Saving Your Toys

I dined with TE last night and the conversation turned to fertility. I refuse to believe that I am old enough to be having conversations (and more bizarrely, to be concerned) about fertility. We discussed progesterone, and monitoring basal body temperature, and PCOS (what if I have it?), and age, and dear god. I wanted to run home and scream “We should start now! What if what if what if what if what if?” which would have been hilarious given that we still haven’t scheduled the follow up conversation entitled “Whether Or Not We Are Enthused About The Idea of Procreating.”

TE is D’s friend, but because D cannot plan I end up seeing much more of TE than he does. TE confessed that D talked to her about our relationship issues in the beginning. She said “At the beginning he was all ‘she has these issues with me…’ and every time I’d be like ‘dude, she’s right!’” I wanted to hug her when she said “This one time he couldn’t understand why you were upset that he never responded to your emails and I was like ‘Dude, that’s just rude.’ And you can’t sleep in a bed with another girl, you just can’t.”

I couldn’t help but wonder if TE saved things without realizing she had.

When I got home D was in amazing form, having bought flowers for the apartment. He was very excited to see us and said “I want to know about your day” when TE left. I can’t get over the profound effect our conversation from earlier in the week has had. I swear we’ve had the same conversation 18 million times but for some reason it stuck this time, and splendidly!

He said “I think we need to own Camelot on DVD.”

Oh my!

And he’s close (I think) to consenting to taking a swing dance class with me.

Things are looking up, at least on the NYC front. Of course there are toys to deal with, and the Ebay-ing and Craigslist-ing, and condos, and Parents, and guilt, and angst, and photography school (I had my first photography school dream/nightmare last night!), and promotions, and presentations, and saving money, and a weekend that’s already crammed, but whatever. It’s fall and I think I will fall-ize clothes this weekend and perhaps even wear a jacket. I will look at photography and see friends and movies and technology and maybe wall-climbing and eat well and sleep an extra hour or two and hopefully catch up on some projects. Yes, weekends in NYC are good even if you really should be somewhere else saving your toys from certain death.

All Artists Have Egos

Heh. I first wrote "eggos."

I was disappointed by Science of Sleep. My expectations were too high. While it was at times visually adorable, it lacked substance and failed because of a mostly superficial/mad/unlikable protagonist who was tolerable only because of the cuteness of Gael Garcia Bernal.

Oh well.

Nostalgia

I’ve been trying to be proactively happy.

A tendency I (do we all?) exhibit when confronting an obstacle is to regress to a time when things were easier, happier, and obvious. I look back to the past and think “What used to make me happy? What did I used to like?” and start doing those things. I end up playing more piano and thinking about Star Wars and wanting to take ballet lessons or play with toys.

I decided the other night that it was imperative that I watch Camelot. I’d never seen the movie – but I’ve seen the stage production numerous times, was addicted to the soundtrack in high school, spent study halls in the music room playing the score. I was never shy about indulging my Arthurian-legend-obsessed teenage self. It’s amazing that I didn’t turn out goth.

I put in the DVD last night after I begged D to give it ten minutes. “But its three hours long!” “Those three hours will fly, I swear!” D, being ever patient and ever seeking to make me happy without having to think about how to do it, agreed.

You can imagine my horror when Guinevere appeared in the movie and she was not Julie Andrews. Wtf!? I was mortified!

Vanessa Redgrave? WHAT!?!?

First of all, Vanessa Redgrave is adorable in it. I want to devour her. I have a minor girl crush on her. The banter between she and Richard Harris is precious, and believable.

Second of all, she’s all sex in it. Oh so sexy. I understand why Julie Andrews wouldn’t necessarily have been right for the part.

Third of all, she can’t sing. At. All.

It’s difficult when you’ve been attached to a particular soundtrack for years upon years and then someone destroys it.

I was trying to sing along and instead of actually singing, she speaks some of the lyrics! Because she can't sing! At all!

Oh, Julie, why!?! WHY!?!

D didn’t make any comments for the first 45 minutes. I couldn’t tell if he was being tortured or if he was actually getting something out of it. Every five minutes I’d say “You know, if you want to watch something else its ok…”

No response.

