buildings are everywhere in those 843 acres. I’m pretty sure I’ve even read the slow change of leaves in the fall is due to the way the sun/shadows are disrupted by the buildings surrounding the park.
The Lake in Central Park. Beautiful, but not exactly the middle of nowhere.
I know it’s stunning when you’re surrounded by vibrant autumn colors, but I kind of like these days, with surprise pops of red or yellow against the green and brown. Much the way I walk past the serious birders of the park (and there are many serious birders in Central Park–for good reason, tons of species) with their lenses that are longer than I am, taking shots and debating the movement of amazing birds I usually can’t even see outside of their Twitter posts. I mostly stick to the sparrows/robins/bluejays/mourning doves. Yes, I will die on the hill saying those regular brown city sparrows are underrated. They’re beautiful, move and sing in little communities. Look at these little faces.
I’m not a fan of city squirrels, but they are great subjects if you’re slow with the camera. They aren’t remotely afraid of people, so they aren’t moving just because you stopped to take a picture of them. Unless you have food, in which case give it up or run, because they’ll shiv you, your grandma, and your baby to steal a few goldfish crackers.
It was a good afternoon for wandering, wind kicking enough to remind everyone that it is the end of October, slow color change or not. Until the wind increased and reminded me it was time to get home before I got clipped in the head by an errant piece of scaffolding.
Like everyone else during this pandemic, I’ve been thinking. Too much thinking. The shot above is not from today. Today is one of those crazy stormy days; crazy rain, howling winds, you don’t want to go out even if you could.
I’m thinking about how unprepared we all were for this. Not just the tangible, obvious unprepared of a federal government that decided the best way to respond to warnings was to stick their fingers in their ears and sing lalalalastockmarketlalala, the lack of sufficient medical equipment and PPE for health care workers, disruptions in supply chains. The lack of emotional preparedness of…me.
We wake up and shuffle through our days, room to room in our apartments or for brief errands outside, but we haven’t turned into actual zombies, a la Zone One.
The streets are quiet, Broadway’s gone “dark,” but despite the photos circulating of empty tourist spots like Times Square, the city isn’t silent, as The Stand would have led me to believe. As I joked the other day with a friend, I was mentally prepared for the need to engage in a bit of looting to access food in the grocery stores, not waiting on line for over an hour to be granted entry. I took the photo above last week while on line for the store, a full two blocks away.
So here we are, just about mid-April, almost a month since NY has officially been under stay-at-home orders, over a month since many been social distancing. I’m still thinking too much, and April is still National Poetry Month, which of course puts me in mind of being an angsty teen and writing angsty poetry while sitting on the rocks on an empty, windy Brooklyn beach, expecting many things ahead–some good, some not, but not this. I’m still a lousy poet, but sometimes it still feels right. I’m not writing anything else, so why not?
Birds Sing in the Quiet Spaces
In the used to be normal days
The space of almost mornings
Gray and brown wings against black to blue to lavender sky
A moment with coffee, while neighbors snored to the rhythm of
Recycle trucks belching along
Subways rumbled below, metallic clash and squeal of elevated tracks reaching
Birds sing in the quiet spacesÂ
Today, yesterday, tomorrow, the new shifting normal, quiet all day days
Thought they’d be different days
Birdsong throughout days
But city quiet isn’t silentÂ
It’s the momentary standstill walking past a writhing garbage bag on the curb atÂ
2 am
The count between a split of lightning and ripple of thunder
The pause after a squeal and thud before traffic moves on
The halt of skittering roaches against cracked linoleum when the lights come on
The right before applause as the lights dim
The stun on the playground between a fall from the monkey bars and a wail
The space between a siren’s keen and speed followed by the lament of quiet lightsÂ
There’s a bit from the manuscript I’m querying that keeps going round in my head. Is it in poor taste to quote from my own work? Do rules about poor taste apply when we’re in the midst of a pandemic and facing the apocalypse? *shrug* I’ll quote it anyway.
He should have missed me. Pined for me when we weren’t speaking, begun to waste without my dumplings. But in fact he looked fine when I snuck upstairs and watched him hauling cases of clean glasses to the bar. Healthy. Maybe he’d gained a pound or two. How could that be? I was good for him, damn it. I would be there, even later, when he got sicker and most people got afraid. Maybe. If he wanted. If I wanted. I turned my mind sideways, so’s not to think how people could be good and bad for each other at the same time. Simulcast, like a presidential speech, or a Grateful Dead concert, when the sound was supposed to line up from the TV and the radio exactly right, but there was always that lag, so you didn’t know where to put your ears.
