Wisteria

I was walking to work yesterday when I came upon this wisteria vine, growing up the facade of this town house. I happened to be wearing a shirt almost the exact same color as the blossoms, so I felt like I belonged there, standing beneath it, breathing in its light perfume.


Yesterday evening I walked over to the Verizon store near my house to get a cell phone battery. Turns out they don’t carry the battery, because my phone is too old (about 3 years). And if I did buy a battery, it would cost $49 -- almost double the cost of a new phone if I renewed my Verizon contract.

So, of course, I got a new phone. But I did it only under duress, and I told the guy I wasn’t happy about it. This is why the world’s landfills are filling up with e-waste. My existing phone was fine -- it just had a dead battery. So frustrating!

Drink Beer and Cry

What’s it like to be close to fame, but never quite famous? What happens when people keep telling an actress she’s good, and funny, but she can never quite land a big part?

That’s the subject of “Take Your Shirt Off and Cry,” a book by Nancy Balbirer. I went out last night with Gary and his friend Joy to see a reading performance by Balbirer at Joe’s Pub, and it was great -- both hilarious and poignant. It included a couple of other well-known comedians and show biz types like Charles Busch, who wrote the movie “Die Mommy Die,” and Mike Albo, whose book “The Underminer” I recently read.

Afterwards, Gary, Joy and I retired to McSorley’s, where we drank a few too many beers and whispered conspiratorially about our cute Scottish waiter.

A fun night, but holy cow. For a Buddhist I really fell off the low-alcohol, mindfulness bandwagon!

(Photo: Madison Avenue reflections, April 2009)

Bridges

Well, now I have quite the farmer burn from being outside all weekend. Dave and I decided yesterday to go to Brooklyn -- I wanted to show him Dumbo, the neighborhood where the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges converge. There’s a great waterfront park overlooking lower Manhattan and some nice restaurants. So we zipped out there, had brunch, lounged in the park, and walked over to the historic district in Vinegar Hill.

We’d considered going to the Bronx Zoo, but we never made it that far (not surprising, considering we began the day traveling in the opposite direction).


Instead we came back to my apartment, made dinner (baked chicken -- we used the oven again!), and went to see "The Soloist," with Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx. It was a great movie, especially for a newspaper guy like me. It’s the first movie I remember seeing that addresses the death of newspapers -- showing the layoffs and financial squeezes affecting newsrooms. It also captures the cynical yet idealistic spirit of reporters.

(Top: Brooklyn Bridge, from the park in Dumbo. Bottom: Shadow of the Manhattan Bridge on a nearby building.)

A Broken Friendship

A friend sent me an e-mail asking if I wanted to go walking this weekend. I proposed walking in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where I hoped to check out a new piece of street art.

Some background: My friend can be acerbic. He freely admits this, just as he admits his tendency toward self-involvement. I’m aware of these factors, but I try to recognize that they’re just his personality.

But on Saturday, things were ill-fated almost from the get-go. First we had a minor disagreement about where to walk -- he suggested Central Park, but I’d just been there last weekend, and then deeper Brooklyn, which I was open to. Ultimately he agreed to Williamsburg. Then he missed his stop on the subway and had to double back to connect with me.

After we finally met, we walked for a while and I tried to make conversation, but I felt a palpable hostility. We tried to decide where to go for lunch, and he rejected a couple of my suggestions while making none of his own. Finally he ducked into a pizza parlor to get himself a slice.

We proceeded to a restaurant I know, and he got the salad he’d said he wanted. But conversation was still difficult. He asked nothing about me or my life. I asked about his, but got either snide quips or complaints about his health, his dog, his apartment, his neighborhood. (He claims to love his dog, but all his comments point to hatred.) Everything I said seemed to annoy him.

He suggested we walk over the Williamsburg Bridge to Manhattan. Soon after ascending the bridge I pointed out a piece of graffiti on a nearby rooftop by an artist I know, and I got a nasty response in a nasty tone. I apologized for pointing it out, turned on my heel and walked across the bridge without looking back. I have no idea whether he crossed or not. I don’t particularly care.

Indeed, that’s what’s most interesting about this incident. I do not feel a whit of sorrow that we parted that way, and in fact, as far as I’m concerned, we’ve parted for good. If anything, I feel liberated.