An hour into it he said “This is so campy.”

Campy good or campy bad? No way to tell!

Five minutes later “The costumes in this movie are amazing. Did it win any Oscars? The hats! The hats are awesome!”

“Yes, and the hair is awesome too.” Pause. “Do you want to watch something else? I swear I don’t mind… I can watch the rest in the bedroom.”

“NO! The first hour just flew by!”

Yes.

He said “We should write a Star Wars musical.”

“Yes, we should. I think I could do that in a day.”

During the joust (during which they do not sing the best song from the musical) he got up to do the dishes. He said “Honey, this cutting board reminds me of our trip to Saugerties! Remember when we did that? That was so fun! Remember the garlic festival? Oh, that was such a good time.”

I laughed and laughed, and then flipped him off. At least he’d listened.

We’d had a spat the night prior when I remarked (unrelated) that it’s strange to me the extent to which he does not ever acknowledge the relationship. “It’s just weird to me,” I said. I told him how he gives no feedback, good or bad. He never has an opinion about the relationship, and he doesn’t make mention of things that we’re going to do or have done. It’s like things never happened. Which is ok, I guess, but is weird because it is as though we don’t share any memories, nor do we share common goals (read: the trip). Consequently I never know what he’s thinking, if he’s having a good time, what he enjoys, what he might like to do, etc. and then, because I am a girl, I get insecure because I have to guess.

But he listened, and this is progress, so I laughed, which is what I needed.

We made it to the turning point in Camelot, where everyone starts being emo, and went to bed as we’d gotten only a few hours’ sleep the night before. Instead of going directly to sleep, we talked! About things like what it must have been like for our parents to date way back then! And what kind of people they are! And being too comfortable in life! And being frustrated with helpless people! And not wanting to be manipulated by people! And these topics were not entirely initiated by me!

I love progress, because it is what makes me happy. I didn’t have nightmares last night for the first time in about three weeks.

Progress!

(Sidenote: I am listening to Indie Pop Rocks on SomaFM right now and The Stills’ Animals and Insects is playing, which is a song that reminds me of when D and I were first dating [actually, I think he may have given it to me when we were just friends]. He’d lent me the album and I listened to it like a mental patient in the freezing cold every night in Williamsburg, where I waffled between being blissed out having a crush on the cutest boy ever and worrying about Uncle T, who was going to die and it was just a matter of when. On the street I’d sing the song at the top of my lungs to get out of myself. I think that maybe I could tell D, now, that this song reminds me of him and the beginning and how giddy he made me without even meaning to.)

Duet

As the readers of My Mundane Life in Song know, I am incapable of packing. I am crippled by the idea of packing for a short trip, rendered useless when considering packing for a long trip, and the idea of moving is enough to make me want to implode.

I am, however, quite skilled at throwing things away, and especially fond of parting ways with formerly sentimental items. If NYC teaches you anything, it’s that you can’t form attachments to objects that don’t actually function.

While in MA, I took it upon myself to help The Parents purge their former lives. I was allegedly there to help dive into The Toys, but instead found myself forcing Father to go through his audio tapes from the 80’s. I found some of my own, and of course listened to the Straight Up single and that “Why is love a crime?” song by BabyFace before tossing them. I threw away my New Kids on the Block tapes, and Whitesnake! And Whitney Houston! And Guys Next Store! Who? I have no idea! I also forced Father to sit and go through the piano benches and the baskets of sheet music and the drawers of sheet music and the binders of sheet music. I got rid of my first ever piano book, the theory lessons that I always ignored, and all but one program from piano recitals.

Father said “How can you not keep these things?”

“BECAUSE I DON’T NEED THEM! I haven’t the space! And neither will you, depending on what happens! THROW IT ALL AWAY!”

He kept a lot of his sheet music, and forced me to take some that he “isn’t good enough to play.”

As part of my limited burst of productivity yesterday, I decided to go through all of the sheet music he’d unloaded. I’d brought it to NYC in the very same bag in which I used to carry my sheet music to piano lessons! I dumped the bag and rummaged through old recital songs (motor memory is such a strange thing) I can’t believe I ever played. I reminisced. I couldn’t bring myself to throw away the bag and put in the closet in the To Be Dealt With pile.