That last bit, not knowing where to put your ears. That’s how I feel these days, but I don’t know where to put my mind, can’t quite think about anything straight on without needing to let my thoughts slide to the next, and yet now matter how much slip sliding between the neurons, those thoughts always slide to another aspect of Covid-19. The danger to my family, personally, health-wise? Slip. The economic ramifications? Slide. The thought that if one of my loved ones ends up hospitalized I don’t think I’d be allowed to actually, physically be with them? Slither. The entire country changing forever? Well, that one is something we’ve been looking at for close to four years now, isn’t it? Sigh. And what I’m talking about today. New York. The city. My New York.
The rate of confirmed cases in New York City is, so far, following the terrifying curve that’s been expected, with confirmed cases rising exponentially. For the most part the parameters for testing are still strict because of limited tests available, so when I say there were close to 4000 confirmed cases by late yesterday afternoon, it isn’t my imagination run wild to say there are likely tens of thousands of actual cases through the city already, confirmed or not, severe or not, symptomatic or not. The only thing moving faster than the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in NY right now is the number of jobs lost, which dwarfs the number sick &/or testing positive. People in the music industry, hospitality, restaurants, retail, on and on.
Much of the city looks like a movie set right now. The flats and backdrops are there, subway cars empty and waiting, lighting is right, but still far from filming, only a few people moving about here and there. I know that is good news, our best and–except for testing (out of individual control) and hand washing–only defense. Still creepy as fuck.
Being a born and bred New Yorker is its own cultural identity. You can be anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world, and if you say you’re a New Yorker, people have images that come to mind. Images of the tourist traps you avoid, the cultural institutions you grew up frequenting, the shops and restaurants they’ve maybe dreamed of visiting but for you are–were?–daily life. If, like me, you’re of a certain age and/or from certain boroughs, you don’t actually have to identify yourself as a New Yorker, not for nothing but your accent does it for you, recognized no matter where you are.
Broadway is dark. I love live theater, and yes, I love Broadway shows. I haven’t been able to go regularly in years, out of budget, but man oh man, nothing like it. Those shows are mind-bogglingly expensive to produce and run. With weeks, maybe months, of no sales, how is it going to get up and running again? And those are the big boys, what about the off-off Broadway shows?
The Metropolitan Opera laid off its union employees yesterday. Union employees. Think about that.
Though still technically allowed to run delivery/pick up service, many of the restaurants have closed. Restaurants in New York, even the top ones with the Big Name Chefs, run on a very, very narrow margin. The restaurants everyone has seen on tv shows/movies, read about in Page 6, and or the local corner joints that have been serving locals for decades. Katz’s Deli (1903), Lombardi’s Pizza (1905), Peter Luger (1887), Tavern on the Green (1934), The Rainbow Room (1934), Totonno’s (1924), The Russian Tea Room (1927), Delmonico’s (1837), Sylvia’s (1962), Nathan’s (1916), Jing Fong (1978), Russ & Daughters (1914), Barney Greengrass (1908) and I’m guessing literally, easily, a hundred others people world wide would recognize the name or interior shots of. Â Weeks/months of no income?
And the shops. Not just the big names that are more of a tourist attraction than shopping expedition for most (Bloomingdale’s, Tiffany’s, Bergdorf Goodman), but the ones that are known through the city and often across the world. Shops that represent New York, make this city this city. Mood Fabric, Matt Umanov Guitar’s, Rudy’s Music, Canal Street Market, Moscot’s Eyewear, Kiehl’s, and on and on and on. I can’t think anymore.
I’m no stranger to long running businesses closing their doors, no New Yorker is. With the rise of commercial rents having gone from ludicrous to impossible over the past couple of decades, the sight of a beloved local shop gated with a big long sign saying goodbye, thank you, and after X generations we’ve had to close because we lost our lease (only to sit empty for months, years, before being replaced by yet another half empty high rise, a CVS, a Starbucks, a bank whose name is going to change by the time you blink because it’s been absorbed by another bank) is a familiar one. Always a moment for sadness and reflection on how very clean and cold and corporate so many old favorite areas have become. But not everywhere, and not all the businesses.
