27 is the new 26

My weekend was intense and wonderful: an epic night at Benny's, a four-mile race to kick off the 2007 running year, a trip to the airport to see James, a birthday party, church, a classic Manhattan afternoon, a great gym class, and Oscar-night food coma. I want to write about all of this stuff, but it's too overwhelming, so I'm going to go all Orientalist on you and break it down haiku-style:

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Juan's a good waiter:
'Ritas, black flowers, and shots
The men's room is home

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Seven degrees, wind
7:28 per mile
He outruns the cold.

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Wait at Arrivals...
Walk away happy and sad
Five months in one hour

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Eight-count to the beat
It's my song! It's my birthday!!
Don't spill on my rug.

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Twenty-seventh year:
Good wife, good life, good city,
church points out to me.

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Usually in the back,
At the gym I play it cool--
now your boy's up front.

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Friends, Oscars, excess
Life resumes so pleasantly
And they even sang.

Sliced and diced

Warning: this post is kind of gross, and not for the faint of heart.

This afternoon I went to go visit Enzo, John and Anna's cat, who we are feeding and chatting with while they're away in Mexico. Enzo is really one of the best cats I've ever known, because he's very dog-like: friendly, outgoing, affectionate.

Well, today I was standing at the counter, curling open a tin of wet cat food, Enzo mewling at my feet, when the edge of the can lid cut into the skin at the last joint of my pinkie finger. Suddenly there was blood running down my hand and onto the counter and into the sink. I was shocked at first - pressing the cut with a paper towel and simultaneously trying to clean up the mess. I dumped the food into Enzo's bowl to distract him and focused on the cut - I ran it under the cold faucet and watched the diluted blook wash away. The cut was like the open mouth of a smiley face. It hurt like hell. Every paper towel I pressed into it became a sodden bloody mess within a few minutes. Enzo was everywhere: between my legs, on the counter, rubbing against my arm. I thought, the last thing I need in the wound is cat hair. I thought, bury these towels deep in the trash so they don't freak out when they see them. I thought, don't let Enzo touch the blood or he'll turn into a vampire cat.

It wouldn't stop bleeding. After about 20 minutes I called L, and she called the student health people. I already had visions of my immaculate Thursday night being shot to hell - no great gym class, no good tv, just me in an ER waiting for stitches. I found band-aids in the bathroom, but I bled through two of them. After talking to L and deciding not to get stitches, I stumbled out of the apartment, doing everything with my left hand, promising Enzo, like a little feline deadbeat dad, that I would come back for more quality time tomorrow.

On the street I clutched my hands together and tried to hide the bloody paper towel from other people. In the pharmacy I jerked open the lid of the band-aid box and tried to apply it myself, with mixed results. As I returned to the street, though, I was shocked to see that the bleeding had abated. Instead of a gaping smiley mouth the wound was more like a ... parenthesis. A bold one, in a thick, unsubtle font, but only a parenthesis.

I went to the gym with high hopes. I made it on the treadmill and the pull-up thing, but then in class, we were ten minutes in when I saw that there was blood all over my hand. There was blood on the hardwood floor, too. Disgusted, I grabbed my towel and scrubbed at it, Lady MacBeth-style, and retreated to the lockerroom. With a fresh band-aid I returned, but it was only a few more minutes until I noticed blood again on my hand, and even traces on my shirt, and on the floor. I felt like that scene in "Carrie," when she gets her period in the locker room and the girls taunt her, except in my case, I expected the other hip hoppers to throw cans of cat food at me. I scrambled out, grabbed my stuff and returned to the lockerroom utterly cowed. I took a shower and left. I thought about staying to apologize to my teacher but I realized I was too angry to talk. I look forward to Thursday nights like no other; I was so disappointed.

Now I'm home, on band-aid number 4, fully expecting another tsunami of blood at any given moment. It really hurts. I figure, it must be better in the morning, right? I don't want stitches, I'm not going to the damn hospital. I tell you, these things always happen on the brink of something good (say, a chock-full birthday weekend: fun drinks tomorrow with Ashesh and Mona, a James cameo and rollicking party on Saturday, a lovely Sunday to follow). It even occurred to me that the blood stains on my hand are maybe reparations for the ashes that didn't stain my forehead yesterday.

Anyways, hopefully this will look better tomorrow morning. I hope the bleeding calms down, after a night of rest and no movement. Tomorrow I'm looking forward to returning to the scene of the crime and making amends with Enzo, getting some of the quality time that was cut short today, assuming of course that he hasn't developed a taste for human blood.

State update: Florida

Well, our second attempt to enjoy some exotic warm weather was thwarted. Not by sudden hospitalization, thankfully, but because of the unseasonable chill that settled over southwestern Florida as soon as we landed, and that did not relent until we had come back to the barren icy hellhole of Manhattan. But we were able to have some good times in Naples, where L and I and my sister had a great long weekend with my grandparents.