I found some Verdi duets that belonged to Father’s sister when she took piano lessons as a child. They are disintegrating.

After popping a pill to force me to cease being anxious about the fact that I’d stopped being productive and had been reduced instead to a sobbing pile of confusion hiding under the bed sheets while listening to Bright Eyes, I sat down at the piano and said “D, come play this duet with me.”

And he did.

And we sounded decent!

We had so much fun. I felt again like I have a partner in crime. I’ve been feeling disconnected from everyone and everything as of late. I feel like I’m going through something that nobody understands, and that he especially can’t understand, no matter how much I try to explain things. “You just need to stop thinking about it,” he’ll say, which for him is easy but for me is impossible. When I do stop thinking about it (which I do, most of the time, which makes me feel guilty and callous and undutiful), it creeps back into my life with a vengeance that reduces me to the previously mentioned sobbing pile of confusion that either cries in the bathroom with the door shut or pretends to nap while the stereo is blasting the same mix mini disc over and over and over again.

I spent a great portion of my confusion crying on the bathroom rug because I don’t want to visit D’s parents. I like them. I do. It’s just that when I visit nobody talks to me, and it has nothing to do with me. It’s the construct, and the construct has been deemed cultural. I admit that I don’t come from an easy culture, and I do everything possible to make sure that D is accommodated and comfortable. When the culture is overly affectionate and verbose and honest, it’s easy to remove oneself and find quiet or isolation. When the culture is reserved and silent and impersonal, it is impossible to find an outlet for communication, for talking, for a sense of belonging.

I can’t pretend that things are ok. I can’t feel even lonelier that I already do. I can’t be around a functional (well, functional by certain definitions) family and pretend that my heart isn’t broken. I can’t be silent and dishonest for three days. I just can’t.

And, most distressingly, I can’t tell this to D.

I was thrown into the fit because I said “D, how long did you want to visit your parents for before Christmas?” We need to figure this out so we can use the stupid plane tickets before I have a meltdown. We’d decided to visit them pre-holidays since they are off to Thailand for the holiday and don’t seem to think that visiting us in an option. “At least five days… three works days and a weekend.”

Nope.

“Oh, well, do I have to come for that whole time?”

“No, you can take a plan by yourself and I’ll pick you up at the airport.”

And then the desire to sob, and the repressing of the sob, which becomes silence instead of enthusiasm, which becomes “What’s the matter with you?” which results in “Nothing…” and then crying in the bathroom, because I know that there is no way I am going to get myself to the airport to visit them. It’s just not going to happen. I can’t even bring myself to buy groceries these days, and he thinks I am going to get on a plane to visit his parents? His grandmother? Yes. His cousins? Absolutely! Various aunts and uncles? Certainly! His brother and nieces? Of course! But his parents? Absolutely not. They don’t care if I’m there, so why would I visit them by myself?

But can I explain this? No.

Instead I hide and wish I could take a few days to see my family and wish that I was dating someone whose parents noticed I existed and wished I could figure out a way to explain to him that this is one way in which marriage changes things, because I am nearly certain that his parents would be phased by my existence were we married.

I chilled out, said nothing, microwaved a samosa instead of going to the Amish market, ordered too many prints, and reappeared, chill, saying “D, come play this duet with me!”

We were both happier than we’ve been in a long time.

I don’t feel like we’re at odds, I just feel like we’re not on each other’s sides right now.

I asked him in the car “What do you think about all of this?”

He said he was mad, pissed, and launched into theory and nothing specific. He never said he felt bad for me. He never said he wished there was something he could do. He doesn’t realize that there’s so much he could do, and I can’t ask because I feel like having to ask implies asking too much.

I wanted to ask "Don't you feel bad for me? At all?"

