What a long time since my last post! The last time I went on vacation, there was a tornado in Park Slope, this time, I came home to twenty inches of unplowed snow. Somehow my presence makes the climate work correctly in my little corner of Brooklyn.

A sad farewell this New Year's Eve--my LLBean gumshoes have a breach in water integrity, a little crack on the top. I'll still wear them, I just need to be sure to use my left foot if a submerge is required. And I can't complain, I bought them in the employee store in 1983. I can't remember if I paid $2 or $3. And I mostly wore them on pavement, which they're not designed for.

Go in peace, old friends, you have served me well!

One year ago today, Scrooge! opened.

Last night, Mr. Cantor and I saw Jamie de Roy and Friends' Holiday show at the Metropolitan Room. Unfortunately, it turned into kind of a special Christmas episode of "Don't Forget the Lyrics". Everyone but the 12 year-old kid who sang "Ave Maria", a hilarious singer named Christine Bianchi, and an old pro trio whose names I forgot, had to check pages and re-start. Sally Kellerman had the most trouble. 93 year-old Celeste Holm was in attendance, bless her heart!

After some Thai food fortification, we went to Marie's and closed the joint down. As I sometimes do, I bought some yogurt pretzels on the way home. When I woke up this morning, I realized that not only had I been holding Mr. Cantor's hand, the hand he'd been daubing his draining sinuses with all night, but that I'd stuck my right hand wrist-deep in one of Marie's toilet tanks to effect a flush. (That's the tank, not the bowl!) Yuck!!!!! By this time next week, I'll either be dead, or "stronger".

Here are pictures from my first Thanksgiving with Mr. Cantor and my mother's china. (When I told Dad I would be serving on his wedding china, he said, "What wedding china?" "Remember, when you married mom?" "We had china?" But when I told him it has a wheat pattern, he remembered.) I'm wearing Harold's Harvard T-shirt because it's his favorite thing for me to wear. And we know he has a goofy look on his face, but I look cute, so...

The dinner turned out pretty delish, although a little heavy in my opinion. We had a veg tray with guacamole to start, dinner was the cheater's duck confit, dressing, and roasted garlic potatoes, with pumpkin pudding for desert. Yep, pumpkin pudding, fat-free, 250 calories per serving.

My old census partner, Eva, turned me on to Rossman Farm, what the Brits call a 'fruit & veg' and it's amazing. In New York, 'amazing' is a cliche, but really, let me prove it to you. Yesterday I spent $20.44 and got: 4 big peaches, 4 small avocados, 4 Italian peppers, a clamshell pack of arugula, a bunch each of cilantro, parsley, and basil, a stalk of Brussels sprouts, a giant onion, four foil packs of roasted chestnuts, a pound of asparagus, a yellow summer squash and a zucchini, a pack of alfalfa sprouts, and five big radishes.

Tomorrow I'm making Thanksgiving dinner por deux, my friend Andy who usually comes over is visiting a sick friend in Colorado. So, because Mr. Cantor doesn't care for turkey, here's the menu: "Cheater's Duck Confit", recipe from Anne Burrell, for which I'll pick up three duck legs at Chelsea Market later today (the legs get poised atop an arugula salad), garlic mashed potatoes, stuffing from a box, pumpkin pudding, and heck, maybe I'll prune some of those Brussels sprouts. Oh, and we're starting out with a crudite tray, hence the radishes, squashes and asparagus, with guacamole dip.

Today I'm seeing Mrs. Warren's Profession with Cherry Jones. The seat-filler club has been good to me lately--Sunday I saw La Bete, with an unbelievable performance by Mark Rylance (really, when was the last time you heard speeches in rhymed verse applauded?), last Tuesday Play Dead, a gothic written by Teller that had me shrieking and clutching at the poor woman beside me, two weeks ago Lombardi, which was worth it for, surprisingly, Judith Light's performance as drunken Mrs. Lombardi, and Saturday I'll feed my writing brain with some Pinter.

And my sweetie bought me a bag of roasted chestnuts on 6th Avenue Sunday, so it really is the holiday season in New York!

Why is it when you hear Irish music, you tap your heels instead of your toes? Is it something to do with the bog? I saw a show tonight with Bill Whelan, the guy who wrote Riverdance. They flew a dancer in from Dublin, but there wasn't a raised stage, so only the first row could enjoy him. Well, every once in a while his foot would flap up to hip level, but, kind of a waste, no? The Irish consul general was there, what a treat for him--Irish music.

Tomorrow I'm seeing La Bete with delicious Joanna Lumley. My sweetie's meeting me after and taking me out for Thai.

I'm making Anne Burrell's "cheater's duck confit" for him for Thanksgiving and ordered the duck legs today to pick up Wednesday at Chelsea Market. Accompaniments are garlic mashed potatoes, arugula salad, pumpkin pudding, and whatever he brings over to weaken my defenses, hee!

Criminy, I just discovered Notes in Facebook--how many dark corners are there on that thing? Also, I'm old. Some of the notes were about lists of favorite authors or the first 15 songs that come up if you set your ipod on shuffle, and sooooo many names I don't know!

If any of you have been considering a visit, contact my cousin, Patty, for a reference. She came up last week and we had a marvy visit. Onward with the dolls!

Tomorrow night, a certain someone gets a mystery dream date! Will it be a dream or a dud? I'll say one thing, if you happen to dislike New York, this would be an evening of torture, it's marinated in New York, with some New York running off the entree and collecting in a puddle at the bottom of the plate. New York, I tell you!

