Do Something New: Perpetuate Cinematic Delusions

Just call me Meg Ryan.

Because, really, minus her perfect figure, perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect smile, perfect clothes, wealth, fame and talent, we’re basically the same person.

That’s what I thought today as I came bounding down the stairs of my new Upper West Side abode for the first time. (The journey up to my fourth-floor walk-up would not be described so much as bounding as doing a spot-on Darth Vader impression. “Luke [heavy breathing], I need a freakin’ elevator”).

Sure, my skirt doesn’t swish like Meg’s does, and in the New York City humidity my hair is not so much “precious pixie” as “no, I did not just stick my finger in an electrical outlet but I understand why you would think so.”

And, sure, I don’t own a children’s bookstore (the thought of which I hope brings you as much amusement as it does me), and I’m not about to discover Tom Hanks is the love of my life. Not that I’m aware of, anyway. But as Oprah says, one must always be open to the possibility of love anywhere and anytime. (Actually, I have no idea if she ever said that. But now that she’s off the air, what are we to do other than come up with completely obvious platitudes sage bits of wisdom and attribute them to her?)

But still. If you confuse me with Meg Ryan now, I’ll totally understand.

For those of you who do not have wives and girlfriends who forced you have not been lucky enough to see the film You’ve Got Mail, allow me to invite you into my delusional world in which my life now somehow resembles that of Meg Ryan’s in this late-90s rom-com simply because I now live in the same neighborhood as her fictional character, Kathleen Kelly.

I’m not really one for rom-coms generally. And by that I mean I refuse to publicly admit to liking them and instead hide them in DVD jackets for snooty foreign language films and pull them out in the privacy of my own home when I’m feeling like I need to have my faith in love restored.

OK, that’s not true. I hide them in DVD jackets for snooty foreign language films and pull them out in the privacy of my own home when I’m sharing a night at home with a companion I like to call A Bottle of Wine That Tastes Like It Cost $4.99 Because It Cost $4.99.

But I have no shame in admitting my love for You’ve Got Mail. (OK, I have a little bit of shame. But after one Photoshops a Christmas card of Leonardo DiCaprio and herself in matching sweaters, copping to a fondness for a slightly schmaltzy movie is nothing.)

Here’s the thing. I don’t adore the movie because of its love story. I adore it because it is as much about the Upper West Side as it is about the idea that, sometimes, meeting up with someone you became acquainted with in a chat room does not result in your dead body being dumped in the East River but rather in sharing a tasteful kiss with a man in Dockers in Riverside Park.

Indeed, I fell head-over-heels in love with the beautiful brownstones and tree-lined streets and tantalizing eateries and charming boutiques of Kathleen’s neighborhood when I first saw the movie almost 13 years ago. And I decided then that I would live there one day.

And now, today, I can officially call myself a resident of the Upper West Side.

My new apartment may be smaller than some of your bathrooms, but it’s cute. And it’s mine. And every morning I will emerge from it and enter a world of beautiful brownstones and tree-lined streets and tantalizing eateries and charming boutiques.

Today I can cross one item off 18-Year-Old Jill’s List of Things To Do Before Turning 40.

It used to be 18-Year-Old Jill’s List of Things to Do Before Turning 30, but 18-year-old Jill had little appreciation for how quickly one’s 30s sneak up on her and how much time is consumed in one’s 20s by trying to find the right career, drinking bad beer and dating men for whom “commitment” means signing up for the DIRECTV football package two seasons at a time.

But now I’m 30 and older and wiser … and so I drink bad wine instead of bad beer.

Today I became a resident of the Upper West Side.

I did something new.

Tags: New York City, postaday2011, Upper West Side, you've got mail

She’s baaaaaaack

Well, the rapture did not, in fact, happen tonight.

Sure, at 6 p.m. I found myself amid a passel of frantic souls, trying to claw their way out of a sweltering nightmare far below the Earth.

But that was just the scene on the 1 train after track work and a broken A/C unit meant a cluster of New Yorkers sweating like Arnold Schwarzenegger on Father’s Day (Too easy? Too soon?)

So the world didn’t actually end.

And that means I’m not off the hook for failing miserably at keeping up on this blog.