Although we spent a lot of time relaxing on the plush interior of one of many gated communities, my grandparents' taste for local flair gave us a lot of exposure to native Floridian culture. We drove an hour down to Goodland to eat stone crabs and sit on a restaurant deck amidst the Thousand Islands. It happened to be the day of the Mardi Gras boat parade, so gaudily festooned boats and yachts would troll past (sample themes: pink flamingoes, a drug bust, redneck yacht club) as the crowd at the restaurant - mostly old, many grizzled - downed their beer and twirled their colorful beads.

There's something strange about Florida - I can't put my finger on it, but I think it has something to do with cohabitating with alligators. Gators are such a big thing down there, a totem of something, and I think people's reaction to living among these fierce and timeless predators is to go a little bit weird. Floridians, for example, were much ruder and pushier than New Yorkers (or even Hawaiians - it's like the Aloha spirit landed here and rotted in a corner). They love their guns and Confederate flags. They're sort of trashy (can I say that?). It was interesting. Question: when we were in Florida, how many times did we hear the phrase "jew canoe"? Answer: more than never!

But, we had a great time. On the same day as the boat parade, Goodland also featured an outdoor concert by the Mullet Brothers, just outside of the Island Woman store, where we all tried on weird hats with fake wigs attached as a few locals drunkenly danced outside. I gaily tossed my fear of head lice aside so we could take many photos like this:

It was wonderful to spend some quality time with my grandparents, to read a couple great books, and to eat like a king: the signature key lime pie, fresh seafood at every turn, crisp apples, canteloupes, blueberries, and the most delicious strawberries I can remember. Although it was kind of a drag with the cold weather, I tried to buck myself up by reminding myself that at least it was thirty degrees warmer than back home. Anyways, so Florida: temperate, amusingly weird, fattening; not as warm as it could have been; good eating. That's the update on that.

Marathon man

I received an email notification from the New York Road Runners telling me I qualified for automatic entry into the New York City marathon. Twenty minutes and about $130 later, I am all signed up and ready to run on November 4th -- 26.2 miles. 26.2 miles, an extremely long distance. As I went through the registration process I realized I was just beginning to endure a ten-month barrage of opportunities to spend money to heighten the race experience, brought to me by the considerate sponsors of the event eager to scream about every possible thing you can purchase: moisture-wicking shirts! Shorts made of nylon, rayon, and mesh! Special charity shoelaces! Bags no one needs! Pasta dinners!

I have begun looking around at training programs, too. There's one I can join through NYRR that costs only $7 a month! But that seems too expensive. There's also one by a person named "Hal Higdon" that is very well-reviewed among my friends, but Hal's website is straight up Geocities circa 1998. I should go look in the bookstore, too, as well as the 400 specialty running shops that spring up in Manhattan every time a Tastee-D-Lite whimpers to a close. My mom says I should get a physical immediately to determine if I'm healthy enough to even attempt this. Always the optimist, my mom. I was also realizing that I will actually have to change my lifestyle to get ready for this thing, especially in the final weeks: I have to run and exercise in precise, calibrated ways; I have to eat very deliberately, with a weird balance of protein and fiber and whatever else; and I have to develop that bizarre marathon physique where your cheeks sink in and you start to run oddly, because your entire midsection has dissolved into three tendons holding up your new rayon running shorts.

But the good thing is that all of this is still extremely hypothetical -- since I'm already running and in reasonably good shape I don't really need to begin training in earnest for a few months, maybe late spring. But we can look forward to plenty of blisters, shin splints, and dry heaves in the weeks and months to come.

But damn if I'm not going to rock this marathon on November 4th. It's good to know the goal.

EMNY

I have a great idea for a new quality-of-life, public relations campaign for the city. It's called "Excuse Me New York." Maybe it's the inhumanly frigid temperatures we've been enduring, or fatigue with the war, or maybe New Yorkers are just genuine bastards, but I have decided that something needs to be done on a city-wide scale. Because these people are jerks.

The idea behind "Excuse Me New York" is to get people to say "excuse me" to their fellow citizens. The brilliance of this campaign, and the reason I'm convinced that it's destined for success, is that it encourages people to excuse themselves in one of two ways, which almost everyone will be willing to do: 1) the genuine, polite, decent way, the way that adults excuse themselves to avoid social embarassment and promote a civil society, or 2) the snarling, more acidic way, barking the phrase to gently remind the other person that he or she is an asshole. New Yorkers would be completely willing to support this campaign. Many of them already do.

Here are some examples of how this campaign would work, taken from my own life: To the girl in the library snacking on snap peas or something, chewing so loudly and violently that I couldn't concentrate on my reading: Excuse me. To the man at Chipotle in the unnecessary cowboy hat, reaching over the glass sneezeguard to point at (and into) the burrito ingredients he wanted: Excuse me. To the woman who barged into me at the gym, and, moments later, tossed her nasty sweat-towel towards me in a misguided attempt to put it in the bin: Excuse me, and get some glasses.

