City Life

Freezing In a Puddle of Sweat

Frozen Hydrant (Photo credit: FlySi)

It’s freezing in the Northeast this week. Specifically, it’s freezing here in the city. Seeing as how it’s January, not a surprise, but that doesn’t make it any more pleasant. This is the time of year when Mrs Fringe wakes up and says a prayer of thanks to the inventor of long underwear, quickly followed by a daydream about Bora Bora.

Layer up, take the dogs for a walk, come back home and work intricate algebraic equations trying to determine how many layers it makes sense to remove when I have to go back out to take Flower Child to school in 30 minutes.

Shouldn’t be too much of a problem, right? Put on 50 layers and stop whining. Come on over to my apartment, sit down, I’ll make you a cup of coffee and you’ll defrost in no time. In fact, you’ll defrost so quickly your fingers and toes will experience a lovely burning tingle before you register you aren’t numb anymore. Then your nose will plug and buzz from the dry heat being pumped up at outrageous levels through the radiators. You’ll start to shift uncomfortably on the couch, as beads of sweat pop up, try to roll freely down your lumps and bumps, but instead get trapped by the aforementioned long underwear. We’ll engage in some witty repartee.

You’ll say, “Holy shit! It’s hot in here.”

I’ll agree, try to explain that these tall buildings send a tremendous amount of heat in the winter in order for the heat to reach the top floors; and to make life bearable for the senior citizens who live on those top floors, with their thin skin, all alone in their four bedroom apartments. “Would you like me to open the terrace door a little wider for some fresh air?”

Three minutes will pass, you’ll be on the couch doing what looks like the pee dance once more, look miserably at the open terrace door when the sweat under your bra line freezes the wire to your skin, and wonder if it would be unreasonable to ask me to close it a little.

Two more minutes will pass, you’ll mumble something, unable to think of and verbalize a coherent excuse in your stupor, then you’ll stumble out the door.

I will do what looks like a happy dance when the door closes, but is actually a contortionist act, removing several layers. Cooler, and gives me access to scratch, scratch, scratch at my skin, the dryness from the indoor heat leaves me itching like a 3 year old with chicken pox. I decide it’s just as reasonable to scratch off the top 8 layers of skin as it is to take off the top 8 layers of cold weather gear.

News Flash–Heat Bad for Productivity (Photo credit: moria)

Oh yeah, now I’m feeling comfortable. I make a cup of tea, dance around in my long johns because it’s silly, and then have a productive hour or two where I write. Time to layer up and walk the dogs again. The cold air in the lobby feels great by the time I get off the elevator. Sadly, standing outside in 11 degree temps while the dogs sniff around, not so great. Bring the dogs back up, take off layers, half an hour or so to putter, or clean, make a shopping list or call in med refills. Put layers on, go to the grocery store. Come home, top few layers off, put groceries away.

Layers on, walk to the school to pick up Flower Child. Grateful for the fur hat I got from my mother. Yes, yes, fur is bad, it isn’t politically correct, but it is warm. Arrive at school, wonder if my fingers are in fact frostbitten. Get the girl, walk to the train station, look enviously at the lady hailing a cab in a full length mink. Go down the steps, wait for train on the 500 degree platform. Get home to the 87 degree apartment, rip off layers from myself and the girl. Make her hot chocolate and assess if her temperature is coming back up to her normal range within a reasonable time frame. Do what needs to be done, homework, dinner prep, etc.

Oh look, it’s time to walk another dog. Layers back on, trek to pick up the dog, walk along the edge of the park. I eye the dog, and ponder how I would look in a mutt coat. Is there enough for a hood? This hat isn’t a really good fur, and doesn’t sit too snug, so the frigid air is wrapping an ace bandage of dried sweat from the overly hot apartment around my head. Time to walk home. By now my brain is frozen, and I’m hallucinating a polar bear. You know the sweet, sad one from the Central Park Zoo, lives on Prozac? I’m ready to disembowel said polar bear with the daggers that are my icicle fingers, and drape myself head to toe with the still steaming skin.

English: A male polar bear (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Go home, do the evening thing, alternate sweating with standing shivering on the terrace, unwilling to strip down to the long johns yet, because I still have to walk my dogs for the night. Dog poop is super easy to pick up when it comes out already frozen.

I Hate You! But I Need You.