Those Yemeni terrorists are lucky Charlie Sheen fell off the wagon and knocked them out of the headlines!

10/10/10! It's ten cubed! It's a hundred thousand. Or so. Can't really do it in my head.

We've had the most gorgeous weather lately. My membership to the Metropolitan was running out, so I decided to spend one last afternoon there. On the roof, they had this weird jungle gym thing called Bambu (artistic!) which was cool from my point of view, but which also had all these paths up into it you could see on timed tours. It's like how the Ewoks got from tree house to tree house. A sign listing great swaths of the population that shouldn't attempt the climb included acrophobics, but I tried to do it anyway. But there weren't any more tickets for that day, so it all worked out perfectly--I kind of faced my fear of heights and no one had to endure a freak-out.

As you can see from the Virgin mobile logo on the pix, I took them with my phone. This should in no way encourage you to get Virgin's phone service. My phone's been beeping in my ear since August and they haven't sent me a new one yet. (But when they come in, I'll be "among the first" to get one. I guess higher up the list from me are people whose phones are actually stabbing their eardrums with tiny knives.)

This is my cousin James Henke and his girlfriend Delayne, in their respective booths at the Minnesota Renaissance Faire last month. Delayne sells cards, bookmarks, prints and stuff of her drawings, and James makes beads and jewelry. I love the earrings he gave me and am trying to work up a buzz about him whenever I'm on 7th (Fashion) Avenue. Stop staring at her boobs, she's a grandmother!

Four years ago today, I loaded up a rented mini-van in Fairfax (Aunt Lois was playing bells at church, so we were spared the good-bye) and moved to Brooklyn.

According to North Korea's twitter account, the Pyongyang Film Festival is over. No wonder there's been no significant red carpet activity of late. I hope Joan Rivers covers the PFF tonight on "Fashion Police". "Oh, even Angelina Jolie cannot rock the black pajamas!"

Seriously, reading the wikipedia entry on twitter made me feel senile. What? What for? Huh? From my very limited experience, though, it seems to be following the familiar arc of social networking, which for me dates back to the wrestling fan fic heyday of the late 90's. Phase 1, This is Fun: Hey, like-minded people in cyber-space, isn't it cool we can find each other and talk now? Phase 2, Alignment: Did you read what X wrote? How can she lie like that? Karma! Phase 3 Almost as Boring as Real Life: If I have to read X is going for coffee one more time... Phase 4 Goldfish Bowl: I still have it but I hardly ever look at it.

If you want to tweet me, and I have no idea why you would, I'm thefreeagentnyc, after my lovable Miss Manners-like blog character on the Manhattan Libertarian Party's blog.

A Tree Blows [Over] in Brooklyn

Happy Roddy McDowall's Birthday, anyone who knows me!

I came home yesterday to find the storm I saw from a bus in Harlem on the way from Laguardia was doing this a couple of doors down from my apartment.

It was the best kind of vacation, lovely to go, lovely to be back. But how much of a baby do I feel like to say that socializing is tiring?

I had two migraines on the way home, very unusual given I just had one a few weeks ago at the Guggenheim. When I think back, it was a bad idea to go into the Duty Free shop. They had a sign saying anyone could shop there (turns out they had the booze and ciggies separated, just the purses, chocolate, jewelry, and perfume was open to domestic fliers) so I had to investigate what they were getting for shortbread cookies. So that immersion in perfumeland and the slight scent of the woman next to me on the packed plane on the way home serve as my first definitive links between migraines and perfume. Still no headache with it yet, though, thank goodness.

Here's a pic of Cappy Jim Zimmerman, sailing Todd, Laurie, and me around Minnetonka Tuesday. BTW, I didn't have any walleye Wednesday, but I had fish, so that was five consecutive days of walleye and six of fish.

"What did you do your last day of vacation, Janet?"
"I had a day of beauty."
"Oh, with your mom?"
"No."

Saturday, I'm going to the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. This is the first public entertainment kind of thing I've ever heard of that has a weapons policy:

• The Festival bans guns on our premise
• Swords, Knives, Dirks and Daggers must be
• completely sheathed and peace-tied.
• Axes, Claymores, Maces, Antique Firearms, Pikes and Halberds are NOT allowed on the Festival site.
• No drawing of any weapon at any time
• Must be 18 years or older to carry a weapon

What about pointed sticks?

Yesterday, I saw Love, Loss, and What I Wore, with super-pretty Stacy London. You know when you see five actresses mount tall bar stools, someone's getting breast cancer and some lezzies are getting married, right?

My sweetie's taking me out for a special dinner tonight since he won't see me for a week: Artisinal, New York's destination for cheese. I think we're doing fondue for two, which will be the first time I've had it since Switzerland. (And minus the folk dancing. I hope.)

That got me thinking of what the qualifications are for sharing this kind of food, who'd you'd have no problem "double-dipping" with, which reminded me of a dish I saw on a Chinese menu yesterday, "Saliva Chicken". There is simply no way to sell that to me.

When was the last time you saw a help wanted ad that specified--for no reason, I might add--gender?:

CREATIVE POSITION AVAILABLE IN CH FOR RESOURCEFUL FEMALE
Posted: August 26, 2010

Are you the one noticing the details that others gloss right over?

Looking to hire a bright, creative, and intuitive female with excellent computer skills and a sharp eye for detail and precision. Candidate should be exceptionally thorough and efficient, with the ability to grasp new concepts quickly and work with a fast-paced team.

Knowledge of html/css, photoshop, or mychabad.org’s site control (website management) system a plus.