So you see what I'm saying. "EMNY" is going to be big in 2007, and it will really fill a void here in the city. If you want a t-shirt or a bumper sticker or something, let me know. Don't forget: Excuse Me New York.

Japanese culture: I just love it!

Right now I'm reading "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" by Haruki Murakami. This is the second novel of his that I've tackled, and his books are consistently surprising - they're infused with a sharp strain of magical realism, but with a weird Japanese bent. Maybe it's a response to all those towering cubicle high-rises and the packed commuter trains, or whatever twisted impulse creates those guys who never leave their parents' home for forty years, or that vein of Japanese horror movies with empty houses, mewling children and ghosts in your handheld wireless device.

Whatever it is, Murakami packs it in. He writes in such a leisurely pace, and his narrative style is so unobtrusive, yet all of the elements come together. What is fantastic seems plausible and what is unbelievable seems probable. I am definitely enjoying this book, but it's also got me thinking a lot about translation. As alien as a culture may be, the act of translation makes it accessible and familiar to the reader. I read this novel, and I think: Japanese people like humor, they use contractions, they love their wives, they like to go swimming in the summer.

I am definitely learning more about Japanese culture from this novel that I did from our time in Hawaii, when we carefully noted what the Japanese people would eat during different meals. In Hawaii's massive and wonderful ABC Stores (like 7-11 but with more Aloha spirit, in the sense of cashiers who aren't quite clear on coin denominations), they sold triangular mounds of seaweed stuffed with something weird, and the Japanese people could not get enough. These things were flying off the shelves. One morning, in a spirit of international understanding, L grabbed one at our complementary hotel breakfast. When she opened the package, it smelled so bad that she carefully placed it on the balcony and left it there for the rest of the day. She didn't want to leave it in the room, for fear of what it would do to our clothing and the bedding. I don't know what was in there - bleach? an ant farm? I just worried about the birds who might try to eat part of it, fly a few more yards, then die mid-flight and plummet down into the swimming pool. Or worse yet, a tiki torch.

The point being: Murakami is great, I'm loving this book, you might want to read it, and it's giving me a great appreciation of Japanese culture, which I am loving more than ever.

State of the apartment address

My fellow residents:

We gather each year to look around us and assess the conditions of this glorious apartment of ours. As we summon the courage and wisdom to survey our several hundred square feet and all that it contains, let us remember the spirit of adventure and enterprise that has propelled us forward unto this task.

My fellow residents, the state of the apartment is strong. Strong, yes, yet not as tidy as it could be.

I continue to drape clothes over the blue chair, sometimes for days at a time. This just makes sense to me - you can't put clothes straight in the laundry bag, you should let them sit out for a while. Most people understand this. Other people in the apartment are not as adamant as some other people might be about putting used mugs and glasses in the sink, or better yet, the dishwasher. Let us not leave this problem for future generations to solve.

Bedmaking is a tedious task, but a necessary one. As is cleaning the bathroom. As much as even I would like to believe it, two paper towels and a liberal squirt of glass cleaner are not enough to clean the bathroom. Perhaps for the toilet, though.

I would like to pause for a moment in memory of the tragic loss we suffered this year. While we were away in Hawaii, several of our beloved plants, namely the spidery vine thing on top of the book case, perished under conditions of drought. We honor the memory of this beloved plant, and vow, with love and compassion, to forge ahead with new plants. The resilience of the other spider plant, and especially Buddy the bamboo plant, are an inspiration to us all.

Despite these setbacks, we approach a new year with bright eyes and open hearts. We gaze fondly on our teeming stacks of books, piles of detritus from law and public health schools, respectively, and the wad of plastic grocery bags stuffed under the sink. We occasionally consider the dust that gathers in awkward places, like the edges of picture frames and over the tops of my dress shoes, but we focus on the brighter days and dreams to come. We are an apartment of hope, optimism, and charity; an apartment dedicated to the ideals of literacy, equality, and gender-neutral hierarchies; an apartment that is rented with the distant yet immortal aspiration of condo ownership.

My fellow residents, the state of the apartment is strong. God bless, and please keep it down since the walls are paper-thin and we can already hear the neighbor snoring next door.

Doors closing

This morning I got yelled at by high school kids on the subway. The train was pretty crowded as we arrived at 59th St., and I was standing up and trying to move around the man positioned between me and the door. "Excuse me," I said evenly. "Excuse me. Excuse me." I didn't raise my voice or anything - this guy was just a bit oblivious. The window of opportunity to disembark the train was shrinking - soon people would be pressing themselves into the car. I made my way around the man, towards the doors, and encountered a wave of high school kids coming into the train.