I watched Friends With Money last week, and the Catherine Keener character hits the end of the rope with her husband when she burns her hand in front of him and he says nothing. She says something like “Don’t you want to know if I’m ok?” He says that he can see that she’s ok. “But don’t you want to know?” He says that he can see that there’s not a problem. “But if there was, wouldn’t you want to know? Wouldn’t you ask?” He says something like “If there was a problem, you would just tell me, and then I would know. Otherwise I’d just assume you were fine.”

This goes on for a while.

I wonder if as women we all just want to be acknowledged. Why would we tell them things if we don’t feel that they’re interested? If he burned his hand, she’d have said “Oh my god are you ok?”

And if D was going through this, I’d ask every once in a while “How are things? Are you ok?” and hopefully he’d feel that he could tell me.

And if D was crying one night, on the following day I’d say “Hey – are you feeling better today? How are you doing?” instead of calling and saying “Hey, I’m going to ride my bike. What are you doing for dinner?”

But instead we played a duet, and everything was fine. I guess you have to accept closeness in whatever form it comes, and if that means feeling really alone for a few hours and crying by yourself and being unable to say what you think followed by making music together, then so be it.

Catching Up

It's been crazy, folks, crazy! Not just with work, but with life in general. I spent this week catching up with life. I bought groceries, drank with MF who is concerned and wonderful (and who I forgot I'd made plans with and therefore had to invite to midtown where I apologized profusely and drank with him at the bar and then cooked dinner for him amidst some good gossip), dined with NR at a great find in the west village prior to attending a boring pre-season hockey game courtesty of The Boss, took a bubble bath and cleaned and relaxed and watched a movie for the first time in I can't remember how long, went to the bar with my new coworker and a million other coworkers and PW, who fits right in and tolerates science-speak, but it was ok because we talked also about tatoos and expenses and boys.

The week before I was in MA, where I was able to talk and emote around people who understand, around people who share blood, around people who are feeling many things and things that are different but still important. It was good to be immersed in the new dynamic, and to see it acknowledged. Separate is annoying logistically but it's so much better and real and far less stressful. I helped pack and organize and throw things away. I found old sheet music and cried playing the piano for the very last time. I didn't think it would hurt but it really did. I wasn't the only one who was crying. I cried too much and didn't go through the toys, which worries me because I know if I saw the Barbie heads I would think of something wonderful to do with them, but from afar may have to say "Just throw them away," sniff sniff. I felt connected to things I hadn't realized existed. I can't believe it's all going to be gone soon. I can't believe where they're going. I don't understand what it means yet. I looked at a condo and said "Buy it!" even though I'm not sure it's the best idea in general, but I think it's the best idea for her. I said things like "Ask them if you can keep the curtain rods! They're spectacular!" Others were more concerned about heat and storage space, but it felt cozy and new and that's what she needs now.

I saw friends too, met and adored the new fiance, had drinks, cuddled with a cat who is more of a stuffed animal than a living thing, dance danced revolution, ate a burrito, felt loved and like I belong somewhere which happens not to be where I live now, listened to Sister's band, ran around frantically, met someone from NYC on the commuter rail, used a Charlie Card, decided that yes I am going to go to photography school and its just a matter of when, talked to D and was missed, got a haircut with my old hairdresser who found out the day before that she has thyroid cancer, didn't miss NYC at all, slept well despite being on couches at times, spent money, had banana-peach-walnut pancakes presented to me and thanked her for being like a parent since right now it feels like I don't have any, saw all of my grandparents, ran into old friends, spent more money, and just felt good.

And of course I felt very bad when I got home and remembered what life really is, so I shut the door and cried because I wanted to be with people who matter and around things that matter and to not be more stressed out at work about things that do not matter.

But all is ok now, because I ate a lot of garlic this weekend.

Until next time...

The Garlic Festival: A Photo Essay by Leah Lar

Oh blogging, how I miss you! Work has been crazy, and every day I cry because I don't have time to blog. I don't even have time to read blogs. I don't have time to do anything other than work and resent work. Because I work and resent work for more and more hours each day, I have been reduced to a frazzled mess by the time I return home and either go out and drink to forget or go to bed at 9:00. I've lost touch with far too many things, and am therefore recovering today. I am uploading photos and cleaning things and throwing other things away and making phone calls and getting organized and making lists and remembering all the things that make work worthwhile.