* Full-time; 9AM–5PM (9-2 Fri)
* Job begins 9/1/10

My sweetie and I enjoyed the Chabad telethon yesterday (after watching super-goy Gene Tierney in "Laura" with his friends John and Martha), sofa-dancing along with the rabbis every time they updated the tote board. Good training for next week's muscular dystrophy telethon. H likes to tune in at least as long as it takes Jerry Lewis to rip into his staff. "The record is eighteen minutes into the show," he said.

It's a phone...and a camera! What year is it, 2005? Anyhoo, two photos from Borough Park, Brooklyn.
When the big one drops, all I have to do is hop on the R train, transfer to the D at 36th Street and take it to 55th Street, then walk half a block east, where possibly the last fallout shelter in America is. I should have checked their stock of bottled water.
The top picture illustrates how the artist at Nissen photography will tailor each pose to the individual occasion.

A first! I had to visit an apartment on the 9th floor in the P.J.s and the elevators weren't working. I had to pause twice for deep breaths, but I would never have predicted I could walk up eight flights of stairs. Thank you, Dr. Castro and YMCA!

"When I first returned to the city, I put a lot of contemplation into what coffee table books I could buy for my new apartment."

That's from yelp. It never occurred to me to deliberately buy coffee table books.

"You know what, I have two children in a stroller and two heavy bags and you're racing around on a scooter. It doesn't make sense to me." This is a Park Slope mom's way of saying, "Watch where you're going!"

Also, does it seem right to play a song with the line, "sexy as a motherfucker" in Payless at ten in the morning?

I was in a small library killing a few minutes before work (I learned this week that it's supposed to be a census secret where we meet, so I can't tell you which McDonald's it is) and thumbed through a couple of magazines I've never looked at before. Audrey is for Asian American women and has a unique art design, it looks like someone has underlined and circled various headlines with a regular pen. (An "inkpen" as they say in DC.) In Shape, I learned there's a profession I wasn't aware of. And before I tell you what it is, discoveries like this make me simultaneously think "that's the stupidest..." and "this is the most marvelous country ever". Jared Matthew Weiss is a "New York based life stylist". And he gets money for invaluable insights like this one, "balance is the key to happiness". On "Hee Haw!" they used to give the small town of the week a "Saaaaa-Loooot!" and I bestow one upon you, Jared Matthew Weiss.

Here's a picture of the slushy lemonade pop thingies from Williamsburg. As you can see, they're seven inches long, and these have no markings at all. H hesitates to eat them. With no markings, there's no product liability. But I betcha anything they're kosher!

Does anyone see anything wrong with this product name?:

Philips Sonicare R710 HealthyWhite Power Toothbrush

No love from the Chosen People yesterday; I stood in front of a house for two hours and only spoke to the mail carrier, who said she didn't know whether the ground-floor apartment is usually #1. Really? Shouldn't they be pattern-seekers by nature? I assumed the lady of the house was home or would be back shortly because the air conditioner was on (another census trick!) but H reminded me that if the family weren't planning to return until after sunset, they could have left it running so they wouldn't have to turn it on during shabbos.

I did see more of those plastic freezy pop things at a playground. H has asked me to collect a sample for further tests at his house.

Today's Beauty Forecast: Dry skin unlikely, risk of frizz: HIGH!

I've seen a lot of interesting things from the buses of Brooklyn. For example, I bet the Brooklyn Job Corps Training Center is about the only place left on earth where you can get schooled in Desktop Publishing. And they seem to have a vast mandatory smoking area.

The most interesting phenomenon is you can go to neighborhoods here where you'd think you were in a small city in Russia, China, or Israel. If the streets and sidewalks are swept clean, you know you're in a Hassidc neighborhood. If women are carrying umbrellas in bright sunlight, you're in Chinatown, and if all the women have greasy, lemon-colored hair with black roots, dosvedanya!

It's surprisingly hard to find out what the high temperature was yesterday, but New York 1 says it was over 100, so we'll go with that. "It's not as hot out there as it was yesterday, right?" asked the bartender at Todd Kliman's book reading last night. "Let me put it this way," I said, I guess in my old man gathered at the cracker barrel persona, "Tuesday I was home in air conditioning until evening, today I was walking all over Willamsburg. So for me today was much worse." (I did go out Tuesday night to a restaurant whose air conditioning was broken. But they turned a fan on us and the company was delightful, so we endured.)

As a result of the census scandal, I have been transferred to Brooklyn Northeast. Among my reasons for wanting to do census work was to learn more areas of Brooklyn, and mission accomplished on that. Yesterday I was in both the Marcy Projects and a Hasidic neighborhood. The PJs are generally easy to do because people are home during the day, but I was nervous about the Hasidim. For one thing, my whore elbows were showing.

But the one girl I interviewed was a sweetheart. Williamsburg hasn't gotten word of Mister Otis's invention, and I'd walked up to the fifth floor to find an empty apartment. (I now have a sixth census sense that tells me when there's someone home and I need to keep knocking.) I sat on the steps to catch my breath and fill out my paperwork which was soggy with sweat and heat sneezes, when this Missus X and her two toddlers came up the stairs. "I hope you live in ..." I said. She did, and she'd already been interviewed and didn't really want to talk to me, but said she'd come back out. I wondered if like most people who say that, she'd then try to duck me, but she came out a few minutes later and handed me a frozen lemonade thingy I'd never seen before. It's about the size of a wiener casing with a narrow waist, and you twist it in the middle and suck the sludge out of both pieces. It had no markings and I don't know if they buy them or make them at home or what, but it was delish and possibly saved my life. I must have looked pretty tragic by that point. "You can't see I am not home?" she asked. I said I did know, but thought I would wait a few minutes. (And when I say girl, I'm talking about someone who looked to be 18 and has two kids.) She gave me her family's names and I thanked her for that and the popsicle. "This is all, what you need?" she said, and I got a whisper that she was a little bit curious or bemused by me. But that was all what I needed, so on I went, north, into Hipster Williamsburg.