I have developed a certain (extremely conditional) fondness for the urban Manhattan high school kid: decked out in the latest hip hop gear, blaring rap songs through tinny cellphone speakers, loud and rowdy but not especially crude or threatening. They're just like teenagers anywhere, but maybe more ethnic and style-conscious, as well as more exotically named.

As I pushed my way out, jostling against the surge of kids shoving themselves on the train, I heard them: "Awwww, MAN," "Geez," "Come ON," sucking their teeth at me derisively. They thought I was a moron for not getting off the train quickly enough. And, then, miraculously, in my own "Dangerous Minds" moment, I heard a girl say: "Hey, it's not his fault, he was trying to get out!" I looked at her plaintively and said, in an unintentionally Ross Geller-ish way, "THANK yoouu." I could hear them laugh as I escaped the subway car. I did a quick check to make sure I had my wallet, phone, keys, Ipod - and I was all set. It was a good start for the day.

Aloha 2007

The new year began traumatically enough: L and her mom in the cardiac ICU of the main hospital in Honolulu, me in the hospital dorm fitfully watching Law & Order reruns, listening to the fireworks sounding off like gunfire in the city beyond. I knew it was the new year when the current episode ended and a new one began. So, New-Year's-Eve-wise, this was not one for the record books, but you never know. I have high hopes for 2007: further progress through law school, an exciting summer working at the Firm, a trip to Barcelona in the spring and who knows what else. Even-numbered years definitely seem to be generally better for me (1980, obviously; I had a bizarre attachment to the year 1986 as a youth; 1998, 2002, 2006). Anyways, here are a few choice bits from our trip:

See how wonderfully things began? There was this:


And also this:


But then things started looking grim with this:


And then, for four days, we hunkered down like this:


But eventually we left the hospital, as good as new, and I was able to celebrate my honeymoon as every man should: with his mother-in-law, his beautiful wife, and his wife's foot-long chest catheter:


We were determined to redeem the remainder of our trip, and so we tried to let the nonchalance, inefficacy, and mild incompetence of the Aloha spirit wash over us, like this:


It was hard for us to really relax, after our brush with modern medicine. I felt like one of those yippy dogs you see on the city streets, trembling in fear at the sight of a curb. Despite copious amounts of rum and pineapples, it was hard to shake the fear and stress that really obliterated everything else from our sight for a brief while... I don't know. It was an unforgettable trip. We were so thankful to get back to the city and our married lives. Maybe it was a honeymoon in that it was our introduction to marriage as an institution of support and reliance and comfort in times of trouble. And I am thankful for that knowledge, as hard-earned as it was. But it was not the trip we had expected.

As you can see, L and I are laughing about it now, but it's still not quite funny... but one day it will be. From the mean streets of Manhattan: aloha, indeed.

Top Songs of 2006

It was a great year for music. If 2005 was marked by a resurgence of Coldplay and their signature exquisite agony and remorse, 2006 was marked by my return to the gym, and the house music, thumping bass lines, and shrieking women that came with it. This year's music was a lot faster than last year's. Timbaland was the major force behind most of the songs I loved, and you could find in gym class or on the treadmill to pretty much every one.

10. Ciara, "Get Up" - Your typical Jazze Phe/Ciara classic. Crunky. A great variety of stuff in this song, from the verses to smooth bridge to the chorus to Chamillionaire's great verse. This was the first song of my hip hop class, so maybe it's here for sentimental reasons. "To the city boys she fine and pretty / in the country boys she fine and purdy."

9. Dixie Chicks, "Voice Inside My Head" - I like country songs that tell stories, and this one offers a spare tale of a woman evaluating the choices she has made ("I've got a place, got a husband and a child") and the mistakes that may have followed ("but I'll never forget, what I've given up in you"). It was interesting to hear in the months preceding the wedding, but it's catchy and great, and I love the wurlitzer in the background.

8. TI, "Why You Wanna" - What I love about rap songs with a great beat is, I get to look forward to learning the words. So when TI jacked Crystal Waters' old music for his song, I was pumped. It's smooth, low-key, and it only took a couple weeks for me to rock out the second verse. This was my favorite song at the time of the wedding, and when my alarm went off on the morning of the big day, the radio started playing, with perfect timing, the start of the verse. A sign from above.

7. Cassie, "Me & You" - I heard this for the first time at The Beach club in Vegas with James, and I turned to him and said, this is kind of awesome. Spare, creepy, with classic r&B adlibs and stylings. The harmonies are almost unpleasant, the overall tone kind of sinister, and I haven't stopped listening to it since May.

6. Beyonce, "Deja Vu" - Most people seemed to disagree, but I thought this song was a great followup to "Crazy in Love." The horns were great, Jay-Z's verse was excellent, and she sang it really well. Did you see her on the BET awards in June? I think it was the sickest live performance I have ever seen. I sort of expected her to drop dead, or physically combust, once she reached the peak of the song.

