Time Machines

It's a sad day.

I have been trying to avoid any TV news reports today--it's just too much to deal with all of this nonstop coverage of 9/11. That day is still very much a part of me, as it has been whether we celebrate a one, two or ten year anniversary. Most of my friends here in NYC feel much the same way--that this arbitrary date doesn't make it any more important or any less awful. I cannot look at footage of that day without tearing up, and have spent the better portion of today getting irrationally weepy at movies like Becoming Jane, Original Sin and Miss Congeniality (yes, I've had TBS on all day), as well as getting insanely furious at IKEA when they didn't have the items that I had come to purchase. I decided to get industrious and clean out my closet, and finding my father's sweater in there put me over the edge once again. The sadness seems to be in the air, easily plucked and accessible, and the cold air and gloomy clouds fit the somber mood of the day.

I had spent the night before at a secret party in some warehouse space somewhere in Brooklyn, themed to 1930s Morocco. There were elegant flapper dresses paired with bobbed hair, djellabas, kaftans and turbans galore. (I wore the hot pink and silver djellaba I purchased in Tangier in June.) There were belly dancers and live musicians, tarot readers and henna tattoo artists. We danced and danced and it was so delightful to be truly transported to another date and time, far away from this time, and this place. I realize that only the best, the prettiest and the most exciting and delightful parts of the 30s were celebrated last night, but all history is in some way revisionist, and it is those who triumph who decide which parts endure.

I want to honor my friend Melanie who volunteered at the medical examiner's office 10 years ago. I want to honor my brother and sister-in-law who housed me for a full week after the towers fell. I want to honor all of us who fled to the hospitals to give blood. I want to send love to all the souls that were scared and lost on that day. I want to remember that my father was still alive 10 years ago. I want to thank whoever designed the Towers of Light that stand each year where the towers used to be, and how comforting I always find this tribute.

I love this quote by Albert Einstein. I'll leave you with it:

"Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of others...for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received."

Come on Irene

I'm hunkered down and waiting for Irene with a full fridge, buckets and pots filled with water and a glass of low country lemonade in my hand. (I owe that recipe to a South Carolinian friend--lemonade, peach schnapps and mint. Yum!)This sums up my morning:

I found this on the Be Better Blog, and it is SO true. Liquor was purchased earlier today. Witty complaining took place. Hurricane party with urban crew started at Thistle Hill Tavern and moved on to the 12th Street bar. Discussions of french press coffee were serious. We compared shopping lists for all the necessary provisions--Roquefort cheese, prosciutto, figs, Lambrusco, and yeast for bread baking.

I love my life. I even love this hurricane.

So Come on Irene! To quote Dexy's Midnight Runners:

These people round here wear beaten down eyes
Sunk in smoke dried faces they're so resigned to what their fate is,
But not us, no not us we are far too young and clever.

Hee!

Cotton Mouth

Two whole years.

Over 730 days.

I told my ortho that it was our two year anniversary. He looked at my chart. "So it is, " he said. "Did you buy me flowers?" he asked, laughing. I made a charming remark, but what I was really thinking was, "You should be buying me flowers, Mister!" For the first time in two years, he was unhappy when he examined me. He said that since my last session there had been no movement in the back tooth he's been trying to turn 90 degrees. (He has been trying to turn it for the last six months.) His theory was that the wire had "slipped out." I knew it hadn't. I had a feeling that there was something wrong when one of his assistants did my adjustments last month. It didn't feel right, and I had terrible headaches--skull aches in fact--this past month. Another month wasted.

This would turn out to be my most dramatic session with him yet. It took him quite some time and elbow grease to force the wire into the molar tube which made me understand firsthand that song "Be a Dentist" from Little Shop of Horrors. Despite this, for the second month in a row he insisted that we are in the home stretch. I would like to believe him, but I don't see how he is going to accomplish everything he wants to accomplish in the next six months. Heck, that back tooth has only turned 45 degrees in since February...I think he upped the ante on it to make up for that lost month because it hurts tremendously, and I can feel the tooth turning. It's also affecting the tooth next to it and it all feels completely out of whack. I understand the adage that things sometimes get worse before they get better. I can't help but wonder how much worse, and for how long.

The traditional two-year anniversary gift is cotton. I want to be swathed in fine cotton sheets, thick cotton towels, even wrapped like a present in a cotton sari. I want to have softness all around me until it muffles out every instance of discomfort and leaves me as refreshed as a good night's sleep on those fine cotton sheets, and as certain as a Maharani in full regalia.

Bracedlets

When I was eight, I loved those black jelly bracelets that everyone seemed to have in the 80s. I didn't wear them up my arm as was the style, a la Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan: In fact, I only had two, one white, one magenta. (I was never a faddish girl) So one would think that happening upon bracedlets would summon a sense of nostalgia or even a smirk of whimsy. But I have to say, that I was kind of appalled. If I was 13, I'd love it. I'd revel in it. However, at 38, the thought of wearing the power chains that cause me so much pain each month for a fashion statement is akin to wearing studded belts or spike earrings. I get that those things are worn as messages, or in some cases, badges of honor that show exactly how much pain the wearer can and will endure. How much of a badass they are. But these supposedly benign bracedlets are completely misleading. I would much rather wear this:

This was designed by Lorinczi, and I love how it makes this smooth, metal showcase for that perfect toothlike pearl. I mean after all, isn't that what this process is supposed to be about? Not holding on to the painful parts, but finally creating the space for the pearls (or pearly whites) to shine? I think the spotlight might be just left of center...but it should be aligned in the right place in, oh, about six months.

