heart smart

there are three days of the year when one should avoid restaurants at all cost...New Year's Eve...overbooked...that table next to you over inebriated...food...overcooked...Mother's Day...have you been to a diner on that Sunday morning?...there are probably more vasectomies scheduled that following week in May than the whole year...and yep...Valentine's Day...but there we were last night..with our 8:30 reservation at a local restaurant we hadn't been to in many years...as you New Yorkers know...it has not been much of a winter yet...(kind of dreading March thinking it will be a shit show)...but just in time for that day of hearts...well, the temperature matched the calendar...so we opened the door to the restaurant quickly to get out of the cold...and my heart dropped...so many people jammed around the teeny bar...we checked in and the hostess said..."it would be a little while"...I looked around and thought I would be collecting Social Security before our table would be ready...but it was 8:30 on Valentine's...so this was it...even with all that body heat...every time the front door opened for more people to jam into this place we were hit with that arctic blast..."would you like to check your coats?"...hell no!...the restaurant hired a singer/keyboard player for the evening...she wasn't bad...taking requests for couples' wedding songs as I played the game "don't get hit in the head with the drink tray"...after a few songs I began to realize what this felt like...it was "The Fabulous Baker Boys"...now, if this singer was Jeff Bridges circa 1988, I would have been a happy camper...or if she were Michelle Pfeiffer circa any year...ditto for Mike...by some miracle the hostess called our name only a few minutes past 8:30...we were unceremoniously seated at our table as the hostess turned her back to us and disappeared in the crowd...I ordered a drink...the staff was working so hard...the waiter was pleasant...and dinner not bad...the pinot softened hearing "Lady in Red"...again...dessert was sublime...and then it was late and time to bundle and head home...another Valentine's dinner done...I sighed...wonder what they'll have on the menu Mother's Day?

the parable of parallel parking

last week while leaving my Tuesday writers group, I joked with a friend about parallel parking...on Long Island we can joke about it...there aren't that many occasions out here, in strip mall heaven, to break out that oft dreaded driving test skill...or lack thereof...not like the years I lived in Queens...when you could spend the better part of your existence trying to fit a relatively normal sized car into a space suited for a Barbie jeep...all the while being honked and nearly side-swiped...and many people don't see it as a challenge...and just aggressively "love tap" the crap out of the cars bookending that sacred space...the rest of us...well, we keep circling...and circling...praying for that space...you know the one...it's really two and you pull right in... and you're done...and when I thought about it...parallel parking is kind of like life...those who take the challenges life can throw at us...and face them head on...and those that avoid them...pausing...thinking...maybe over thinking...those that need to "circle" and muster the skill and confidence...and then face the music...i keep thinking about most of us...we're just packing the roads...driving on fumes...passing those hard spaces...never hitting curbs...never failing...maybe never really living...now, I know you're probably talking back to this blog...yes, new car technology really can do almost everything for us...even park that damned car...and new advances in all other technology can practically take care of the rest...if you want to live life in grey...but maybe it's time to face that teeny space...hit the crap out of the curb till you get it right...take the spot not taken...you never know where it could lead you...

2020 Vision...

another New Year...another decade...another stab at New Year's resolutions...and I know I will break them...but it is the thought...or intent...right?...like I will resolve to write more, edit more, read more...and then I'll grab the tv remote...and find "Working Girl" or "Devil Wears Prada"...recite the lines till the closing credits...and after my butt has become attached to the couch cushion think...oh, yeah, I was going to write...or I will resolve to eat fewer cookies and chocolate...and be drawn like a moth to the flame to the box of snowcaps at the movies...vowing to only eat a few...and then reach for an empty box halfway through...the previews...or resolve to curse less...although there have been reports about cursing and intelligence...but they are probably posts by Russian bots I saw when aimlessly scrolling through Facebook...and I will try...but I know I will find myself at a left-turn light...on Old Country Road...which allows about 2.5 cars per light...and the light will change to green and some idiot at the front of the line will be looking at their phone or kid in the back or whatever and just sit there...and none of us will move...except for the person behind me...antsy and inching closer to my trunk and I will shout loudly at the car up front..."move you stupid fucking moron"...well, and there will go that resolution...and I will resolve to not let the political climate get me riled up and negate my blood pressure medicine...but for that I would have to move to Papua New Guinea...and even there I would have WiFi...maybe a tan and wild hair too...but I would not escape the curse of internet immediacy...so maybe I will just resolve to give a little more...expect a little less...and find happiness in that sweet spot in the middle...to all my family and friends...I wish you peace this new decade...this 2020...peace in our world, your immediate world...mostly peace with yourself...me...I'm looking for the snowcaps...

Big Little Women...