Damn.

As you may have noticed, I’m a little behind on my daily posts, just as Wesley Snipes is “a little behind” on paying his taxes. (“There’s only one Wesley Snipes in this world.” “You know there isn’t.”)

But here I am, picking up where I left off. The blog is back in action.

The Blog Returns.
Blog Hard II: Blog Harder.
2 Fast 2 Blog.

It isn’t that I haven’t been doing something new everyday. I have.

And for quite some time I was keeping a list of my “new somethings” because I had every intention of getting caught up on all my posts.

At this point, I think we can go ahead and place that particular plan in the “Just Accept it’s Never Going to Happen” file.

It’s a big file, overflowing with such items as “Woo Alec Baldwin,” “Fit into high school prom dress to facilitate wooing of Alec Baldwin” and “Stop making an ass of yourself by publicly admitting fantasies about wooing Alec Baldwin.”

You know what’s not in the file?

“Meet Alec Baldwin, discreetly take a whiff of his glorious cologne and determine to legally change your name to ‘Julie’ after Alec refers to you as such. Twice.”

Yes, I met him. Yes, I smelled him. Yes, you can call me Julie.

And yes, that would have made one hell of a blog entry.

Ah well.

While at this point it’s rather infeasible to catch up on nearly three months of daily posts, I thought I would give you a quick sample of a few of the new things that have enriched my life and broadened my experiences of late. During the past several weeks, I did the following:

* Baked a loaf of bread
* Meditated
* Went to a jazz club
* Talked to someone in prison
* Wrote a letter to my future self
* Officially registered as an organ donor
* Gave up something for Lent
* Went to the top of the Empire State Building
* Wrote a song
* Tried out ChatRoulette (Don’t. That’s all I can say. Actually, I can also say, “Show me your feet,” because that’s what my first chat partner said to me.)
* Invested in a film
* Wrote to an elected official
* Watched the Kentucky Derby
* Gave a twenty dollar bill to a subway musician
* Boarded the U.S.S. Intrepid

OK, one of these is not true. But which one?

I hope you’ll start checking in on my blog again regularly. I promise I’ll update it frequently. To prove it, allow me to recite the Blogger’s Oath.

I do solemnly swear to promptly update my blog so as to perpetuate my own delusion that anyone besides my mother actually gives a crap about the mundane details of my life.

Do Something New: Shake Things Up

My first “Do Something New” post in far too long. My first opportunity in weeks to regale you with a tale of a new experience.

I guess I was just waiting to do something really significant and possibly life-changing before I started blogging again.

So here we are. A momentous entry.

Drumroll, please.

I have one word for you: Shake.

I have two words for you: Shake Weight.

I have 12 words for you: Using a Shake Weight looks terribly inappropriate when held a certain way.

It’s official. This blog is back and better than ever.

Tonight I shook a Shake Weight.

I did something new.

Tags: postaday2011

Do Something New, Day 50: Discover Music I Love That Is Not Embarrassing

On this episode of The Good Ol’ Days, we reflect on a time when purchasing music meant acquiring something that you could hold in your hands.

A gleaming black vinyl record whose grooves your fingers wanted to trace.

A plastic cassette through which you could see the magnetic film just waiting to unwind its melodies.

A shiny CD that would cast prisms on your dashboard as the sun hit it.

But–forgive my lack of sentiment–I don’t really miss them …. and certainly not the eight track cassettes that I believe are at least 21 percent of the reason I had no hope of ever being one of the “cool kids.” (As for the other 79 percent, please refer to my fourth-grade school picture. I won’t post it here in order to protect my parents, whom many of you would feel compelled to report to social services for buying such a pair of glasses for a child and then allowing her to wear them among that most malicious species of humanoids known as 10-year-old girls.)

While the eight-track player had already begun its descent into obsolescence even before I was born, I found my mother’s stowed away in our basement when I was 8 or 9 and, thrilled to have a stereo of my very own, spent my formative elementary school years listening to it in my room. Of course, music was no longer produced in the eight-track format, so my selection of music was limited to the cartridges that were in the bottom of the dusty box in which I had discovered the player. So while my classmates were air guitaring to November Rain and Every Rose Has its Thorn, I was coming up with choreography to What’s New Pussycat?