I had not planned to be out in the heat much at all, but because I didn't know my way around, I walked around for two hours, with two brief bus rides. We've had a bunch of news stories about how to tell if you're approaching heat stroke, and although sweat running down my legs was annoying, it told me I was alive. A doctor on the news said a third of the patients who get emergency care still die from heat stroke because once your body can't regulate its temperature, the organs start to fail. I pushed this envelope once in DC when I was squiring Leo and Harriet's nanny, Jeannette, around. I was hot, then hot and sweaty, then hot, sweaty, and cranky, then dry and goose-bumpy. The wind still felt hot, but I got goose bumps and no sweat. I really wanted Jeannette to see everything she wanted to see, and it was only a few minutes before we were in the car, but I'm older and wiser now. (About half an hour after we were in the car, I was suddenly sweating again.) For example, while I was waiting for a bus, I checked my pulse, which was over a hundred for no reason, so I sat on a stoop that was like what they cook tortillas on, but my pulse slowed down. And I drank even though I didn't feel thirsty. In the back of my mind, I knew Harold would be really pissed if I let myself die of heat stroke!

I just got the word the Catholic church has dropped the idea of Limbo, the place where unbaptized babies (and according to Dante, good heathens such as Plato and Socrates) wait out the end of time. I'm not blaming myself, here's the motto of the Catholic News Service:

This material
may not
be published,
broadcast,
rewritten or
otherwise
distributed.

Copyright
(c) 2007
Catholic News
Service/U.S.
Conference of
Catholic Bishops.

But I still have a beef with Catholic heaven--I was always lukewarm about going where there aren't any cats, but now we're going to have aborted foeti? That doesn't sweeten the deal.

As the census winds down, we're traveling farther and farther afield in Brooklyn. (Oh, and there has been the matter of two enumerators in my region who were found to be falsifying their surveys, all of which then needed to be redone.) I've been up on 8th Avenue, south of Green Wood Cemetery ("New York's Buried Treasure!"), which is our China/Polish Town. From the bus I saw this perfect business name, Blue Color Hair Style Salon.

Saw a little bit of fireworks from my window last night. Even though the humidity was low so it only felt like 95 degrees, it was 99 out. Thank you, Amanda Berne, for moving to Holland and selling me your air conditioners!

Speaking of weather, I recently discovered a Daily Beauty Forecast button on my Weather Channel Desktop. It's kind of the same format as the pollen alert. For July 5, dry skin is unlikely, but there's a chance of frizz!

When the heat wave breaks, it makes the heat wave worthwhile.

Heard in Payless Shoes on the Upper East Side: "Ezra, put your Crocs on!"

Sunday, service changes by Metro Transit Authority took effect. Two bus lines I use were eliminated and the routes tacked on to two other routes. Because there was a fire down the line yesterday morning, I got off the F train and took the newly re-routed #61 downtown. "Is this bus going to get me to traffic court?" one passenger asked. Over the loudspeaker, the wiseacre driver said, "Traffic court, People's Court, I'm a git you there, don't worry."

Meanwhile, in the seat behind me, a young woman was yelling on her cell, "My daughter said, 'Mommy, why she wash my hair with braids in?' We'll take this to court because that bitch don't know what she's doing. How the fuck she don't know how to take out braids?" Would this case be heard in Traffic or People's court? Doesn't matter, it's still the #61!

Off to shower, then lunch with my sweetie at his favorite lunch place, a Thai restaurant in Manhattan. I shan't name it because I cannot deal with the paparazzi today.

Everything really is beautiful at the ballet! I got to go to the New York City Ballet Saturday to see three pieces. As you'll recall, Lincoln Center and I are celebrating a year of Prokofiev, so the first piece was "Prodigal Son", with a ballerina who looked so tall and reedy she looked like a Julie Taymor giraffe. The second piece was my favorite, an abstract dance choreographed by Peter Martins. The tableau at the end was the most beautiful assemblage of human flesh I've ever seen, then the girls moved slightly and it was even more beautiful. The last piece, like "Prodigal Son", choreographed by Balanchine, was my least favorite, based on American folk music and square dancing, but it had the attraction of two dancers falling. Normally when seeing a dance performance, I think about the fact that the dancers have the exact same allocation of joints, tendons, muscles, etc., as I do, and I reminisce about Gelsey Kirkland's book, Dancing on My Grave. This time, though, I also thought about the grace and balance of their upper bodies. I can't be a ballerina, but there's some room between what they do and the way I fling my arms around like a lowland gorilla is all I'm saying.

Have you all heard how scandal rocked the Brooklyn census offices last week? H hopes I get more work because of it, but I've been looking at July 10 as my parole date. But yes, I do need money. (Talking to you, #11 molar!) In another Times story about the 2000 census, I found this priceless 'only in New York' quote, " But at no time was it ever O.K. in the slightest way to file for fictitious incorrect falsification." Ladies and Gentlemen, Al Sharpton, census supervisor!

What I find very interesting in that quote is apparently the Times style book prefers O.K. to okay. Dudes, the shift key, really?

The super came over yesterday and installed the air conditioners I bought from my neighbor who moved to Amsterdam. Best thing about a/c? Sleep!