5. Robin Thicke, "Wanna Love You" - this song became an anthem to me. Another white singer doing R&B, with a classic Neptunes beat. Although the song is sometimes a bit somnolent, Pharrell's rap kicks it back up. The lyrics are good too: "she's the kind of girl you wanna marry / science would say that she's a second sunshine / and now my life is sweeter than berries / I guess if we had sex our love would turn to wine." I love wine!

4. Pussycat Dolls, "Beep" - Usually I hate the Black Eyed Peas, but will.i.am hit it out of the park with this track. Great use of strings and heavy instrumentation, smart lyrcis, more bantering back and forth. And the video is hot.

3. Unknown, "Evergreen" - I can't find this song on iTunes or anywhere else. It's not the shitty 1970s ballad by Barbra Streisand (an alarming discovery at first), but it's a treacly ballad nonetheless, converted into a heart-pounding, irresistible house beat that is completely unrelenting. This was the first and best song I learned from the gym - it's great and still makes me work a little harder. The ballad version on iTunes is not indicative of the song's quality at all. L laughed derisively when I played it for her.

2. Nelly Furtado, "Promiscuous" - I hated this song the first few times I heard it (in the car in Vegas), but by the end of the weekend I was growing to love it. It's clever, funny, and sexy. The beat is undeniable. I feel like there's this totally basement-level rhythm of the song that I alwasy get hooked into - this syncopated beat that I have to follow every time. Also, this song turned out to be the main dancing highlight of the wedding (the other one being, when we were having our first dance to "Ribbon in the Sky" and I realized everyone was watching us very intently, so instead of having a shared intimate moment we sort of tried to entertain everyone, dancing-wise).

1. Justin Timberlake, "My Love" - This song was preordained to be my all-time favorite of the year the first time I heard it. The first fifteen seconds or so are unbelievable, and it only gets better: eight interwoven vocal tracks announce "Aint another woman that can take your spot my--", and then: dununu dununu dununu dununu, dununu dununu dununu dununu, dununu dununu dununu dununu DUH DUH DUH - DUH - DUH. The lyrics are smart, plaintive, Timbaland's contribution ("So don't give away my") essential, and TI's rap is awesome and good-spirited and fun. You should see me snarling down the street as I mouth the words on the ipod. I love this track, and I have loved loving this track.

This would be one hell of a mixtape. Also, before we put a close on the year, I would also note my favorite albums of the year: JT's, obviously, John Mayer's "Continuum," and Dixie Chicks' "Taking the Long Way." It's been a great year.

Justin's new song

This is one of the highlights from last week's SNL - Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake's awesome new song. I love this on two levels: 1) it's hilarious and 2) it's an actual song I would enjoy if I heard it on the radio.

Let me tell you, 1990s-style R&B is enjoying a real Renaissance right now. Not to mention how foxy Kristin Wiig is looking right here.

Exams

I just finished exam # 3 of 4. They have all had moments of gruesomeness, and confusion. Today, for example, the first thing to do was read ten quotations and then identify them and write a couple sentences about each. I started scanning them all, and I recognized....not that one.....huh, what's that.....I don't know what that word means.....shit. I recognized one out of ten. I felt that weird warm prickle across my sides and knew that my body was revving up for fight or flight mode. Three hours later, my brain had impressed me with its depths and I had gotten most of them, although I guess on two.

Haven't been sleeping well this week, either. Six hours, tops, plus a lot of intermittent waking up, lying in bed wondering what time it is. Last night L and I were strolling down the street hand in hand, when we saw a small gaggle of old people crossing the street, against the light. A taxi came blitzing down the road, beeping, and the old people darted in slow motion to the other side. Then they started going off: "That cab was rude! Did you hear him beeping at us! I can't believe that!" Suddenly I found myself yelling at them: "HE HAD THE LIGHT!" Why was I talking? They didn't hear me, thankfully, but my hand was tight on L's. "What are you doing?" she asked. "I don't know," I said. And I didn't know.

I thought this exam period would be easier than last year's, but it really hasn't. I'll be done on Monday. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, so this period of ratty sleep, hysterical laughter, and yelling at pedestrians will end soon.

Best Books of 2006

I was reviewing the list of books I read for pleasure this year, and these are the ones I loved the most. In chronological order:

The Book of Daniel by E.L. Doctorow
Nice Big American Baby by Judy Budnitz
The Spy Who Came In From the Cold by John Le Carre
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Oh The Glory Of It All by Sean Wilentz
Sophie's Choice by William Styron
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House by John F. Harris
The Sportswriter by Richard Ford

and, the book I am currently reading, which is phenomenal and a great finish to the year:

Look At Me by Jennifer Egan

There's a lot to be said about each of these books. The Budnitz collection has some of the creepiest and most unnerving short fiction I've ever read. The Le Carre helped me get through that godawful pre-marriage Catholic retreat weekend upstate. The Wilentz memoir was my companion through an amazing few days in Utah and Nevada with James. The Smith and Ford novels reminded me of the gifts and power of two of the best people writing today.

