Big Girl Bed, or, "Mattresses I Have Known"

Mattress: now to be filed under "Things I Have Impulsively Purchased Before Thinking Completely Through How to Get Them Home," joining such illustrious and relatively smaller-ticket items as a 12-pound watermelon and 70 lbs. of cat litter.

I'd been waiting out a coworker's moving sale, holding on until the day before his departure to ask "hey, still looking for someone to take that mattress?" in a very calculated attempt to pay less money for an already bargain-priced months-old queen sized pillow top mattress and box spring set. I have a cold, cold heart. In the end, I got a definite deal, paying only slightly more than my nearly insulting lowball initial bid. But this all went down in the space of an afternoon at work. I didn't take time to clear it with my bedmate and didn't really have a plan of how, in fact, I would get the large mattress and its box spring from his second floor apartment across two towns to my second floor apartment, that very evening, all whilst still wearing my work clothes (pencil skirt, kitten heels).

A very fruitful bunch of scrambling produced the finest outcome I could have planned, had I planned. I booked a Zipcar--a pickup truck--from a location mere blocks from the mattress; my partner J just happened to be on the same train as me when I called to relay our new evening activity; the box spring turned out to be split, making it very much easier to move (split box spring! I'll never go back!); Thursday was the last non-rainy day predicted for the next four days; and it was rush hour, meaning my need to drive no more than 30 miles per hour did not make me the slowest person on the road. We trundled back in bumper-to-bumper traffic, stuffed full of pillow top mattress, making liberal use of the side mirrors. We even met a neighbor across the hall when, having firmly wedged the mattress vertically and about eight inches off the ground in the tight corner of the top of our stairs, we had to knock on her door to ask her to open up and permit us to infringe on that last crucial three inches of turn-around room her open door would provide. While giggling like maniacs. Maniacs in kitten heels.

That night, the pillow top sat on the floor in our living room, as we did not have the right sized sheets to put on it or the wherewithall to move the old full sized mattress out of the bedroom. Our living room, in scale with the rest of our modestly sized apartment, looked like a bunch of 5-year-olds were playing that game where the floor is hot lava, and you push the furniture together to avoid walking on the lava floor: from left to right as you "enter" the room, the bookcase was flush with the wall, the surplus TV (don't ask...) was next to the shelf, the mattress was flush with the shelf, the coffee table was flush with the mattress, the couch was flush with the coffee table, and the couch was, as usual, pushed up against the wall of the room. The cat thinks we bought him the World's Biggest Kitty Bed.

This is a Major Change around Chez Rocket. A months-old mattress is as close as I've ever been to a Brand New Bed, for one thing: our old bed was a busted-ass full size set handed down from J's sister when she departed Boston, and the box spring was cracked midway down the long axis of one side of the bed even then. We put it right on the floor, a throwback to the garret days of post-college graduation. The break was on my side, causing a sag that led to back pain as well as a certain mid-mattress slump that in turn led to domestic disputes about Your Side, My Side, and Stealing the Covers. Back in Chicago, we most recently had a bed frame--the brass-and-flowered-knob type--and full sized set from J's grandparent's guest room passed on to us as the result of the kind of grandparental downsizing that can happen around this time in our lives. It was serviceable, which is about all I have ever known a mattress to be. Prior to that bed, J had a second-hand set that she kept on the floor and I had a futon set permanently into "bed" mode. I remember her mattress as quite comfortable and I can say, still, that that original futon (bought while I was unemployed because I realized that I'd never get a job with the kind of sleep I was getting on my tiled floor on my inflatable camp mattress) has been more comfortable than any other mattress I've had. Up to this nearly new pilllow top queen.

So we now have the newest, biggest, fanciest, and most expensive mattress we've ever owned. The flip side is that we're now pretty much obliged to move it next time we move instead of, as has been our wont, abandoning the past mattress in favor of moving less and buying on arrival.