Another picture from the Bingham Canyon Mine--see the full-size school bus? Now look at the dump truck it's coming up to. One of the many fun facts I learned is that a former waste product, molybdenum, now sometimes exceeds the value of the copper the mine is known for. That reminds me of a story from a book about the Mormons Harriet lent me. The Mormons only wanted to mine "useful" materials, coal, iron, and lead. They gave up one lead mine in Nevada because the ore was too impure, although they fashioned bullets from it. Which they hopefully used to kill local werewolves, because when someone else took over they found one major impurity, silver, turned the economy of the mine around.

I've been listening to the beautiful Nancy LaMott, "Live from Tavern on the Green" CD. You can hear a little plate-clinking, but it's really a clear recording. I can't forget that she died of cancer (so she must have known she was a goner) two months later, which frosts every song with a layer of sadness. Nevertheless, she sends me a little encouragement, "Asking for things you're needing/You never can go wrong/If you have faith that things are happening as they should/And just believe each step you take is leading you to something good/Help is on the way/From places you don't know about today . . ."

Lincoln Center and I continue our year of Prokofiev this Saturday when I'm seeing the New York City Ballet.

My new favorite TV show, "You're Cut Off!". Is there a point below which I will not go? Apparently not.

Here are H and me at Marie's Crisis (show tunes piano bar in Greenwich Village), about 23 hours into his birthday and an hour away from mine. I'm getting a little long in the tooth (ouch, that reminded me of last week's root canal) for two big nights in a row, but what can we do? We did have two very special evenings.

Harold knows I can't eat crab, so I took him to City Crab for his birthday dinner because he'd never have taken me, and we had big shrimp cocktail, big seared tuna, clam chowder, and a bottle of wine. On the way to Marie's, we stopped in a bodega at the corner so I could buy my birthday treat, a whooppie pie. The bodega guy asked for a dollar-fifty and my phone number, and just as I was trying to figure out what had been said (right in front of Harold, but in fairness, we were in Greenwich Village, on our way to a piano bar), a prostitute came in and said hi to both of us. So it was a very magical night. Since I wanted H to have a perfect birthday, I even hung in for Joe's pizza at 2am.

Last night, H took me to Faustino, a "new Italian" restaurant owned by a real chef, you know, one who's on TV, Scott Conant. (He's the judge on "Chopped" who bags anyone who puts raw red onions on his plate.) I had a delicious meal, stewed eggplant with pork (kind of the fatty pork taste you get in pork and beans) and roasted black bass with purple artichokes and fava beans with mint. Harold had the biggest platter of duck breast I've ever seen, as he said, "the Jayne Mansfield of ducks". Everything he gave me had to do with "us": my first Bar Mitzvah card, a CD and DVD of late great singer Nancy Lamott, and Jonathan Schwartz's memoirs. Then we went to the secret lounge at Crifdogs, where we had weirdo cocktails and tater tots. It's probably been a decade since my last tot and I really enjoyed them, and after the first couple of sips of fire water, I grew to like my coffee concentrate and cherry Black Jack.

Two happy New York birthdays on which we tried not to dwell on the opening of Auschwitz (June 14) and the fire aboard the General Slocum ferry (June 15)!

Sooo, I've been in Salt Lake City for the past five days, and it's very beautiful. It's a desert that only gets precipitation two months out of the year, but we had it every day I was there! I got caught in the rain while hiking the trails behind Leo's house and Sunday, we had three inches of wet snow. (One more inch and Leo said we'd go snowshoeing. I've never done that, but I did borrow my niece's bike and had a nice ride around the neighborhood. Leo asked me when I last rode a bike. "Let's round it off to 'the day I got my learner's permit'," I said.)

The sign will give you a little taste of what Utahans are like. I think they're trying to say, "we were washing our hands a century before your fancy laws, Gentile!". Harriet says these are the most industrious people she's ever seen, and from what I saw, it's true. Leo pointed out some men working on a condo conversion, "Look, seven construction workers and they're all working at the same time, where else would you see that?" And all the houses are tidy with landscaped lawns. Lots of beautiful craftsman-era houses I loved. Not that Leo and Harriet's house isn't spectacular.

This statue I call, "Brigham Young Pops the Question":

While I'm in Salt Lake City later this week, I plan to get my hair did at Red State (hate that term!) prices. While researching salons, I read one guy's complaint that for $35, he expected the best haircut anyone's ever gotten, and I learned there's a beauty school called the Hairitage Academy.

This phase of census work is not going too well. Last week I was in training for three days, but then you, Mister Taxpayer, paid me twelve hours for slipping one missed visit sheet under a guy's door. (I don't think that's any privileged information; if it is, I could be imprisoned for up to five years and fined up to $250,000 for breaking my Lifetime Oath [no kidding, I'm oathed for life to the census].)

The Kindle's loaded for vacation, and H is lending me a portable DVD player on which I plan to watch season 1 of "Pushing Daisies" and possibly "The Wire" and/or "Trailer Park Boys." 'Cause it's going to be a shitnami of a flight--five and a half hours in a middle seat. Oh well, you know what the middle seat really means? Two friends I haven't met yet!

Some day, I'll tell children of an age that could have been my grandchildren that I remember a time when there weren't any TV series about midgets.

Do I live in America? I just had a major new filling put in a molar and the dentist told me to take Tylenol or Advil for a couple of days to ease the inflammation. "What do you take for headaches?" he said. "I don't get headaches." Then I realized I haven't owned any aspirin, Tylenol, or Advil in over a year, since Groupie McWoodstock, DDS, extracted a tooth over a year ago. Somethin', huh? So now I get to go shopping...