Sun en face (Photo credit: Forsetius)

Early morning. I have a complicated relationship with my alarm clock–not so affectionately known as the egg–and sunrise. I am not an early riser by nature, but I’ve learned to be. Much as I love my bed, I am not and never was someone who could jump out of it and be out the door in twenty minutes. I need my coffee, I need to sit in peace before I start the day. And then I need more coffee.

This trait is one of very few things about my life and myself that hasn’t changed with time and circumstance.

When I was younger and lived by myself, I was one of those people who needed two alarm clocks; one by the bed, and one across the room that would ring after I had hit the snooze on the one by the bed three or four times. Between years long issues with insomnia and a work schedule that was very inconsistent, I needed both of them. Let me just say, the ability to sleep through multiple alarms combined with being neurotically prompt can make for some very unpleasant mornings.

During the week, I get up between 5 and 5:30AM. Weekends, it depends how stressful the week has been. The more stress, the more I stick to the weekday schedule, even if the laptop tells me it’s Sunday.

old alarm clock (Photo credit: K. Yasuhara)

Husband thinks I’m crazy, because technically, I could get another hour to an hour and a half of sleep each day. (To be fair, there are many reasons Husband thinks I’m nuts, but I’m comfortable writing about this one). I need time to myself, by myself. Does this make me a selfish person? Maybe it does, but I still need it. Am I bleary eyed and exhausted long before I can go to bed each night? Yup, but I’d rather have the time alone than the extra sleep. Trust me, I’d be a whole lot crazier without this time.

Added bonus, the jackhammers haven’t started that early in the day. You know, the background music of the city that never ever ends.

You would think that by this point I’m a morning person, but I’m not. I do like sitting on the balcony and watching the sky get pink as the sun rises.

Are you a morning person? Night person? My favorite shift to work was a swing shift, either 4-midnight five days a week or noon-10 four days a week. What about yourself hasn’t changed, through marital status, careers, parental status, etc?

I’d like to tell you I use this time to pray or meditate or contemplate the meaning of life, or even bond with the dogs, but I don’t. I use it to just sit quietly, make and drink my coffee, zone out, and enjoy the peace. I stare into the tank and watch for the pink streaked wrasse to wake up–he starts cruising, hunting for pods between the corals as soon as the sky lightens. Sometimes I surf Facebook, but I don’t post at that hour. I used to use that time to write, but it’s never successful as a long term writing plan, because then I’m missing that me time. It is the only time of day when I can, somewhat consistently, get the living room to myself. Five people on different schedules and a small space, you have to be creative.

And willing to sacrifice sleep.

Live on coffee and flowers (Photo credit: thomasheylen)

And the Winner Is…

Bingo! (Photo credit: jadensmommy)

Hey Artist, Got a Dollar?

Submitted to the Reader’s Choice blog 5 minutes ago. Thanks to all who played along and cast a vote! I have wonderful friends, both online and off.

It’s 7PM on Friday of a three day weekend, woo hoo! I’m getting ready to meet Fatigue for Friday Night Madness in a little while, and I am more than ready. Ready to go be a grown up for an hour, and ready to happydance. Don’t worry, kids! I’ll limit my dance to a squirm in my seat, it’s so upsetting to the 20 somethings when they see a middle aged woman get excited. I’m lowering my cholesterol through exercise–and then I’ll raise it back up with an order of nachos. I know there’s a pint of beer waiting for me, I hope it doesn’t go flat before I get there. I’m certain it won’t be warm, because it’s about 2 degrees here in New York tonight.

Why am I happy? Because today, for the first time in a long time, I felt my rhythm while I was writing. Not just tweaking, editing, revising, not just forcing my butt to stay still and write, but really felt it. This WIP is a romance, but the setting was one I originally conceived of a few years back for a magic(al) realism short story. I’m going to try to graft the two seeds, growing them into something new for me. Will it work? I’m really not sure, but I’m very, very excited, in that way that only a woman who likes to play with characters inside her head can be.

WTF? (Photo credit: mayhem)

Elegance

Elegance coral 2 (Photo credit: afagen)

No, this isn’t the type of elegance I’m talking about today, but this is one hot coral. I haven’t been having much success with LPS coral in my little tank, so I won’t add it to my wish list just yet. Yeah, I’m pretty weird, thinking about elegance this was what popped to the forefront of my mind. But I chose this particular photo because it has that little asterina star on the glass. Those things seem so cute. But the truth is if you see one in your tank, you’ve likely got dozens, and they breed faster than a bunny on speed. Then you have a nuisance that will irritate pricey and prized corals.