So I’m thinking, when we get to the other side of this–and we will, whether it’s weeks, months, or over a year–what will be left of New York? My New York, our New York. Who and what businesses will be able to ride it out in this city of those that represent the city and the people in it, not the chain outposts that are already all too common a sight. Yes, we are a constantly evolving city, it’s what allowed it to become an icon and identity unto itself, self-absorbed though it may be. But those often small, multi-generational, not necessarily big name or big dollar places? They’re the heart that keeps beating.
So. I’ve got a love/hate relationship with this city of mine. There’s a 91,000 word manuscript sitting and waiting for me to decide if I’m going to query it or not, and in many ways it’s my love letter to New York; the dreams it feeds and feeds on, the dreamers (not to be confused with yet including Dreamers) who so often go unnoticed but are the framework. While I hated the unique stressors that have gone hand in hand with raising kids here; the ludicrous public school process, not having the ability to say, “go play in the yard!,” having to lug toys and snacks to the park every day when they were small, it also meant Husband and I found amazing school opportunities we wouldn’t have otherwise explored, spent enough time in museums that each had favorite paintings from the Met, a favorite dinosaur (given names) in the Museum of Natural History, knew the best way to have fun in the Guggenheim spiral without annoying everyone else, and that we spent thousands of those days playing in Central Park, Riverside Park, Morningside Park, Washington Square, etc–not a terrible backyard.
I’m here, I live here, at this point I don’t expect to live anywhere else. In all honesty, the increasing frequency and intensity of hurricanes have tarnished my lifelong beach house fantasy. Still, the constant energy of the city can be…a lot. I still dream about a little house in the middle of nowhere. And a garden. What I have–and yes, I know what a luxury it is–is a little terrace, shared with my neighbor, split by a flimsy partial wall thing. It isn’t big or fancy, but it’s my peace. I’m out there every morning, drink my coffee in my rescued-from-a-local-nail-salon-just-before-it-went-into-the-maw-of-a-garbage-truck chair, and watch the sun rise. I pop out throughout the day and evening with my tea to think about what I’m writing or just breathe. In the spring, I plant–and all summer, I close my eyes, smell the lilies and tomatoes, and imagine I’m in that middle of nowhere.
The other day we got a notice to clear off the terraces on this side of the building, they’ll be doing repair work. All. Summer. Long. No terrace access. I get it. It’s necessary, safety, blah blah blah, we’re lucky this is being done, imagine if it weren’t…. Today Man Child is going to help get it cleared off, most of my plants will go up the block to my mother-in-law’s terrace. Not terrible, right? I’m being ridiculous. Dramatic. But the thought of not having that access for the next three months takes my breath away. I wonder if anyone will notice if I drag my mug, my chair, and my tomatoes to a hidden corner in Central Park.
Hello all, it’s been a minute. How do I work this? How did I get here? Wait. Wrong song, wrong questions. Sort of.
I’ve been writing. And writing and revising and writing and revising. When I first began Mrs Fringe back in 2012, it was for all the lovely esoteric? ridiculous? reasons: a spot to be me, blah blah blah. It was also to see if I could get back to the discipline of writing. Which I did. In addition to the blog, I wrote a novel. I was pleased to have written it, queried it briefly, but I kind of hated it. I liked the very kernel in the center, but it wasn’t me. Not as a person, and not as a person who plays with words. Then I wrote another novel, which I loved. I queried that one, got an unexpected and deliciously exciting number of requests based on the query and opening chapters, but no offers, no hey-your words suck, please stop, no fix this-not that. I was fucking crushed, never going to write another novel, etc. Then I thought about going back to that other one, ideas for how I could rewrite it in a way that was me, but maybe include the potential to be commercially viable.
I started writing down notes on those ideas. Then in November 2016 the unspeakable but unignorable happened in the US, and I was crushed in a different way. At that point I took a break from the blog, feeling like America had voted for me to shut the fuck up, no-one was ever going to want to hear my words; not through Mrs Fringe and not through my fiction. Came back, blogged sporadically when I couldn’t stop the awful from spilling onto the keyboard, started seriously rewriting that manuscript. Too much awful, stopped the fiction, still blogged sporadically, then decided I needed to finish that novel. Talk about ludicrous. I had adult child telling me Mrs Fringe wasn’t fun anymore so obviously my answer was to write 90,000 words of political satire. Proof that no whips or chains are required to fulfill masochistic tendencies. This was also a different process for me. By nature, I’m a linear writer. First chapter, edit, second chapter, edit, and so on, until I reach the end, go back and edit the whole thing. I thought hey, this will be easier, I’ve got the bones from that original manuscript to use as a blueprint. Can’t speak for anyone else’s process, but for me, it was much harder, and I didn’t have enough words left at the end of each session to also blog. I will never do this again. Would I go back and revise an old manuscript, if there was a specific reason (ie: interest from someone in the industry)? Sure. But this? Nope. Seriously, I’d rather face the blank page.