2019 movies...there was QuentinTarantino's love poem to Sharon Tate...Martin Scorsese's atonement for films knee-deep in gore without redemption...Bong Joon-ho's insidious tale of class warfare...Lulu Wang's tender look at what we gain and lose in assimilation...Noah Baumbach's (un)biased look at the denouement of marriage, maybe his own...Todd Phillips polarizing view of karma in our increasingly uncaring society...but Greta Gerwig…your latest take on Little Women destroyed me in the best sense of the word...in this century as women claim to be a Carrie Bradshaw or one of  her posse...just color me a March girl...I am Meg...and I want to be an actress...but realism sits me down...I am Beth...the piano calls my name...but my concert is for no one but me...I am Amy...the world is wide...and French...and the easel beckons...but there is a clarity too...and the paint brush is packed away...I am older...I am Marmee...angry at the world every day...because of how it should be and how it is...for everyone...for women...and I vow to be better...and now I am approaching Aunt March's age...as a man the outspokenness would be bold...as a women...in Alcott's time...and even now...crochety and rigid...but most of all I am Jo...the writer...creating a world with a pen...or a keyboard...brimming with equal portions assuredness and self-doubt...Greta Gerwig is Jo too...and the writer in me ached for her...the previews for her exquisite film consisted of Sponge Bob, Dolittle and other fodder aimed at children...what the hell was Regal trying to say?...that Little Women is a children's movie?...would they pull this shit with Tarantino?...will the DGA or Oscar invite Greta to the big boys table?...or sit her in the parlor on a velvet settee?...well maybe if her name was G. Gerwig...you know like J.K. Rowling...or J. March...

frankincense and myrrh and schmaltz...

'tis the season...but this year I find myself doing a double-take...when Thanksgiving swept in on sweet potato pies I thought...wait isn't it Halloween?...such has been the race of time this year...2020...a new decade...it is right around the bend...and next week Christmas and Chanukah begin...cookies and egg nog...and latkes and donuts...and heartburn and another inch on my tuchas...and all I want in my stocking is my old 21-year-old svelte leg...sorry, digressing...all I want at this time of year is to avoid the television...news, in particular...unless I'm binging some streaming series that will amuse but ultimately disappoint...this world is leaving me numb, and hard to entertain...floating into awards season...used to be such a guilty pleasure...and now this season is earlier...which I hate to inform the old networks and cable stations on life support...will not increase your ratings...now I shrug at the predictability of it all...the holiday miracle?...535 pink slips in DC?...I have no answers...maybe time to think and feel like a child again...the unbridled joy in the shadows of a Menorah...or in footed pjs under a tree on Christmas morning...the masses are joyless...searching for hope before sunrise wakens us to a new decade...Happy Holidays and hoping we all find that joy again in 2020!...

merrily we roll along...

the lions are circling...it is the 21st century fall of our Roman Empire and we are battling for our sanity...or at least to not be "cancelled" or thrown to the hungry lions with one "ok boomer" tweet...we mock the younger generation...they resent us with a fierceness that is unsettling...and all of it done on a worn living room couch...tweeting on the latest phone made in China while McDonald's delivers...progress...and the holiday season is upon us...earlier and earlier because bottom lines are crumbling...industries vanishing...and the world is burning...but I keep thinking about something I saw in Port Authority about a week ago...you are laughing because if you've been in any of New York's main transit hubs you are also thinking to yourself...surprise me because I have seen it all...maybe you have...you already are immune to military fatigues and loaded guns...men and women who stand guard while the crowds shove past...you've seen the homeless sprawled out on staircases and subway benches...screaming in rest rooms for no apparent reason...inching closer to you as trains roll in the station as the sweat beads your forehead wondering...is this the day I get pushed...evaluating those around you...would they pull me to safety...and the whole time trying not to inhale...this is our New York...this is our ancient Rome falling...and so it was when I was weaving through humanity on a Monday rush hour eve...navigating through Port Authority...one door and a staircase away from the subway when I felt his presence to my left...a large disheveled homeless man...in a hurry...rolling a beat-up office chair...why?...it really puzzled me...I kept thinking about him as I pushed my way onto a downtown C train...C meaning "c if you can breathe"...where the hell was he taking the chair?...where did he find it?...was it wedged in the trash between the piles of discarded Starbucks coffee cups?...the lions keep circling...you think throwing an impossible burger at them will keep them at bay?...maybe I should have asked that guy with the chair...as he rolled into November darkness...swept away with the masses...heads downs...phone screens dotting the night...

the party's over...

it has been several weeks since my daughter, Lauren's wedding...and I can honestly say I have post-wedding planning blues...many of you can relate...and to be honest...it actually doesn't have to have been a wedding...whenever we are involved planning or anticipating a big event...there are the weeks that follow where we don't know what the hell to do...well, we do go about the business of life, of work, etc...but that underlying feeling of excitement...nervousness...even the stress it wraps around...all gone...but truly this one is by nature different...our family dynamic has changed...we have expanded...I now have a son-in-law...I am now a mother-in-law...and Lauren has started her own family dynamic...the changes are subtle...but there...for me, I think what I am more cognizant of is the passage of time...and with 60 looming just about 6 months away...I am contemplating how I'd like my next chapter to read...to those around me...and most importantly to me...they say that 60 is the new 40...who is this they...cause they don't feel these bones as they swing over the side of the bed in the morning...but there in my mind...the road is open and boundless...there is time and possibility...but first coffee...