I think that’s me. When it comes to style, I have to make an effort, which I often don’t. Come on, how long should I take to get dressed and do my hair to drop the girl off at school and come home to clean the bathroom, or go out to dogwalk? But sometimes I do. It’s fun and it feels good, nothing says “I can do this” more than a kick ass pair of shoes with the right outfit. So when I do make the effort, sometimes I hit it, and sometimes I don’t, but even when I do, it’s never perfect. There will be one little something that tips the scales from I’m rocking it to oh shit, I’m still carrying my dog walking bag. Which then leads me to notice the dog hair I didn’t get off my skirt, the smudge of mascara under my right eye, the eek! of questioning if I used deodorant under both arms.

Taking Flower Child to school this morning, I saw a young woman running for the bus. Tall, slim, and cute, she was wearing clunky wooden heeled sandals, and a too long nightgown looking brown maxi-dress, with a faux-fur gray sweater on top. Oy. On my way back home, I saw another woman running across the street for a cab. Black suit, ivory turtleneck underneath, and black patent leather stilleto pumps. I was more than impressed by how well she was able to run, though I’m guessing it produced more jiggle than she generally shoots for.

The Patent Leather Kid (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What made one work and the other not? I don’t know. One thing I love about the city is that women never seem to be limited by what’s “in.” Personal style is encouraged, influenced by many factors, and expressed through textures, lengths, fabrics, and accessories. Fun to watch, and a bonus in that it makes coming up with the beginning of a character sketch pretty easy.

I’m not talking about the women who are so stunning it doesn’t matter what they are or are not wearing. It’s the women who have whatever the it factor is that allows them to look like the definition of fabulousity no matter what their age, style or dress size is. The difference between wtf -is-she-wearing and wow-I-wish-I-could-pull-that-off.

Is it studying old episodes of What Not To Wear? Reading fashion magazines? Being the victor when battling for that dress at the annual Barney’s sale?

I don’t think so. I honestly think it comes from within. Part of it being a good eye, knowing what lines will work with your lines, and much of it is confidence.

I have a neighbor who always looks elegant. And when I say always, I mean even when staking a claim for the most efficient dryer in the laundry room. She isn’t young, she isn’t particularly tall, she isn’t slim. But she is always styling.

Lautrec the tattooed woman 1894 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On the High Wire

high wire 1 (Photo credit: _gee_)

That’s Mrs Fringe. You can wave, but I won’t wave back, or I’ll surely lose my balance before I’m at the halfway point.

I’m just going to ramble on a bit this evening. Every time I sat down to post today, the phone rang or Flower Child needed help, so whatever ideas I had for a coherent post are gone. I am sending out apologies to my fellow bloggers. Adding a daily fiction writing block to my schedule, in addition to blogging and those other couple of things I do has me working hard on my time management skills, and I need to catch up on what everyone else has been doing.

I’ve felt like I’m up on a high wire for quite a while now, but with my new commitment to, umm…what was that again? Oh yeah, me. And writing…it’s a little different, because I’m trying to add in a bit of style and stay upright, not just hanging on with my pinkies. I think starting to blog was me opening my eyes. I’ve yet to look down. In case you’re wondering, standing up feels great, but it’s a whole lot harder than keeping my act limited to not letting go.

Vwoop. That’s the sound of another safety net being whisked away. Man Child leaves on Monday morning to start an internship. I’ve been trying to get as much done as possible this weekend while I’ve still got him here. Groceries, dry goods, and the best pizza in the neighborhood, because they don’t deliver. Shocking, isn’t it? A NY pizza place that doesn’t deliver. I’d be fine if the guys on the next block with the tasteless, rubbery cheese pizza didn’t deliver. Protip: If you come to visit and want really good NY pizza, go to Brooklyn.

I did have an excellent adventure yesterday morning. Can you guess?

How about now?

Grand Central Station. I haven’t been there in eons, but I went yesterday, and had the pleasure of meeting Caitlin Kelly, of the Broadside Blog. For the record, she is every bit as smart, sophisticated, and lovely in person as she seems to be on her blog. I had a blast. We got to know each other a bit, and spent a while talking about writing, ideas, life, and careers. I walked away feeling energized. Yup, Mrs Fringe being a grown up woman.

Flower Child was home sick from school, but Man Child was able to postpone his plans and babysit. Thank you! Even the rain held off, so I was able to wear my favorite boots. Why are my favorite winter boots suede? Because they’re awesome, I can’t believe you needed to ask.