I’m back here today because I’ve been thinking about blogging a lot. I broke the rules with Mrs Fringe. I don’t have one specific focus, I’m an expert on nothing yet have been forthcoming with my .02 on everything. I’m anonymous. I’m not consistent with content nor post production. I *gasp* don’t keep it positive. In almost six years of doing this, I haven’t built a huge following, but I do have a following. I think. Are you still there, readers? It’s me, Fringey. (I really did let it lie quiet for months this time.) If I was going to hit it “big” with thousands of followers, I figure it would have happened by now. But on a semi-regular basis–even during periods where I’m on a break and not posted anything–I get notes/messages from readers, maybe asking where I am, or telling me my weird words made sense to them, some have been generous enough to thank me. Every one of those notes has been amazing to receive, felt like both validation (yes! someone likes my words!) and bonus (it’s a blog, I have no expectation for anything to come of it). Can I find the same with my fiction? For all the years I’ve been playing with words, the question hasn’t changed: are my words good enough? Am I enough?
(Currently the working title of the manuscript, I’ve had this song on repeat for months. At this point I think it’s the soundtrack to my nightmares.)
Seemed appropriate to keep the tree both small and bare this year.
Am I the only one who considers the soundtrack of Rent to be Christmas music? Seems more apt than ever this year, when marginalized people across America have been told they don’t count, and laws and policies are being put in place to ensure this. Like, yanno, women. And brown people. And poor people. And young people. And old people. Â And the middle class. And the LGBTQ community. I’m not sure how all these people add up to a minority, but hey, math was never my strong point.
I hope everyone is finding some peace this season as we head into the new year. 2017 was one dumpster fire after another, wasn’t it? Plain old ugly. I’d like to believe 2018 will be different, but I’m not seeing anything to indicate that will be the case. Hell, as I was sitting and listening to Rent, I saw this bit in the news. Who needs to address HIV/AIDS? It isn’t like it impacts everyone, or matters for people to have access to healthcare. Yeah, I’m not expecting any miracles this year.
I’m not about beauty. Sure, I appreciate the look of a rose, but they make me sneeze, make my eyes water in ugly ways. I don’t like pretty poetry, don’t write beautiful characters, I can’t help it. It’s my nature to look at a scene–real or imagined–and be captured by what happened to create it; what went wrong, what’s about to go wrong, and find the scars and stretch marks we carry on the inside and out to be more interesting than a straight nose or flawless complexion.
I’ve always been about small moments, firmly believe these are what make a life; good, bad, or indifferent. A couple of weeks back, Art Child and I went to the Columbus Circle holiday market. We go every year, all kinds of local (and not so local) artists, artisans, and crafts. This year we weren’t shopping so much as just looking. This year more than ever the plan for gifts was about practicality and needs over anything else. It was freezing the day we went, and I wasn’t dressed for it because outdoor shopping hadn’t been the plan, so mostly I was breathing into the neck of my coat, trying to keep warm while hurrying the girl along. I paid attention to exactly one booth. I’m sure I must have seen them before, but this year it overrode the cold and made me stop. Peacebomb jewelry. Aluminum shrapnel from bombs dropped in Laos fifty years ago–by America during the Vietnam War, recast into bits of hope, bits of reclaiming what is ugly and destructive and turning them into beauty. I loved this.
Apparently I loved it so much Husband remembered. I can say without guilt or hesitation I didn’t ask or hint for him to go and get me something from them. Number 1, they’re out of budget. Number 2, we’re supposed to be focusing on the practical. I was so shocked, these were so the perfect gift to close this shitbomb of a year…it’s possible I scared our kids–I cried. I don’t think I’ve ever cried upon opening a gift before, and wouldn’t imagine ever doing so for any reason, but there you have it. Yes, I was surprised that Husband would remember me telling him about this organization and these artists. Yes, I was completely touched that he went down to the booths, searched out this one, and chose not only to purchase something from them, but a pair of earrings I would definitely choose for myself, but also something more. Dangling hope on hooks.