And now... a blog entry.

D and I went to the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival yesterday. I don't know how I found about it. All I know is that its been looming on my calendar for over six months. Most are perplexed by the existence of such a festival. I, on the other hand, have been counting down to it since I discovered its existence.

It couldn't have come at a better time. I needed the country, I needed foliage, I needed sun, I needed cheesy fall-themed crafts. I've been yearning for the country since I am no longer a person who is able to visit a lawn. We wanted to make an elaborate weekend of it - head upstate, stare at leaves, partake of a maize maze, dine at the Culinary Institute of Art, consume insane amounts of garlic.

Our plans were thwarted first by the non-existence of a maize maze. The closest one, it seems, is in CT.

It then came to our attention that one needs to make reservations for the CIA at least months in advance.

And then there was the weather issue - showers predicted for the entire weekend, which meant no gazing at foliage.

We were, however, determined to go to the garlic festival, rain or shine.

We woke up early yesterday and checked the weather. The forecast was bleak. I wanted to wait until the following day, when thunder storms were predicted, but at least there was a chance that the forecast would change! D wanted to go yesterday, and since he was driving, I agreed.

And oh how glad I am that he insisted that we go yesterday, as it didn't rain at all and the sun actually came out!

It ruled.

When we got there we couldn't believe how many people were there. There were seriously zillions of cars. And trizillions of country folk. It was bliss.

And here, dear readers, are photographs of everything we ate at the Garlic Festival as well as some shots of miscellaneous crafts and garlic cloves..

Enjoy!

Garlic Herb Corn-on-the-Cob: This was being sold by a boy scout troop, and it was delicious. So delicious, in fact, that we returned hours later to eat another one.



Potato-Garlic Soup in a bread bowl: This one was not a winner. The woman put at least three extra tablespoons of minced garlic in our soup and it still somehow managed to not taste of garlic. Additionally, the bread-to-soup ratio was way off. With hindsight we should have went with the garlic chowder.



Garlic roasters for sale:



Garlic merch. The only garlic merch I bought was a wooden Christmas ornament shaped like a garlic clove.



Marionettes having nothing to do with garlic but which are still awesome.



These are whirly gigs made of soda and beer cans. I was obsessed.







D had some sort of garlic cow product on a stick.



Garlic all dressed up with nowhere to go.



Baskets of garlic everywhere.



There were samples of everything, including raw garlic cloves of many different exotic types of garlic.



These are garlic necklaces. I didn't buy one, although I really wanted one. I also wanted garlic earrings.



A display of different types of garlic.



This guy from the Garlic Foundation was giving a talk about how garlic grows, and showed us the scape (?).



I took the paperwork to become a member, but its $15 just to receive a newsletter four times a year!



Garlic!



And more garlic!



And still more garlic!



These vendors claimed to have the best pesto in the universe, and they were right! We bought their garlic spike variety.



Garlic ice cream, folks. I'm pretty sure it was just vanilla with minced garlic mixed in, but dear god was it delicious. I worry now that I will crave it in the future and not be able to ever have it again.



The worst garlic bread of all time.



And of course garlic popcorn.



This teenager was utterly mortified (blushing and embarrassed) that I was taking her photo. I didn't have the heart to tell her she wasn't even really in it.



And the grand finale! Roasted garlic...



... dipped in chocolate fondue!!!!



I know what you're thinking... wtf!? That's what we were thinking. We paid 50 cents for two cloves since we thought it would be a disaster, but we ended up going back for more! The texture was what was most amazing.



We also tried samples of cheeses and pestos and dips and spreads and pickles and everything else one can imagine. We bought pesto, a marinade, a garlic/dill dip, and, well, garlic.

I think that this will be an annual adventure. Being in the country was like being in utopia. I didn't want to come back to the city, but luckily our return was rendered easy by stops at the Christmas Tree Shop (50 cents ramekins? impossible!) and Target, where I found reverse fudge strip cookies and remarkable storage options. It was a lovely day, even if we didn't get to stay in the country.