It explains so much.

And now we live in the age of digital music. And I think it’s glorious.

I never again have to feel that pit in my stomach as I watch a friend or—even worse–a potential love interest wander over to my CD tower to take a look and, undoubtedly, deem me an unworthy human being based on the albums resting on those shelves.

Perhaps due to the fact that my introduction to popular music was courtesy of a man who paid to have his chest hair insured, I don’t have what I would call good taste in music. Or what anyone would call good taste in music, actually.

And now my iPod is the keeper of my shameful musical secrets.

But as much as I’m a fan of the digital music revolution, I do miss one thing about those days of yore when music assumed a tangible form:

Burned CDs – also known as the currency of high school romance and angst.

How do teenagers express their feelings for one another without mixed CDs? Without a Memorex CD-R and a Sharpie, how do they say, “I’ll love you forever … or until I make out with another girl at prom and then eventually realize I prefer kissing men and come out to you when you find me buying make-up in the grocery store.” Hypothetically speaking …

It has been years since anyone has made a mixed CD for me. (Please do not focus on that as evidence of a lackluster romantic life. There are so many other more compelling pieces of evidence that I’d be happy to point out.)

Then a few days ago I was the delightfully surprised recipient of not one but two CD-Rs, complete with Sharpie labeling and all. As soon as I saw one was called “For Jill,” I popped it into my computer. And I discovered that listening to a hand-crafted compilation is just as awesome for 30-year-old Jill as it was for 16-year-old Jill.

I remember it well: Barricaded in my room. Door shut. Lights off. Lying on my bed, eyes closed, waiting anxiously for the next track. And the next track. And the next track. Trying to read meaning into each selection as a curiously appealing mélange of scents permeated the air, courtesy of the 17 candles covering my dresser, their flames dancing on my giant Leonardo DiCaprio poster.

But enough about Tuesday night.

In all my excitement about the mixed CD, I neglected to take a listen to the other CD that accompanied it.

Then tonight, as I was throwing piles of crap from my table on the floor so I could make room to eat my Cinnamon Toast Crunch dinner tidying up a bit, I discovered the overlooked disc – “The Long Walk Back” by Just Off Turner.

Funny. That’s where I used to live. On Sixth … just off Turner.

Just two songs in, and I realized I really dig Just Off Turner.

Perhaps I should start seeking out more music with connections to my address.

In honor of my college apartment, is there a band called Next to the Cocaine and Strippers, um, I mean, Phi Gamma Delta House?

And relative to my current residence, anyone know of a group called Down the Hall from the Man Who Appears To Be Harboring a 13-Piece Mariachi Band that Only Can Practice between Midnight and 4 A.M.? (So rude. How is a person supposed to listen to her Tom Jones: Greatest Hits over that?)

Tonight I discovered a new band that I actually need not be ashamed to acknowledge loving.

I did something new.

Tags: Digital audio, postaday2011

Do Something New, Day 85: Find steamy romance for bargain price of $5.50

MARCH 26, 2011

Sometimes you are told something that you know instantly will change your life.

It is a defining moment. A seismic event. The Pangea that is your days and weeks and years will break apart into two distinct pieces.

Before The News. After The News.

On this cold and windy Saturday night, in one of my favorite stores in one of my favorite neighborhoods in one of my favorite cities, Pangea parted with one sentence from a good friend as we passed through Romance en route from Cooking to Art History.

“Did you know there’s a NASCAR series of Harlequin romance novels that you can have delivered to your house each month?”

And with those words–uttered very unexpectedly from a man who, until tonight, I imagined would consider a guilty pleasure to be reading Dashiel Hammett’s novels out of order–I knew I would never again be the same woman.

Confession: I have watched exactly one NASCAR race in my life (that one viewing thanks to an ex-boyfriend who also may count among his accomplishments giving me my first exposure to Natural Light beer, death metal, Sean Hannity, and the joy that is naming your video game avatars after parts of the female anatomy … or “the one who got away” as I like to think of him).

Confession Part II: I have never read a Harlequin romance novel.