I miss that too brief period in my life when I was actively involved with writers groups, attending conferences and taking myself seriously in a way that resulted in a lot of fun. Hence my high wire routine. It’s definitely harder than it once was (hell, getting up from the floor is harder than it once was), but I’m doing it.

Purple Prose and Heroes

Front cover of True Life Romance #3 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A fine morning here in Fringeland. I did the mama thing, then came home to take a fresh look at the story I finished yesterday. I have to tell ya, I’m not being hard on myself, there’s some major suckage in there. I corrected some glaring instant-humiliation-if-I-drop-dead-and-someone-goes-into-my-Word-files mistakes, and then closed the file. I realized two very important things. One, I meant what I’ve been saying. It’s just fine to have written a crappy story, it was an exercise in forcing myself to write again, and write fresh. I’m shocking myself with how true that feels–especially since I also spent some time lurking on the writers’ forum, reading a thread about the best short stories ever written. Two, low sodium Wheat Thins taste like crap.

I then opened the file of the romance I started a while back. I’m not sure I remembered I had three completed chapters. And you know what? I like it. And I was able to get right back into my heroine’s head. I always forget how much fun it can be to read or write a light romance. And I think this is exactly where I should be right now. So, how come I’m not writing at the moment? Oh, that pesky life thing. I have a dog to walk in an hour, and then I have to pick up Flower Child an hour after that. I’m also hoping the jackhammering going on across the street will be finished for the day by the time I sit down. With a little luck and a lot of self discipline I’ll be able to block everyone and everything out later this afternoon. I need to do a little more outlining before going further with the story.

I know some can just pick up their pencils, or open their files, and write whenever they’ve got a spare 20 or 30 minutes. I’m not that disciplined, and need at least a two hour block of time. Trust me, it isn’t a wri-tah thing for me, I can’t get into the right head to exercise either if I’ve only got 20 minutes.

In case anyone was wondering, Little Incredibly Dumb Dog is still filthy, and Big Senile Dog is back to counter surfing. He drank Husband’s coffee yesterday, and I had to drag both of them away from a smooshed rat when giving them a walk this morning. I wonder why no one writes a cookbook for roadkills of the city?

NYC Rat (Photo credit: zacklur)

Clean Up Time

By tonight, this pile will have multiplied by three, at least.

Bits of tree bags caught on the bottom branches. The bags are used to drag the trees through the hallways in the buildings.

What happens to the trees in your area? We’ll see these masses for a couple of weeks. Then it slows to an occasional one.

Poor tree.

You’ll still be able to spot an occasional, dried out husk of a tree in February–though those are usually brought out stealthily in the early morning hours, in the hopes that no one will know who left their tree up for so long.

For now, it makes walking the dogs at night a little hairy. Between the work being done on the underground pipes and the piles of trees at the curbs, the rats are having a grand old time running around. I think they like the bits left on the trees, or maybe they snack on the pine needles. Either way, it gives me a shiver. Big Senile Dog isn’t interested in the rats, but he loves peeing on all those trees. All of them. Little Incredibly Dumb Dog is way too interested in the critters, growling and lunging. She doesn’t understand they’re tougher than she is, and I’m not at all certain BSD would get involved to save her.

I guess my biggest post holiday question is, can I eat the candy Nerd Child left behind? So many tough decisions in motherhood.

I am writing. Yet to get back into a steady rhythm, but forcing myself to write. Trying to balance everything is tricky. Oh, for a room of my own! With good light for my tired eyes. And internet access.

How is everyone else’s year starting out?

It Makes Me Wonder

stairway to heaven (Photo credit: Cromo)

Last night, when Husband got home from work, we watched the clip of Heart performing Stairway to Heaven at the Kennedy Center. It was an amazing performance, Ann Wilson’s voice strong and pure; I can’t imagine a finer arrangement to play homage to Led Zeppelin. And let’s be honest, tell me it didn’t/doesn’t make you smile to see Michelle Obama grooving in her seat.

It brought me back. The hours and hours spent listening to them. I never saw Led Zeppelin live, though I did see the Honeydrippers, and Robert Plant again on a solo tour. I don’t remember where either concert was held, but I have a clear picture of being so far from the stage at Plant’s show that I was glad one of the friend who were with me smiled and chatted with the guys next to us, so we could share their binoculars. I can’t remember if Husband and I saw him together, and neither could he, but I suspect not. Somehow Husband always got decent, if not excellent, seats.