Not hope of magic rescue, or turning back the clock or turning over the election. That ship has sailed, and the damage is too real; ensconced in our government, new laws and overturning of regulations, sitting on judge’s benches for lifetime appointments. Frightening and most damaging of all, the realization and illustration of how vulnerable our democracy and democratic norms are. But hope that someday my children, your children, our collective grandchildren, will dig up these bombs and craft something beautiful out of them.
Happy Holidays, everyone. Whatever you do or don’t celebrate, I’m wishing all small moments of peace and hope in the New Year.
A few photos from 23rd Street, just a bit east of where the explosion took place Saturday night.
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I had never heard of the Chicks on the Right before, and I’m pretty much the left leaning filthy hippy they rail against, perhaps even the “landbeast” or “moon bat” so charmingly defined in their chicktionary. Â But hey, I don’t live in an echo chamber and don’t want to, and these are apparently two middle aged women putting themselves and their beliefs out there in the blogosphere. Â I want to support that, wanted to find out more about them, being another middle aged woman who puts herself and her beliefs out there. Â Imagine my surprise when I actually read the post I had seen linked in my Facebook feed this morning. Â Now I’m sure they don’t know or care who Mrs Fringe is, I’m barely a spit bubble compared to the success of their big pink bubblegum blowing blog, but I’m a New Yorker, after all, and if you’ve got questions/thoughts/incorrect assumptions about life in the Big Apple, I’m your gal.
So let this cliched middle aged broad clarify a couple of things for you. Â I have a passionate love/hate relationship with this city, but when you’re born and raised here, you’re a New Yorker for life, even if you’ve long since moved to Timbuktu. Â I have never been to Indianapolis (the area these “chicks” appear to be from), so I don’t know what it’s like there. Â The only tv show I can think of that was set there is One Day at a Time, pretty sure that isn’t an accurate reflection. Â I, and all eight million of my neighbors, are indeed tough and resilient. Â What we aren’t is a hive mind. Â That’s the beauty of New York. Â Diversity. Â Is that a dirty word for your blog? Sorry, it’s the one that fits.
Not just diversity in faith, skin color, gender/gender identity, sexuality, ethnicity, but diversity in thoughts and beliefs, including political. Â Yeah, we’re a blue city in a blue state, but there are enough right leaning people here–and even more independent thinkers– that we’ve had a Republican mayor or two.
This isn’t my main issue or yours, not what spurred me to respond. Â The emergency text blasted out to all NY cell phones, identifying the name of the suspect wanted for the explosion that had taken place in Chelsea a few days earlier. Â For the record, I’m not a big Twitter user (though I think I will send you gals a tweet so you see this post), I hadn’t seen any of the ones you posted, let alone tweeted about it myself. Â That said, yeah, receiving that text falls under what I like to call icky-squicky-this-can’t-be-right. Â Not because I didn’t want the person responsible captured and prosecuted, but because it feels more than a bit Big Brother-ish. Â I’m a little confused, aren’t conservatives the group that complains about government overreach? Â I know you disagree, and I’m sorry for being dense, perhaps you can explain it to me. Â Simply, seeing as I’m a slow-witted New Yorker who doesn’t understand what’s in my best interests.
I was also taken aback by your expanding and clarifying statement, “Not only that, but these delicate snowflakes cried that something like this could lead to the Supreme Evil of racial profiling.” Â Sorry for causing more eye rolls, but my experience as someone who lives in this great diverse city means that yup, I’m also against racial profiling. Â Why? Â Because my neighbors, friends, children’s friends/classmates, family members, are a diverse (oops, there’s that naughty word again) bunch. Â Getting up and living their lives each day, I imagine much the way you do, and being profiled, stopped, too often falsely accused and arrested just doesn’t seem to represent the land of the free to me. Â Profiling isn’t “suddenly” bad. Â Perhaps you weren’t aware of it as an issue until recently. Â That’s ok, you don’t know what you don’t know. Â You know the nice part of being older? Â I’ve learned to stop and think; listen to the other side of issues, take the time and put in the effort to learn the subtleties. Â America is a big place, encompassing many different people, beliefs, and lifestyles. Â What works in a small town in Montana wouldn’t make sense in New York–and that’s okay. Â Damn I hope I don’t melt, being a snowflake and all, it’s hot in the city today.