And suddenly my life felt empty without them both.

It was a moment of clarity: Watching people drive around in circles + talk of heaving and bulging and thrusting = the key to happiness.

So imagine my disappointment as we scoured the rack of paperbacks only to discover this store carried no volumes in the NASCAR series.

I did enjoy, however, partaking in a game my friend suggested we play called “Find the best Harlequin book title.”

As soon as my eyes landed on Bone Deep, I knew I was to be the victor. I also knew that Bone Deep was to be my first foray into the world of romance paperbacks. While not a NASCAR volume, it is part of the “Count on a Cop” series, and the hunk’s “gun holster” on the cover told me I had made the right selection.

Further affirming this was the sticker on the front proclaiming, “LONGER BOOK. SAME PRICE!”

If that does not inspire confidence in a book’s literary merit, I don’t know what does.

I read all 283 pages of it when I returned home. (Actually, I got a jump start on the subway after hiding it inside a Carlos Ruiz Zafon novel that I had in my bag. Somehow I felt a tad sheepish poring over Bone Deep as I sat across from a man reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis … though I suppose the theme of our texts was quite similar: turning into an animal in bed.)

OK, so I didn’t really read my new purchase so much as I scanned it for “the good stuff.”

I am sorry to say that for a book called Bone Deep, there sure wasn’t much hanky panky. The word “breasts” didn’t even appear until page 16.

To be fair, the few pages that did contain adult relations were nothing short of spectacular … not to mention educational.

I, for example, did not previously know that when doin’ it, men are in their minds trying to conjure up poetic analogies for the color of their partner’s eyes.

“The closest he could come was the twilight sky beyond the fiery reach of the setting sun.”

I also was reminded how even in the throes of passion, love ain’t easy.

“Panting, they stared at each other, and Kat remembered. Only three days ago, her dead husband’s skeletal remains had been given back to her. And this man, the one holding her, still harbored more than a niggling doubt about her innocence in Hugh’s disappearance.”

Don’t I know it, girl. Just try to find a hot man to sleep with who doesn’t suspect you in the murder of your husband whose decaying skull has just turned up on your property.

I won’t spoil the book for you–as I have no doubt that you’re placing your Amazon order right now–by telling you what our hero discovers at the juncture of Kat’s thighs on page 176 … but I will tell you that that particular part of the book is even more awesome after you read the dedication at the beginning:

For Mom, who reads every word before anyone else does. Thank you, Mom, for helping make my writing better.

Gee, and I felt bad asking my mom to review my tax forms recently.

Tonight I discovered that happily-ever-afters with gorgeous men are not, as I once suspected, more elusive than unicorn sightings and Jay Leno jokes that are actually funny but rather accessible to me each and every month for the bargain price of $5.50.

I did something new.

Tags: Harlequin, romance novels

Do Something New, Day 49: Spice up the chit-chat with Friml

Tonight I attended my first Friml opera.

It featured one of my friends in the role of a saucy wench who throws herself in front of the man she loves as his enemy lunges at him with a knife. She dies in sacrifice for her beloved, who already has declared his heart belongs to another maiden.

I went to tonight’s performance to show my support for one of my good pals–support for her singing career, sure, but more to the point, support for her involvement in such a shocking love triangle.

Brunch with my friends could use a little spicing up. Hearing about their tales of happy coupledom is great and all, but I like my Tofu Scramble with a side of romantic intrigue and scandal.

Tonight I beamed with pride as my friend showcased her beautiful voice … and made a mental note that blueberry pancakes would go great with this tale of tragic love.

I did something new.

Tags: postaday2011

Do Something New, Day 48: Pay a visit to Dysfunction Junction

I love literal translations

Things I would happily see everyday for the rest of my life: Ethan Hawke. Acting brilliantly. Without his shirt on.

Things I would happily live the rest of my life without ever seeing: A devastated woman petting her cat. Which is dead. And in a pizza box.

In order to enjoy some of Column A, you’ll have to endure a little of Column B if you go see The New Group’s production of Blood from a Stone, a new drama from a first-time playwright that is about (what else?) a dysfunctional American family.

I have heard that the play is more or less autobiographical, which made it all the more disturbing.