Normally, I keep in touch with almost everyone in my life. I’ve experienced very few relationships -- in fact, I can think of only one -- that became truly unworkable. But this friendship falls squarely into that category. The break isn’t about yesterday -- it’s about all the effort I’ve put over a period of years into trying to make him happier, to talk to him, to comfort him, to be sympathetic to his many problems, only to be routinely treated meanly and disrespectfully. In retrospect, I’ve been a patsy to endure his negativity and self-pity.

Friendship is a two-way street. I’m moving on!

(Photo: Just No Idea, Tribeca, April 2009)

Horse Chestnut

This is the horse chestnut tree outside my window. The leaves came out substantially this week -- last weekend they were little more than buds, as you can see in the foreground of the final photo in this post. It’s amazing how fast they grow. You almost feel like you could watch them.

I love this tree, but it will inevitably be cut down. It's growing in my neighbor’s back yard, right against the wall that separates our properties. Eventually, to save the wall, he’ll have to remove the tree -- and because it’s in his yard I have no say in the matter. Fortunately, he’s not particularly attentive to household maintenance.

We have a maple in the back that we're allowing to grow -- it's small now, but my hope is it will replace this tree when it finally meets its maker.

Meanwhile, almost all the petals have fallen off the magnolia, and the redbud and dicentra are blooming. Our Manhattan back yard is in full springtime mode!

I, Consumer

Two nights ago I was relaxing here at home when my doorbell rang -- a rare occurrence in my apartment building. It was an older woman, armed with a stack of paperwork, conducting a consumer survey. As president of the co-op, I was about to ask her to leave the building when she waved $75 in cash in my face.

For $75? Sure, I’ll take your survey.

She ran through a list of questions about my reading, TV watching and moviegoing habits, and had me name the magazines I’d read in the past month. Then she paid me and gave me a thick questionnaire, saying if I completed it, I’d get another $75.

Now, I do not buy a lot of stuff, and as you may remember, I don’t have a TV. I could skip whole categories of the booklet devoted to things like automobiles, make-up, hair care and television. So when I sat down with it last night, I thought I'd make quick money.

Man, was I wrong! This book asked about everything: My clothes-buying, banking and grocery-shopping; travel habits; personal values; media consumption. For every product I had to note whether I’d bought it in the last six months or year, which brand I’d bought, which type of product (baking soda or non-baking-soda toothpaste, tartar control or regular, gel or paste) and how many times I’d used it in the last month or so.

There were whole categories for things like Cornish hens (did I buy Perdue or Tyson?) and Frozen Corn on the Cob (Bird’s Eye or Green Giant?). Granted, I was able to skip most of these categories, but it was exhausting to comb through so much! Breath fresheners, lip care, domestic dinner and table wines, foreign travel, batteries, computers, movie viewing, ready-to-eat sweet rolls and pastries, frozen hot snacks (love that disparity, don’t you?), fresh fruit and vegetables, frozen orange juice, rubber gloves, cat litter, “removable self-stick notes.” I was horrified to discover under toilet paper a variety called “moist wipes,” which I don’t want to think about.

It took me nearly five hours to complete the book. Which makes me think I should get more than $75.

I discovered some interesting things, though. For one thing, although I am generally brand loyal, I sometimes don’t know what brand I buy. I shop purely out of habit, grabbing the same product from the shelf that I bought last week or month. When the booklet asked me, for example, which brand of tuna fish I eat, I had to go and look. (Turned out to be Bumble Bee.)

I was nearly crazy by the end of this project. I can’t imagine how hard it would have been for people who shop for an entire family!

(Photo: Tribeca, April 2009)

Chef

I’m a practical cook. I can manage the basics, but I get tripped up by artistry. In recent years I’ve also become incredibly lazy, relying on peanut butter sandwiches, pasta, Progresso soup and steamed vegetables for most of my evening nutrition. (I get my main meal at midday in the cafeteria at work.)

Last night, however, my friend Dave came over and put my kitchen to good use. Dave’s been to culinary school, and together we made an incredibly adventurous meal -- well, for me, anyway. We made a chilled cantaloupe soup with pureed cantaloupe, champagne and mint; a veggie pasta in a sauce made of red wine, cream and thyme; and some little puff pastries with ice cream and chocolate sauce.

It was amazing to see these creations emerging from my kitchen -- which is so small it isn’t a kitchen, but a kitchenette. The pastries especially threw me. In the seven years I’ve lived here, I had never used my oven. I’m now happy to report it works beautifully!

Thanks, Dave!

(Photo: Spring on the Lower East Side, April 2009)