All in all, I think Sophie's Choice was the best book I read all year. The scope of this book astounded me: from the Auschwitz to post-war Brooklyn to my beloved Virginia. At times I felt the narrator, a young man, was me. Styron created characters with such depth, so many layers... the book was ambitious and precise and humane, I loved it.

William Styron died this year, a couple of months after I read the book. I read his other big book, The Confessions of Nat Turner, in 2002 and was similarly dazzled. Now I can't wait to read his other work, especially Lie Down in Darkness and Darkness Visible. On to 2007!

Coming soon: top songs of the year. And believe me, I have been thinking about this selection for a long time.

Saul Bellow, I have failed you

Yesterday I reached the 250-page mark in Saul Bellow's novel, "The Adventures of Augie March," and I bailed. The book has never grabbed me; it's a meandering, picaresque plot, which I don't like; there are 300 pages to go; the book was sapping my energy, making me feel guilty; and it's finals time, and I want to read something more fun. Still, when I bought the book the lady at the bookstore really encouraged me and told me to stick with it, so last night when I returned to the bookstore I felt the need to apologize and make amends to her. She clearly didn't care. "That's why they publish more than one book!" she said. Ok, lady. No need to make me feel like an idiot.

Last night at the movie theatre there was a mouse running around, along the aisle and under the seats. Everyone was shrieking and looking around, everyone lifted their legs so they were against the seats rather than on the floor. Every once in a while someone would jump or make a noise and everyone would look around to find the varmint. The great thing was, nobody wigged out and had a fit; everyone laughed, and people said, "Only in New York!" And, it added another level of entertainment for the movie, which was kind of grim and pessimistic, even though I still liked it ("Flannel Pajamas," for those keeping score, a movie that I can't imagine anyone who lives anywhere else but here going to see).

I am in the library now for the day, and will be here all day, just like yesterday, and perhaps like tomorrow. It's finals time! Time to drink a lot of water, eat three cookies ever three hours to perk myself up, exercise as often as possible, use YouTube as my own personal 1990s jukebox, and remember to fidget to burn calories and maintain blood flow. Finaaaaaaals.

CD Review: Continuum

"Continuum," the new album by John Mayer, is definitely his blackest solo album yet. There is a strong rhythm & blues current running through these songs. While the same thematic elements that launched his career are here - tangled love affairs, a reluctant acceptance of adulthood, neuroses and nostalgia - this is a stripped, pared-down disc that presents him at his best. Obviously, I love it.

I missed his blues moment a couple years ago, but the guitar licks, relaxed pace, and easy tempo of the album demonstrate that sensibility. He's working his falsetto a lot more, layering his vocals more often. Listening to the album, I could hear traces of James Taylor, D'Angelo, Jimmy Buffett, and (excuse me, but it's true) Justin Timberlake. Others can hear Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye in there, and that's great, but there are a few transcendant moments when he is right up there with the some of the best of today's R&B: the aforementioned D'Angelo, as well as Van Hunt. Seriously. If his last solo project, "Heavier Things," went a little heavy on the production, with horns and synthesizers and studio tricks aplenty, this album seems quieter, more mellow, more simple. One could imagine hearing a band run through it on a tiny club stage, and it would sound mostly the same.

The come hither song, "I can't trust myself (with loving you)" made me move the way I only do when I'm trying to seduce someone. On other tracks ("Vultures," "Belief") I was singing the chorus and trying to blacken it up a bit with some ad libs and some soul. "Heart of life" presents a simple and optimistic ditty that reminded me of James Taylor at his catchiest and most uplifting - this is a song I would teach my child to sing. There is a suite of bluesy ballads kissing off an unfortunate ex-lover (notably "I'm gonna find another you") that reveals his musical and vocal chops. Of course, I can't stand the current single "Waiting for the world to change," which I find annoying and preachy. But it's all uphill from there.

He continues his fight against growing up with "Stop this train," which is a great and ultimately touching song, relaying a dialogue between him and his father. He has made such a niche for himself with these quarter life crisis anthems ("Why Georgia," "No such thing," "Clarity" (the namesake of this blog) and others). I love them, believe me, and I plan my fits of weeping and journaling around them, but is this going to make sense when he's playing Wolf Trap in thirty years? Will we remember what the hell he's singing about?