A mesh of memories were triggered, not just the concerts. Like being wrapped in a worn quilt with an old and stinky lobster trap over it. The overriding memory was of sitting on the edges of a Brooklyn park at night, a few friends and a guitar. We used to do that a lot, get a bunch of kids together in a park or on the beach, and remove ourselves from the world and the city with music. I was never a musician or a singer, but I always wrote, and like every other angst filled teen saw myself as the next Sylvia Plath. So sometimes there’d be a real effort, a real plan (ha!) to the night, one of the more talented guitarists would sit with me, and he or she would throw some chords together while I and whatever other writers were there would come up with lyrics. All terrible, I’m sure, all forgotten by morning. There’s a certain amount of noise that goes with living in the city at night, and the level considered acceptable was a lot more in those days than now. I grew up across the street from one of those parks, which really weren’t parks at all, but concrete playgrounds and yards attached to elementary schools. You could tell the time by the sounds you heard. Little ones shrieking, before 4 pm, basketballs thumping, “foul!” “fuck you, go home if you don’t like it!” 3-8 or 9pm, thwok-“shit!” were the handball players, between 7 and midnight, music, shouts, firecrackers, and “shut the fuck up, man!” between 10pm and 2am, waking to the thwop-thwak of the paddleball players at 7am.

This one night was perfect, magical to my teenaged self. I can’t remember who I was with, not names or faces, just the shadows next to me, the splintered wood of the bench under my butt, acrid smell and bitter taste of the luke warm, green bottle of Heineken, and a sweet female voice singing Stairway to Heaven. I wasn’t where I wanted to be, no clue how to get there, or even where there was, but I believed I could.

handball (Photo credit: gt8073a)

Holiday in the City Photos

Flower Child’s school had a field trip today, so I brought my camera. Yes!! More bad New York photos.

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Blogging With A Scarlet B

Fallen Woman (Photo credit: Mr Jaded)

Why am I blogging? I’ve talked about this before, some here, and some in comments on other people’s blogs, but I want to explore this again. I am not a writer, a blogger, a mom, a special needs mom, a wife, a friend, a reefer, a dog walker, a poop inspector, a New Yorker, a vegetarian. I am all that–and a bag of salt and vinegar chips on the side.

Broken doll (Photo credit: noii’s)

Any parent or teacher is familiar with how a young child’s world is rocked if they run into their preschool teacher outside of the classroom or school. Developmentally, it’s appropriate. “Mrs K outside of her role in my life?” Shock, maybe even outrage. But how much do we really outgrow that stage? Different in a small town, maybe, where people often play dual, triple, or quadruple roles in someone’s life. In a city, it’s common enough to not be able to place, or maybe even not notice, the cashier you smile at every day in the supermarket if you run into them on the street.

I’m not sure I’d call myself whole, but all my parts are here. I’m not striving for sainthood. Do I try to be a decent person? Sure. Do I care about others? Absolutely. Do I want to eliminate my own needs, desires, and emotions in order to serve others? No. Do I wish I could be 100% positive 100% of the time? No. I want to be me, and hopefully reach others, by being me. Writing, whether it’s fiction or non, poetry or prose, is about making people think and feel, reaching in and reaching out. Not whether or not it makes the reader feel “good.”

Human beings are complex creatures. We’re complex even in ways that are different from one another. In my mind, that’s a positive. I appreciate people who have a similar viewpoint to mine, but I also appreciate those with a different viewpoint. Take a look at my blog <<<<< roll on the left. I enjoy and read all of them. Some are informative, some are funny, some snarky, some sad, some are about embracing grace and joy; many are deep and meaningful emotional journeys, regardless of the style in which they’re written.

The person I know who I would consider closest to a candidate for sainthood happens to be a priest. I would give or do anything he asked, because he is that inspirational. When did I first become such a devotee? When I heard the word “fag” come out of his mouth. Not used as a weapon, slur or condemnation, but in acknowledgement of the raw pain and frank toughness of the lives of so many of the young people he helps. A word many of them have been beaten with in an attempt to negate their desire for more, for lives that could hold different possibilities. I don’t hold him in such regard because he is “divine,” but rather, because of his humanity.

For all the carrying on about thinking outside of the box, I see a whole lot of people resent when they see someone step outside of the box they’ve placed them in, and proceed to work at chastising them back into submission.

If you’re reading this, or anything else of mine, and disagree because you’re striving for perfection, God bless. I’m trying for human.