By the way, this guy's good--my eyeball's still numb.

Made my first batch of ham salad today, and it was terrific, even with turkey ham, and easy:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Winter-Blossoms-Often-Requested-Ham-Salad/Detail.aspx

And in other kitchen updates, my downstairs neighbor is moving to Amsterdam and selling all her stuff. I bought two window air conditioners, an OXO salad spinner that sucks onto the counter top, and for the first time in three and a half years, I own a microwave!

I planned to post a picture of a window of the building behind me, because there are clothes piled up over most of it, so I think it's one of them hoarder situations. But my camera hasn't got enough zoom.

I just finished reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, 'cause, you know, I'm all about the Blyn. (I never read it when I was younger.) My bf warned me "it's dark" and it sure is, but there are a lot of interesting observations about how this group of desperately poor people right about a hundred years ago saw the world. Two of my favorite lines, "The difference was that Flossie Gaddis was starved about men and Sissy was healthily hungry about them. And what a difference that made." And the penetrating but seldom-expressed truth of, "Poor people have a great passion for huge quantities of things."

The kids in the book often say, as we did when I was a kid, something you don't hear much any more, "It's a free country."

Farewell, 12th Street Pathmark! That phase of my census work is at an end, in a couple of weeks, I train to be an enumerator. That means you can run, but you cannot hide, we're doing a hard-target, door-to-door search. This is one well-oiled machine, let me tell you. They called me last night at 5:30, just as I was changing clothes to go to work at 6, to say come to the office and bring any extra forms we have. Here are some of the beloved characters I'll miss:

The Historian--my coworker, Polish Ewa, was quite surprised to hear from The Historian, who "reads up on these things", that Germany conquered Poland in 1939 "without firing a shot".

Homeless Hector--he has a brother and sister who live nearby, neither of whom "receives" him. (Yes, just like Rhett Butler!) In the brother's defense, Hector told me he's got "three bullets with his [brother's] name on them". I filled out a census form for Hector and he asked if he could have a sip of my coffee. So we're buds now.

Ewa, my co-worker--she's told me many times "this country [Poland] has no luck", and from the brief four weeks we've worked together, I have to say she ain't whistling Dixie! Not only did the whole government die in a plane crash, but their state funerals were messed up by a volcano. And Ewa was looking forward to the world learning finally where Poland is and what its role in history has been, because most of the people she meets here think it was part of the Soviet Union. Okay, Ewa, but it was Union-adjacent . . .

80's Cashier--my favorite of all the employees to watch, this 50-something is still rocking the mullet, totally moussed in place straight up and back from her forehead, and SPANDEX PANTS!

Papi--a little man who runs errands and an illegal car service for customers of the store. "Go get me some cigarettes, Papi," one woman told him, "and you can keep a dollar out of the change".

Mi Amigo--not to be confused with Papi, he was a homeless man (but he's now "counted", thanks to yours truly!) and a hopeless alcoholic. It interested me to see how store security handled this guy, since the police don't want to deal with drunks, but he became disruptive at times to the shoppers. When he started talking to little kids, the store guys kicked him out. I hadn't considered it until now, but we haven't seen him for over a week and that might be the reason.

Anyway, good-bye, Pathmark denizens!

So, it was Harold's first Easter, for obvious reasons (hello, extended Eddie Cantor family!), and the first Easter meal I made alone. I wanted to give H the full suburban Minnesota holiday experience, so I also whipped together an Easter basket, and despite his broken foot, I made him search for it. (The T-shirt he's wearing was in the basket, a nod to my childhood candy-free diet Easter baskets.) The ham is really good (can't stop tearing off bits to snack on today)--Nigella Lawson's Ham in Cola, which I happen to know she adapted from the Do You Smell What the WWF is Cooking? cook book, recipe submitted, I believe, by The Rock. Whom you may know as...still The Rock. The rest of the meal comprised broccoli (nothing we'd have had back in the day, but I need my veg), au gratin potatoes from a box, and jello with suspended fruit cocktail and Cool Whip.

Speaking of Easter, I have also resurrected my computer. For the second time in two years, I had a fatal virus/malware infection that ultimately required a total reformat/reload. Thank goodness for laptops, but what a hassle. If I had a job, I'd probably have bought a new computer, but I don't, plus when I bought this in 2004, Jim Gumm told me I wouldn't use it for ten years (as I had the Mac it replaced) and I'm determined to prove him wrong. At least there's so much a person can reconstruct from the Internet. Know what, though? I felt a little wistful for the days when I know "all" about computers. But you know, that made way for, among other things, the wrestling.

We look like a fun couple, don't we? I think we are.

If you ever need to refer to me and my bf, Harold, as a couple, the name is Hairnet.

I can't believe I never thought to ask this question before. You know the joke about Republicans, "They support the death penalty but oppose abortion!" Harold said it the other day, and called it an indefensible ethical position. My question should have been "Do you oppose both or neither?"

I think there's a Serf City blog entry in here somewhere on the topic of Stand-Up Politics. Sometimes the joke is so good it obfuscates the point.