As always, his lyrics are intelligent and warm and clever. Although John Mayer kind of seems cocky and sometimes obnoxious, and has let his hair grow to an unfortunate length, he can still deliver the goods. This is a CD to wallow in. I can't wait to learn the words. Hearing the album on the bus from DC for the first time, I was struck by how much it had won me over with just one listen. This is a strong, unified work, and I'm happy for Mr. Mayer, and I'm happy that I have received another dose of his music. For the last few years he has granted me a partial soundtrack to my young adulthood, and I am just thankful that my life is in rough parallel to his (in a way).

This is a beautiful album, and you should hear it.

Faux Thanksgiving 2006

Last night we celebrated our first ever Faux Thanksgiving - a holiday extravaganza that was so awesome, and required so much of our oven and stove, that our carbon monoxide alarm started shrieking obnoxiously the entire afternoon, and we eventually had to just take the batteries out. Since we all woke up alive, it worked out well. Anyways, the food was amazing, the company was great, and we sealed off the night with a few rousing rounds of Taboo. Here are the pictures:


L with our 11-pound masterpiece. It took a day and a half to prepare, but it was one of the best turkeys I have ever eaten.


The man of the house carving the turkey, which worked out well sometimes and less well at other times (see the next picture).


The spread, clockwise from top left: yams with marshmallow, two kinds of cornbread, an impish John, mashed potatoes (my specialty, and a true highlight of the meal), stuffing, asparagus, turkey, cranberries...


...Cous cous, salad, Lillian's grandma's jello salad (very different from the Dunn and Hall family jello salads, as we learned). And, finally, a few photos of the diners. Hopefully this will be the first of many Faux Thanksgivings to come.

Song review: "I can't tell you why"

Everyone who knows me, including the three of you who might read this post, understand the importance to me of mid-90s R&B. I already feel nostalgic for that period from roughly 93-98, the heyday of acts like Blackstreet, Joe, Monica, R. Kelly, Brandy, Mary J. Blige, Jodeci, Aaliyah, and all the rest. Hearing the sounds of New Jack Swing brings back evocative memories of high school, my old Volvo, the confidence and confusion of adolescence. I loved it. Just in writing these last couple of sentences I have added more names to the roster of singers I listed three sentences ago - the list just won't stop.

I've been thinking about this particular musical era frequently. I found an iTunes playlist of 90s R&B that literally made me ache. The memories were overwhelming. Throughout my twenties, though, before the advent of the internet, two songs haunted me well past the end of their days on the radio: Aaliyah's "At your best" and Brownstone's "I can't tell you why." Both were remakes of older songs, both were slow but very distinctive and representative of a certain time and place. Aaliyah had quite a career until her tragic death in the summer of 2001, but Brownstone kind of fell off the map soon after this track. But I've been singing these two ditties in the shower for a decade, honest to God, and they both strike some great notes of love and melancholy and devotion.

Well, I caught up with "At your best" a couple years ago, and it was nearly as good as I remembered. And although I searched for it sporadically on iTunes and other filesharing sites, I never came across "I can't tell you why" - until tonight. I stumbled across it on YouTube and I was thrilled to hear it - I honestly haven't heard it since before the turn of the millennium. The damnedest part is that I remembered all of it - the words, the ad libs, the background vocals. The video is a little cheesy, definitly reflective of an urban aesthetic well past its expiration date, but there's still something magical (can I say magical? Yeah, roll with it) about the song. I am very thankful to have rediscovered it once again. Anyways, here it is, for your enjoyment.

State update: Connecticut

I spent the weekend in Connecticut, and in case you are wondering how things are there, I can tell you that Connecticut is: brisk. Not quite cold, definitely not warm, but very zippy and autumnal and worthy of a jacket and scarf. The leaves are mostly down, with a carpet of bright reds and yellows on the ground, and gray solemn tree branches poking into the sky. The sun sets quickly over the mountains there and the moon arrives earlier than you would hope. We were in a small town, home to a sturdy and impressive prep school and little else: a few coffeeshops, galleries, a bookstore or two and a restaurant with a name like "The Knife 'n' Ratchet." Maybe about three blocks, in Manhattan parlance.

Things in Connecticut are extremely old and colonial. If you can't date yourself to the American revolution, or the French and Indian War, or earlier, don't even bother. The people we saw were pure New England stock: brusque, leathery skin, deepset eyes, strong cheekbones. They all looked like John Updike characters, with that weird New England rural air about them (like some kind of mythical southern blue state). It seemed like a happy and complete life, meandering from the bookshop to the coffeeplace in you sandals and thick woolen socks.

Ah, Connecticut. It was quiet, relaxed, stately, confident. A great place for a weekend, that's for sure.

How to deal with a problem with your couch

... In 13 easy steps!

1. Own a couch that is honestly about 50 years old, a couch that your grandparents acquired after World War II, a couch that has spent significant amounts of time in many different zip codes, a couch that is a little worn and tired but still quite comfortable and no worse for the wear, except for the occasional hair spray stain from the 1960s-1970s.