But what really got my fingers itching to respond? Â “New Yorkers have traded in their traditional toughness for a safe space of politically correct social justice.” Â Here’s a bit of New York reality for you, our world has changed. Â We’ve made trade-offs, some I agree with, some I don’t, but yeah, I’ve changed. Â I assume you weren’t here in New York on 9/11/01. Â I was. Â I haven’t forgotten. Â I haven’t forgotten the fear of trying to figure out what was going on. Â I haven’t forgotten running to get my son from school, finding a stream of parents flowing in and out of the school trying to get their children, the hushed panic of whispers about parents who worked in which towers. Â I haven’t forgotten my gratitude for the incredible calm and order the school staff had going. Â I haven’t forgotten the horrible, unnatural quiet in the streets. Â I haven’t forgotten trying to reach people I loved with no answer for hours that felt like decades. Â I haven’t forgotten watching the towers burn and the smell of smoke and the ash settling over EVERYTHING. Â I haven’t forgotten the first aid stations that were set up so efficiently that looked like not quite perfect movie sets–where are the extras?– because they were so empty. Â I haven’t forgotten the thousands of people staggering up Broadway like zombies, covered in layers of white gray ash made up of things we didn’t want to think about. Â Wondering if we were breathing in people. Â I haven’t forgotten the many, many people who didn’t get to go home. Â I haven’t forgotten being trapped on this island of Manhattan, no one other than emergency/official vehicles in or out. I haven’t forgotten the nausea and heart stopping this-will-never-be-the-same first time I saw clusters of armed guards in the subway, on the streets and by the bridges and tunnels. Â Not something to watch on a tv screen, not theoretical, but my city, my friends, my neighbors. Â Perhaps you think I should be embarrassed to admit this day changed my life and my city forever? Â That there is fear that didn’t used to live in my gut? Â Nope, not embarrassed at all.
Chicks on the Right, you have every right to disagree with my political opinions.  You have every right to voice those opinions, vote for the candidates who agree with you, protest the decisions that go against your belief systems and values.  You can join the millions of non-New Yorkers who are quick to lay claim to our city but have no clue what it is to live here, live side by side with all kinds of people, no idea how to make peace and have respect for those who live differently.  But unless you were sitting next to me on the train yesterday, on my way to pick my daughter up from school, underground when the train stopped, vague announcements about a problem ahead, then listening to the announcement that all service had been suspended and thereby wondering if someone had fallen onto the tracks, or jumped, or if there had been another attack, trying to send a text to the school and your child not to leave the school because you were going to be late and you didn’t know how late, feeling the gratitude and relief when the car doors opened so you could run off the train, up and out of the subway and wait behind 342 other people trying to grab cabs on the same corner, knowing you were still on the wrong side of the UN and the President was here to speak there, enough of a New Yorker to then argue with the cab driver about the best route to take so you could get to your child, establish they and your city are safe, knowing you’ve got to get back on those trains to get home, do it again tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, you don’t get to tell me how tough and resilient I and my fellow New Yorkers are not.
Museum Day, brought to you by Mrs Fringe and Art Child. Â A great thing about living here in the city is that there’s no pressure when it comes to museums, not a big deal to plan, and no feeling of obligation to see it all in one day. Â I’ve been intending to get to this exhibit for three months. Â Now that it ends in a week and a half, I finally made it over there, and want to go again before it’s gone. Â There is The Met Breuer, a new annex? outpost? of The Met, in the building that used to house the Whitney. Â Anyway, I loved the idea of this exhibit, unfinished works of art, both intentional and unintentional, and there was a section of works intended to be interactive with the viewer. Â I’m not sure if this exhibit will be traveling, but if so, go see it!
Yes, for someone who is not a visual artist, I love art, but this whole show spoke to me. Â Maybe it’s that as both a reader and writer of words, I prefer when stories and characters leave some room for me to think, inject my own imagination. Â Not in a choose-your-own-adventure sort of way, but in terms of not needing to know every physical detail of characters, not needing (or wanting) every ending to be neatly wrapped in a perfect, glossy ribbon.
Many wonderful quotes scattered throughout, this was one of my favorites.
I, of course, took way too many photos, so even paring down will likely make two posts out of this excursion, so as not to crash everyone’s computers or put my readers into a pixellated stupor. Â Some of the works gave me a creative charge, exciting, while others had me tearing up.
I loved this idea, and the variety of ways artists captured it.
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I cut off her name, oops. Janine Antoni.