Feelings Are Facts

23 months.

Almost 2 years.

The ortho put on an even tighter wire last week (what is this the fourth in 5 months?) and everything has felt off kilter since. I wake up with the right side of my jaw hurting, teeth not lining up in a way that I can comfortably chew, and feeling like I've been hurtled back in time a year when it felt exactly the same way. I convinced myself that I could pay two years of penance and then this would all be over, but now my timeline has been extended by six months, and possibly more. We're optimistically looking at December.

I signed a contract, both literally and emotionally, to go through this process for two years, but now that the terms of that contract have not been upheld, I am in a word, angry. If I don't have to keep to the rules of this contract anymore, then the renegade revolutionary is coming out. Guns blazing.

My boss said to me today, "Feelings are facts" which I thought was so wise. The reality of any situation doesn't matter, it's the perception of it, the feeling of it that rules one's existence. ("Nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so" said our fair Hamlet, and his perceptions were not always correct.) I've had my own misperceptions about what I look like, how I feel, even how I'm supposed to react. My friend Mick had a come-to-Jesus moment with me the other night when he emphatically told me that these braces do not make me any less in any way. Mick has this great voice and earnestness that makes it easy to believe him. With this broken two year contract, I'm now angry enough to believe him.

I've reset the clock on he right hand side of the page. We're back into the 100s when we really should have been in the low single digits. Nothing left to do, but in the words of Usher: push it to the limit give it more. Thanks to my niece, this is my new theme song.

The 20s Are Roaring

The 1920s are following me.

A few weeks ago I attended the Jazz Age Lawn Party on Governor's Island which was like stepping into one utterly fun time machine. Flappers did the Charleston to sounds of Michael Arenella's Dreamland Orchestra as onlookers tapped their feet and danced on the sidelines. We found a picnic spot by the vintage cars, sipped San Germain cocktails and watched triumphantly as our friends participated in a massive game of tug o' war. It was utterly charming to see all the men in their classic get-ups and women in their flapper finery pulling that rope. And doubly charming to see how delightful simple pleasures are. There is no computer game that could possibly compare with the thrill of simple, focused competetion--with incredibly fashionable participants! What a scene!

I just finished reading The Paris Wife, a wonderful book about the life of Hadley Hemingway, Ernest's first wife. I was never a big fan of Hemingway--too male, too misogynist, too...Hemingway. I read A Farewell to Arms in college and I remember nothing more than hating the book. But now, after The Paris Wife, I'm lightly obsessed with Hemingway. He wants me to read him, seducing me in much the same way that he's coaxed his lovers to come to him despite his forcefulness, his narcissism, his his ego. I read this in A Moveable Feast just recently and it is what I think he is calling: "I've seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me now, and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil. Then I went back to writing and I entered far into the story and was lost in it."

And as if that wasn't enough, I saw the lovely Midnight in Paris

and was further enmeshed and enveloped by 1920s Paris. If you haven't seen it, go. So delightful, so wonderful, and perhaps, so apt. I, too, would like to be invited by partygoers in a vintage car to go back in time and meet with history's heroes to advise me how to become my best self. Heck, I'd be happy to simply to go back to a time when I was unshackled by braces and this crazy oppressive heatwave we're experiencing. (It's 11:30pm, and the temperature has dropped finally to 90 degrees...)

The 20s are trying to tell me something--in fact its roaring in my ear with all its modernity, possibility and freedom: "You belong to me now, and all of New York belongs to me. I belong to this computer, and this blog. Then I went back to writing and I entered far into the story and was lost in it."

Back In Brooklyn

I do apologize for the long break in writing but as some of you know, I've been traveling quite a bit, and after taking in the wonders, scents, spices and life changing adventures of Morocco I've been craving sitting still and simply being a Brooklynite. Last night I had a magical evening on TJ's roof with 10 other friends where we ate all sorts of nibblies, had cocktails mixed with Absolut Brooklyn (which might be my new favorite thing) and watched the sun set over the Manhattan skyline. When it started to get dark, we lit candles and chatted and laughed and relaxed in the lazy summer night.

A few houses over, someone set off a bunch of fireworks from his roof and we all ooohed and ahhhed like little children for the few minutes that they blazed in the sky--a common side effect of fireworks. When the sparking hullaballoo was finished we clapped and hooted in appreciation only to hear many pockets of other Brooklynites on their rooftops clapping and hooting as well. We all giggled, thinking we were alone at our rooftop party only to find that everyone in Brooklyn, it seemed, all had the same idea.

After eating a full spread of appetizers and a few pizzas (and a nightcap of TJ's homemade bourbon cherry cocktail) I woke up this morning feeling the need to run off my excesses in the park at 8:30 in the morning. I haven't gone running in close to a year, and the need to get out was so strong that I didn't fight it. I did the whole 5K loop, sometimes walking, sometimes running, but fully proud that I went the whole distance. On the way home I saw a family--a mom a dad and two small towheaded children--sitting on the stoop eating their breakfast of toast and large smile-shaped slices of watermelon. The papa was holding a fancy teacup and saucer which looked Moroccan in its design. Witnessing this calm morning scene, I fell in love with my neighborhood as much as I had the night before.

Henry James said, "One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things." What a double delight to have the sights of Morocco still fresh in my eyes, and the sights of Brooklyn seen anew!