2. Several years later, come to a dawning realization that the cushions of the couch all of a sudden seem kind of... dirty.

3. Two days later, mention this to your wife. Find out she has noticed it too. Be troubled.

4. A day later, look more closely at the discoloration. Note that it is kind of bluish, and is all along the top and edges and sides of the seat cushions. Could this have rubbed off from your jeans? Who knows?

5. Send a chummy email to your mother, asking if it's ok to put cushion covers in the washing machine. Don't feel reassured.

6. Call your mother five minutes later. Find out that you should probably dry clean it.

7. After you hang up the phone, look at the couch from different angles to see if it's really bad, or not really that bad. Ask your wife what she thinks. Ask your wife if this is something "people" would see, or something just you are aware of. Ask your wife about the odds of a drycleaner getting rid of the weird bluish fog on your couch. Is she 50% sure, or 80% sure it will work? Because you're like 35% sure. And what if it gets TOO clean, so that the rest of the couch looks weird and dingy compared to the newly pristine cushions? What if that is even worse than this?

8. Answer the phone when your mother calls again minutes later. Be reassured by the fact that, while you were obsessing over the couch, she had called your grandmother (after 9 pm, no less) for additional counsel. Consider that you come from a long line of people who are concerned about their couches. Listen to your mother's warnings of discoloration, and her recommendation to get some fabric cleaner and try to test it yourself.

9. At 9:30 pm, rally your wife for a late-evening run to the grocery store. Stop by Chipotle for a coke fifteen minutes before closing time. Always find the silver lining.

10. At the grocery store, fail to find any of the products you need. Buy a small plastic brush for more money than you think this item should reasonably cost. Wouldn't it be cheaper if it was made by some Malaysian orphan somewhere?

11. At home, strip the cushion, pick an unobtrusive area, and try to scrub out the fog with the brush and some cold water and some Tide. Watch in discouragement as the color bleeds a little bit. Drape the damp and bedraggled cushion lining over a chair and hope it dries in the morning. Make a tentative plan to maybe take it to the drycleaners in the morning, depending on how it looks. Or maybe try scrubbing it with just cold water, so the colors won't run.

12. Continue to worry about it. Can you afford to have a guy come in and clean the couch? Can you afford to replace the couch? Would you want to? Probably not.

13. Round up some NyQuil, kick back half a bottle of Pinot Grigio and wait until morning.

Watching a movie with my parents

I went home this weekend, and my parents and I spent Friday evening watching a movie called "The Sentinal," where Michael Douglas and Kiefer Southerland play secret service agents and Kim Basinger plays the first lady. Did you not see "The Sentinal"? Because it looked pretty mediocre? Yeah, I didn't either, but it was actually pretty enjoyable throughout, even though I had the bad guy pegged an hour before his true sinister nature was revealed. I am a true student of the cinema.

More amusing than the movie, however, was listening to my parents' commentary. They are the people who ask questions throughout the entire movie and never bother learning the characters' names. "Why is Michael Douglas running away from Kiefer Sutherland?" "So wait, is Kim Basinger still having an affair with Michael Douglas, or did they break up?" "Kiefer Sutherland will get the bad guy; after all, he's '24.'" Et cetera, through the entire movie. Although it does make you wonder about the whole stupid conceit of naming characters in genre movies where the actors' fame and reputation is vastly more powerful than the wooden stereotypes they're running around pretending to be.

I think they should make movies where the characters have the same name as the actors. To me, it is much more hard to believe that Kim Basinger is pretending to be someone named "Helen Naughahyde," or whatever, and she is the first lady of the United States, than to simply go into a movie and accept the fact that Kim Basinger is the first lady of the United States. That is a fact I could handle, and a country in which I could live. It could actually be fun to make movies this way, to subvert people's public personas (personae?) so that you have a movie where Tom Hanks turns out to have a meth lab in the back yard and America's Sweetheart Meg Ryan is actually battling a persistent case of Hepatitis-C. This would be much better than dealing with the stupid names movie characters have.

....One more thing that happened this weekend. We were sitting around debating the constant family issue of whether I need new clothes, and trying to end the discussion, I said they could just buy me new jeans for Christmas. My parents looked at each other, then said: "Well, when we got married Grandma and Pap Pap started to just give us a check for Christmas. We won't really do the whole pile of presents anymore, since you're married and all grown up. Also, you have to buy a gift for Grandma and Pap Pap yourself now. We won't sign your name on the card anymore."

What?! If someone had told me that getting married would be the death knell of Christmas, I would have reconsidered. If only I had known! I think back to last Christmas when I blindly and stupidly enjoyed the familiar pile of gifts and loot. This year, I'll run downstairs to find... an envelope. With a check in it. That I have to share. That is not the Christmas ideal I know and honor.