So I've put in two days of training and two shifts for the census as a questionnaire assistant. My coworker, Ewa (Polish, but so far not nearly as fun as last year's Polish coworker, Anna, at the tax office) and I sit at a Pathmark grocery store and watch people use the Coinstar machine. Saturday, one of the store employees who was sitting on our bench taking a break barked, "I don't want to fill that thing out, what's it for?" She was wearing a big white somewhat bloody butcher coat, literally festooned with union pins. Ewa started in with the script they want us to do, about all the federal largesse that's coming your way if you join in the fun and get counted. "That doesn't matter, where I live, the money all goes to the same people. The Jews." And I fell in love with her a little bit! ("Who does she think started her union?" Harold, who also promised me a cut of his Jew-money, asked later.) I took over and told her the constitutional reason we take the census is to keep the congressional districts properly apportioned. "What happens if I throw it away? Will I go to jail?" she asked. I told her she wouldn't go to jail, but if she didn't mail it back, they'll send her another one, and if she doesn't send that back, they'll send a person to her address to try to interview her, up to three times. "So if you want to waste as little tax money on the census as possible," I concluded, "mail the form back." And I didn't even have to suggest we might be sending over a Jew!

Gratitude. I was sitting in a basement cabaret Monday night watching Justin Randolph, Greg "My Director" Cicchino's boyfriend sing an adorable set, and it hit me that when I envisioned moving to New York, this was my idealized vision of what I wanted. At first, I thought no, I want to be successful, I want to have a lot of friends around me, etc., and fortunately, I stopped myself and enjoyed the moment: I was in a New York cabaret with professional colleagues who are now friends. I made myself feel the same appreciation last night when my sweetheart introduced me to his "regular" bar, across the street from Grand Central Terminal. (Not station, you rubes!) 'I'm in New York, looking at Grand Central, with a wonderful man who loves me, well, right now he's in the men's room, but he'll be back in a minute, so let's just say he's here.' And I felt the moment and how much I hoped that I'd have it some day and wallowed in gratitude. It feels good, the wallow.

The census just called--I train Wednesday to be a Questionnaire Assistant. Coming soon to a card table in a library near you! Well, near me. They want you to work in your own zip code. Hey, one of my New Year's resolutions will be met--this is going to be the Year of the W-2! (The other one was to practice better sleep hygiene.)

Gratitude!!

There was a contestant on "American Idol" named John Park, who when asked for something people didn't know about him, said, "English is my second language." He explained that he was born in Chicago and lived there until age six, when he moved to Korea. He came back to the U.S. when he was a teenager.

So...no language from ages zero to six? As I implied, he got voted off.

Seriously now, when Spencer and Heidi wave their arms and get plastic surgery and buy crystals and stuff to try to get your attention, just turn away. Enough of them. Only, one last thing--did Heidi request the "Permanently Worried" package at the plastic surgeon's? I admit it, I watched "The Hills", this was once a very cute, bubbly, girl.

I had an experience Thursday night I just don't know how to explain. I was at a lecture. On the seat to my left, I had my back pack, and to the left of that was an empty seat. A man leaned over from behind me and said, "Are these two seats free?" I said they were, and shoved my pack under my chair. He wended his way down the aisle, sat in the seat next to mine, and in the seat to his left, he put his back pack. Not another human being, his pack. Why did his back pack have higher status than mine? Hitzy suggested it's his girlfriend, "Packy", and sure, if it had had a face painted on it, I could understand. Even if he'd only asked, "Are these seats taken?" But he specified, "Are these two seats free?" Or if he'd been carrying explosives, of course you wouldn't want the bottom of a chair to deflect the blast, but none of those perfectly logical explanations seems to be true!

Wait, what? Who's . . . Eleanor Roosevelt's dead. She had to have died ages ago. Who? Oh my goodness, pardon me, Mister Ebert!

I went to a meet-up yesterday, which one doesn't matter, picture the usual suspects. After we'd chatted for about an hour and gotten fed, we each introduced ourselves. For any of you who aren't living on Planet Earth, I'm a playwright and producer who mounted God Bless You, Mister Scrooge! in New York last fall. This surprised most people, "Did you do anything to publicize it?" one woman asked. Ouch! But then this other guy, when it was his turn, said, "I've been talking to Janet here for an hour and didn't realize who she was, I really regret not being able to see your play, but I plugged it on my website." So in my own little way, I experienced celebrity!

A rock has been thrown into the pond and nothing is exactly the same.

Okay, I'm ready to say it--it's hard for me to appreciate a Shakespeare play nowadays. Recently I saw a beauteous production of As You Like It, a play I at least studied in high school, directed by Sam Mendes at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. But unless I read a pretty comprehensive recap of the play, it's hard for me to know what's happening, and frankly, I don't understand what they're talking about a lot of the time. What's with all the "merry this" and "merry that"? And you're too long-winded, Will. In Romeo and Juliet (directed by my idol, Greg Cicchino), there are at least three points where the action stops and someone explains the story so far. Was it because people used to watch the plays while wandering around?

And as a playwright, I'll go even a step further. Back to As You Like It, how would a modern audience, much less a critic, react if the conclusion of a play was a character walking on stage and announcing that all the problems back at the court that caused everyone to flee into the wood in the first place had resolved themselves and you can all come home now, hurrah?

My sweetie sent me roses which required me to put myself into the picture to show you the scale. Yes, I checked the tag to make sure they were for me. As you can see from the first photo, he's got a treat in store, too. I'm making dinner, and topping it off with home-made whoopee pies. The recipe is from my friend Lorna, the heart stencil (and childish execution) were my additions.

Let me go all "How I Met Your Mother" on this post, 'so, kids, this is how we used to look when we got all dressed up for prom'. Not me personally, of course, this picture is of Mike Armour, a classmate of mine, and his posse. The dresses are most likely from Gunne Sax (wikipedia defines the look as "prairie revival"), the flowers from Bachman's, and the tuxes? Who knows, but if a little piping is good, a lot must be better. If the crowd were a little older, the dudes would have moustaches, but this was high school. Look at the bow ties--Weep, Windsor!