Venomous rhetoric. Prescription drug abuse. Felony theft. Extramarital affairs. Racism. Violence.

After watching a family unit so ravaged by all of that vitriol and intolerance and immorality, I left the production tonight and had a powerful urge to call my parents.

I wanted to say one simple thing to them:

It’s your fault I’ll never be a successful playwright.

Didn’t they ever consider that by offering me loving support, by modeling for me the example of a life not sullied by chemical vices, criminal acts or forbidden dalliances but enriched by kindness, thoughtfulness and ambition, they were robbing me of my chance of writing a brilliant play and winning a Tony Award?

Couldn’t they have even faked a few benders or at least a gambling addiction so that I had ample fodder to write that brilliant play and then be robbed of my chance at a Tony because female playwrights struggle to get their work produced?

All those dinners together around the kitchen table. All those wonderful family vacations. All those words of encouragement.

Inexcusable.

Tonight I watched an impressive playwriting debut from a man whose pages would be blank had he grown up in my family.

I did something new.

And now I must run … my mother is calling to say hello and tell me that she loves me. Will these people never stop?

Tags: postaday2011

Do Something New, Day 47: Give thanks for private places

Ah, Ms. Woolfe, how right you were: it is so important for a woman to have a room of her own.

A lady must have private quarters where she will not be observed or disturbed.

A place to think.
A place to create.
A place to try Pilates for the very first time.

Thank Zeus there is no one here to witness this.

That’s what I kept thinking tonight as I tried to follow along with the woman on the DVD, who I think perhaps should spend a little less time standing on her head and a little more time eating a damn sandwich.

Completely non-plussed, not a hair misplaced, she kept smiling (that kind of vacant, creepy smile that says “It’s not a cult. Really”) and talking about how Pilates helps one achieve mental calm and relaxation.

Mental calm and relaxation? Not so much.

Swearing like I was in a potty mouth-off with Marge Schott and Rahm Emanuel? Very much helped along by doing Pilates–and a moment gone spectacularly awry when, trying to mirror the movements of Smiley McBoobs, I somehow managed to knock my sizable Jane Austen anthology off my end table and onto my head.

Maybe I should have taken it as a sign to stop. Elizabeth Bennett never had to lie on her back with her legs practically behind her head.

Then again, just how did she win Mister Darcy back after rudely rejecting his proposal of marriage? A new chapter in Austenian scholarship emerges.

Tonight I survived my first foray into the world of Pilates and emerged with only a minor head injury and the startling realization that Jennifer Aniston and I do not, in fact, have everything in common.

I did something new.

Yes, some people do this to themselves voluntarily. And, no, that's not OK.

Tags: Pilates, postaday2011

Do Something New, Day 46: Learn about love from the Russians

Valentine’s Day–an occasion to celebrate romance, love, passion, amore.

And what says all of that better than the overthrow of a czarist regime, civil war, extra-marital affairs, illegitimate children and a bleak and barren winter landscape?

I watched Doctor Zhivago for the first time tonight. Not only is it a gripping (if very loooooooong film), it’s also instructional.

Tonight I learned that it is unwise to engage in an affair with a sleazy man who is courting your mother, especially if you are already engaged to a left-wing Extremist. And it is particularly unwise to subsequently try to murder the sleazy man, marry the left-wing Extremist, cheat on him with a sensitive poet-surgeon and become impregnated by the poet while he has a wife back home awaiting his return from war. Such behavior will not lead to happiness (though, it will get you a collection of poems and a musical theme written about you).

Tonight I learned a lot about love.

I did something new.

Tags: postaday2011

Do Something New, Day 45: Go gaga for the Grammys

I’m not sure how I made it 30 years without watching the Grammys, but, alas, I did.

Tonight I finally watched the music awards show from start to finish … and this is where I refrain from making any tired jokes about Lady Gaga.

Sooo …. difficult. Must. Stop. Typing. Before. Snarky. Comments. Slip. Out.

Phew. I did it. Eggcellent job.

Ah, well.

Tonight I watched the Grammys.

I did something new.

Tags: Grammy Award, Lady Gaga, postaday2011