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This next one, on the surface, is the type of painting that might often have me squint and hurry past, because it’s so “in your face” there seems no room to think. Â But something in this held me for quite a while, really spoke to me, if you want to be frou-frou about it. Â Actually, my immediate thought was, “oh God, it’s Mrs Fringe!” If, yanno, I was blond, blue eyed, and possessed the ability to pick up a gun.
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Next we came to this series, which is where Art Child wanted to sit and sketch.
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I had no idea why, but honestly, I was ready to sit down and continue thinking about the Lassnig painting. I took a few shorts of the panels, and Art Child asked if I had gotten the face. Â Again, no clue what she was referring to, it all looked like drips to me, so I handed her the camera.
I’ll be damned. This is why she’s the artist. See the eyes?
While it was very interesting to be able to “see” the process of some of the works and artists, there’s also something…uncomfortably intimate about seeing some of these works in progress, from some of the greatest and most enduring artists. Â But that is art, no? To make you uncomfortable enough to think and feel.
This full moon wasn’t last night, but it felt like it should have been.
What is stage fright, anyway?
So last night was that thing. Â The reading. Â I spent the day with my brain in the overdrive of heightened anxiety, changed my clothes three times, my shoes four, and slopped half a gallon of product in my hair, in a futile battle with the humidity. Â I was pretty sure I didn’t have to worry about how my words would be received, or how I’d sound, because surely I was going to have a stroke before it was my turn.
Husband offered to meet me down there. Â Down, because the bar couldn’t be further from my apartment and still be in Manhattan. Â No, thanks. Â I’m one of those people. Â When I’m nervous about something, I’m better off alone, because your moral support will likely be met by me biting your head off. Â Cranky. Â Bitchy, even. Â That and the fact that I figured the reason I was doing this was to maybe, hopefully, connect with other writers. Â I know myself. Â If Husband was with me, it would be the perfect excuse to not speak to anyone, revert to my teenaged self, sit in back and make jokes about myself. Â Man Child offered to go down with me. Â No thanks. Â Then he offered to just travel down with me. Â Umm, maybe. Â No, no, I’m a grown up, I don’t need an escort, I’m fine. Â Are you sure? Â Yes, thank you. Â Are you really sure, because I’m going to start laundry otherwise? Â Yes yes I’m sure.
Ten minutes before I left, I’m going to call Husband and have him meet me. Â Oops, look at the time, he’s already on his way home, that wouldn’t be nice. Â I’m good, I can do this.
Five minutes before I left, ummm, Man Child? Â I changed my mind. Â But you can’t stay. Â He traveled downtown with me, and then encouraged me when I spent ten minutes standing outside, bemoaning the fact that I had remembered my camera but not the battery that would allow it to work.
I really have great kids.
I’ll be honest, this sign in the window is probably what got me through the door. Â That and Man Child’s gentle shove.
At the entrance to the back room, where the event was being held, the producer was checking tickets. Â I was nervous about the whole e-ticket thing. My name was already on his list, great. I’m scoping the room behind him, happy to see empty seats in back when he says, “Oh. Â You’re reading.” Â Was I supposed to mention that? Â “Umm, yeah, I guess so.” Â Damn, I’m smooth.
It’s a funny thing. Â Once I was in, I felt acutely aware that I have never done this before, but not nervous. Â Basically I was certain I was going to fuck up, drop my pages, lose my voice, have that stroke, yanno. Â It wasn’t crowded, there were two featured writers and several open mic-ers. Â The open mic folks were mostly poets. Â Excellent, this way I was certain to not fit in. Â I liked the way it was organized, open mic readings scattered throughout the evening with the featured writers in between. Â (Featured meaning authors with books recently published/about to be published) I’m not sure what I expected, but it was a lively mix of “straight” poetry, spoken word, an excerpt from a graphic novel, excerpts from a flash essay collection, part of a short. Â The crowd was mixed in age, sex, and ethnicity, also nice.
There was a microphone! Eek. Â And others were introduced by the MC with a bit about them. Â Crap, was I supposed to tell them something other than my name and here’s-my-eight-dollars? Â Ah well. Â I considered plugging Mrs Fringe before or after I read, but therewasamicrophone. Â I just did it. Â I read the opening few pages to Astonishing (probably about half the first chapter, it’s the one up on the blog here). Â Everyone was quiet while I read, so either I held their attention, or they were taking the opportunity for a cat nap. Maybe they just couldn’t hear me, I didn’t get too close to that mic. Â I’m from south Brooklyn ferChristssake, I can be plenty loud.