Really, none of them looks too psyched, do they? Well, kids, that was prom in the 70s, a grim duty, but we did it. Er, I mean, they did it. And perhaps later, they did it. No offense, Mike.

I saw the gosh-derndest thing yesterday! For the first time since I moved here in September, I saw someone in the back yard of the row of buildings of which mine is a part. He had a tool belt and I realized he was some kind of utility guy. He walked to what the English would call "the top of the garden" where there's a utility box on the wires, and without pausing, he climbed a tree to reach it! The tree-to-utility-guy ratio seemed unfavorable, and I was wondering how he knew he could climb it when I realized he must have done it before. Anyway, here he is.

And here's the same tree twenty-four hours later. And here's the view from my dining room window. That's industrial Brooklyn, y'all.

First off, the Manhattan LP has asked me to shoulder some of the blogging burden for Serf City, the deal being I can talk about whatever I want. The first installment is a capitalist's comment on the movie, "Avatar":

http://serfcity.wordpress.com/

So, there's that, but also, if a person were to be offended by this movie (as it seemed a lot of people expected me to be, but the movie is so laughable, how could I be?), I think there's a basis. Sully, the crippled marine/avatar, enters the innocent, peaceful, wondrous world of the Na'vi, and earns their trust, not by being especially curious, sensitive, helpful, etc. (Sigourney Weaver's character was all that and they'd already kicked her out) but by being klutzy, poking or kicking everything he doesn't understand, reminding me of something I heard about sharks recently, that biting things is their way of investigating them. Nevertheless, he's got that certain something, and once he picks up the local lingo, he's not only leading the Na'vi in battle, but marries their hottest female, who according to their custom, was betrothed to Wes Studi. (If this were the professional blog, I guess I'd look up their character names.) So when I boil down this huge watery stew, what I get isn't an indictment of capitalism, but the time-honored tale of the white man's mastery of the childlike indigenous population. Groundbreaking, Mister Cameron! My friend even summed it up when he said during a big battle scene when the hammerhead rhinos appear unexpectedly to push some tanks around, "Tarzan friend to all animals in jungle!"

Sooooo, went on a date last night that's not likely to be topped in this lifetime, Harold bought us VIP tickets to see Miss Elaine Stritch sing Sondheim at the intimate Cafe Carlyle. I thought VIP tickets, you know, probably a ripoff, but our table actually abutted the teensy stage. There was nothing but air between us and her, and we both got handshakes/assistance in steadying her as she left the stage. "Couldn't you get us seats on the piano bench?" I whined. We were so close, I could see the caduceus on her medic alert bracelet. And although she only does an hour show, that is a dense sixty minutes of theater magic, my friends!

Afterward, the woman next to me said, "You two really know your Sondheim. I mean, everyone in the room does, but you two knew everything. And I also noticed a lot of hand holding." I explained that this was our three-week anniversary and therefore, Harold's "showcase date". Then I looked closer and leaned over to Harold and said, "Am I explaining the showcase date concept to Kathleen Turner?" Sure enough, that's who I was sitting next to. Rather, that's who had to crane her neck around my big melon to see the stage. (Isaac Mizrahi? Girl, his table was halfway to the door!) When I went to the ladies' room (souvenir embossed paper hand towels, check!), Harold chatted with her, told her he's a fan (which as far as I know he is of everybody, boy knows his show biz) and she said, "You scored huge points with this date tonight!" Yes, we are now blessed by Miss Body Heat.

After the show, we crossed the lobby into Bemelmens Bar for nightcaps, followed by the now possibly-stalking-us Kathleen Turner. But she took her cue and left us to our corner banquette, our scotch and port, and the jazz combo.

The only night I can compare it to was when Sue Welton and I saw Steve Martin from the orchestra pit at Coffman Union thirty years ago. No, Sue wasn't trying to showcase date me, the link is the sensation of "how did I get this lucky?" In this case, the gentleman has a name . . .

I was reading a consultant group report on taxi usage in New York. Is it any wonder firms earn such big bucks with insights like this:

Ridership increased by 35% from the mid-1970s to 1995, spurred by rising demand

And from the report's section on the history of New York City cabs, picture what hailing a taxi might have been like before this regulation went into effect:

Until 1954, New York City required that taxicabs seat five passengers behind the driver and have a trunk-mounted luggage rack. Also required was a grill in the trunk to prevent carriage of dead bodies.

Also, taxi is the term for the metering device, not the vehicle. Here endeth the lesson.

Sarah Godfrey, witness to history! If you're interested in this crazy music the young people like, check out (and comment on) Sarah's blog on washingtonpost.com.

Happy New Year to all! I had a banner New Year's Eve; Andy and his roommate were both sick, so their party got canceled, and I stayed home and broke in my new Ped-egg. I heard, but did not attend, the Prospect Park fireworks display.

Saw my friend Liz Maestri last night and she had an interesting insight into the ending of the 'aughts. For one, good riddance, with which I concur. For a second, she identifies it as the first full decade of her adulthood, which would coincide with the 80s for me. In those terms, I think the 80s were a time when I had agency as an adult, but not enough experience or insight to be effective. So Liz, et al, enjoy the Teens! The 90s was a great decade for your narrator!

Kindle update: I've been reading Jack London stories, and have decided the rest of my writing career is just going to be ripping him off. I don't have that much time left, why reinvent the wheel?