I met a few people who seemed quite nice. Many of those in the audience and those who went up are apparently regulars, but everyone was welcoming. Â Not one pointed and snickered, or muttered, “poseur” as I went past. Â If they did I didn’t hear them. Â Success.
In any case, I felt like it went well. Â I was surprised I couldn’t see the audience once I was up there, all I saw was lights, and that made it much easier. Â More surprising, I didn’t feel intimidated while I was reading, I just…read. Â Scenarios like this always surprise me, no one talking about the angst and futility of trying to get published, trade or otherwise. Â It’s as if there’s an assumption that you and everyone else is doing it, you belong there.
Just me, my flowers, the occasional spider to watch the sunrise.
Seems peaceful, doesn’t it? Â Especially before I boot the laptop, read about the day’s atrocities and most current buffoonery of Trump.
Not this morning. Â Yesterday was long and busy. Â We’ve reached the portion of the summer where my anxiety begins to rise, knowing before I can weep Nerd Child will be waving goodbye, headed North to school, and I’ll be back to twelve trains a day shuffling Art Child back and forth. Â Ridiculous, we still have weeks, but there you have it. Â With Facebook friends all over the country and world, I’m already seeing the obligatory first day of school pics. Â There should be a way to block those until Labor Day, don’t you think?
With so many guests this summer, I’ve gotten behind on keeping the apartment neat and organized. Â Small space, lots of people in and out, packing, unpacking, beach bags galore and the general sloth of long hot days. Time to start getting it together, so I’m not in a complete panic in another two weeks.
Too late!
Man Child’s girlfriend, Miss Music, was here last week, came for a week after her band finished its tour. Â Fun. Â Except one morning, she was sitting on the couch with Art Child, turned to me and said, “Did you see that?”
“See what?”
A mouse.
In my apartment.
IN my apartment.
In MY apartment.
Sweet mother of fuck, nooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In my many, many years of NY living, I’ve never had a mouse in my apartment. Â There was evidence of them in our last apartment before we moved in, so we filled every crack and hole we could find, and then put down glue traps just in case. Â Big Senile Dog promptly got a glue trap stuck to his nose and each paw. Â Good times.
I grew up near the water in Brooklyn, huge wharf rats could be seen regularly on the streets. Â Yucky, but outside. Â There was also a large population of feral cats, so mice weren’t such a thing, between the cats and the rats I’m guessing mice didn’t have a chance. I see rats all the time on the subway tracks. Â Again, meh. Â Part of NY life.
Back to the other morning. Â We didn’t see anything, but we bought a few traps and put them down, Little Incredibly Dumb Dog only got 3 of them stuck to her, and they were much easier to remove than they had been for the big dog, because she’s used to being held to be groomed, and she’s got long hair. Â Plus, not as dumb as I’d expect, she steered clear of them afterwards. Zero interest in the mouse itself.
No further mouse sightings, until a couple of nights ago, eating dinner and holy shit! Â I saw a shadow fly over the living room floor. Â That was no migraine floater. Â The plan was to go shopping yesterday to restock on cleaning supplies and toiletries, both for the apartment and for Nerd Child to take to school. Â Needless to say I picked up more mouse traps.
Got home, tore apart the living room, dining area, and kitchen, filled every hole around every pipe we could find, and laid 16 mouse traps. Â When I say we, I mean Husband and Nerd Child, while Art Child and I steered clear and washed our hands every time those guys touched another trap. Â I am not taking any chances. Â I know, they’re a fact of life in NY, in most places, I guess, hence the city mouse/country mouse stories, but they’ve never been a fact in my personal space and I am not ok with sharing. Â This apartment is crowded enough, thankyouverymuch. Nerd Child reminded me I’m against the death penalty. Â Nope, only for two legged creatures. Â Twitchy four legged ones need to be erased. Period.
You know how high my anxiety levels are now, right? Â In case I needed a bit more, tonight is that open mic night reading.
So I got up, made coffee, went on the terrace, sat for a bit, and then prepared to sit at my desk. Â One of the glue traps under the radiator worked. Â But the critter was still alive, and had gotten two of my electrical cords stuck with it. Â I woke Husband, went back to hiding on the terrace. Â I was heroic enough to dispose of the whole thing, after it was bagged.
Yes, I took a pic of the mouse actually stuck to the trap, but I just can’t bear looking at it again.
mrsfringe 