The other flip side (I'm employing a gaming die rather than a coin, apparently) is that we now have a bustedass full sized standard mattress on our hands, and we'd like to find it a third (maybe fourth--I don't know if J's sister bought it used) home. On the one hand, I can attest to the bedbug-free, clean, non-smoking home nature of this mattress, which gives me a leg up on some entries in the third- or fourth-hand mattress market in this college-filled town (Allston, particularly, went through some buggy times in the past few years). On the other, I also know that this mattress is uncomfortable for me and the box spring is certainly busted. So I put an add on Craigslist in the free section, employing humor to honestly portray my mattress and the things I think it can be now: basement soundproofing for your band! a prop in your production of Once Upon a Mattress! a guest bedroom bed, used only sometimes! I hope only to hand it off to someone in need of a clean free mattress.

I got five replies in 20 minutes. Still waiting for final word from my most interested party, but I hope to ditch this thing soon. I'm tired of staring at it from my Big Girl Bed, as it leans accusingly up against my bedroom wall as if to imply that I've gone soft, I've become bougie: what, you need your bed off the floor now? You require back support, weakling? You used to be cool, man. You used to travel light.

I am, however, sleeping like a baby these days.

On a wedding

I am lucky to have the kinds of friends who, when they get married, prompt one to think, that's it. That's why marriage is desirable, that's why it is wrong to keep anyone from marrying, that's why anyone wants to do this at all--because is can be this good, this filled with love, this riotous, this unifying, this affirming.

So DS and KP got married out here in Bostonland over the holiday weekend and it was grand. And when we were all dancing after the service and after the dinner, we realized that the reason that everyone gets all cuh-RAY-zy dancey-pants at weddings is that they've spent many minutes, maybe hours, being unable to leap off the bridesmaid line, past the groomsmen, and tackle the beloved bride and groom in a big, stuffing-busting hug. So we shake it loose, we drink it up and sweat it all out for a few hours on a lie-flat dance floor so we can do something with the hot heart energy that's been building up because we weren't free to hold them, because we aren't all together anymore, because there is so much that we don't get to do with and say to each other everyday anymore. We have to find a way to have years of love and dancing in one night, and this happens at weddings because that's when adults can go on vacations together like big squalling masses of undergrads again, stay in hotels, drink champagne straight from the bottle, play dress-up, stay up late, eat cake, meet families, jump on beds, and carve out one or two nights from Our Big Kid Lives to celebrate our friends, their families, their love, and then the family we all make together.

Not to get all sentimental or anything. Cheers to the DS-KP union; couldn't have happened to a better pair of people.

Return

I had a safe, predictable series of flights on Friday and am back home, more or less. I'm not quite done with my mental vacation, but tomorrow's shocking return to the office will jolt me back to reality.

I hope to have travelogues for you this week, but a few projects need my attention this week, not the least of which is laundry from my trip. I packed (and dressed) like a backpacker; consequently, when I got home I smelled and looked a little like a backpacker.

If you're interested in my many, many photos, please visit my Flickr stream here; I don't want to clog the blog, you dig?

My own advice

As you may know, I am a proponent of shopping your local businesses before shopping the chains or the internet. When I'm lucky enough to have more than one local to choose from, I try to buy from all pretty equally, unless there is a clearly superior vendor (as with Laurie's Planet of Sound in Chicago, a far, far better record store in my experience than Reckless Records).

For comic books in Boston, this has meant that I've gone to three different shops.

I absolutely love New England Comics, specifically their Malden location. The store is huge, open, and clearly organized, and the staff there has been really friendly, helpful, and engaged--they even took the time to talk shop with me on a Saturday before NY ComicCon. But it takes me a bus and a train, or two train lines, to get there, so it's not my monthly stop.

My more regular monthly comics purveyor has been Newbury Comics, because I can get records there as well, they have a couple of locations I can hit without too much trouble, and they send a weekly email of what's out that week, reminding me to go get my fixes in a timely manner. But with offerings ranging from dumb T-shirts ("Moustache Rides, $0.25!") to DVDs to "punk" belt buckles, Sox caps, and vinyl figurines, the store pulls in a customer and employee base that isn't specifically made up of the kind of fanboy (gender inclusive) that I aspire to be. But it's been a perfectly serviceable experience.

My third comic shop is Comicazi, in my neighbourhood. A tighter space, but still a comprehensive selection. Things with Comicazi had been just fine--until yesterday. Yesterday I'd been to Newbury to get some issues of Buffy Season 8, but because I was behind a few months (for shame!) I needed multiple issues: 14 through 16, inclusive. Newbury did not have 14. Now, it is my own fault that I am short an ish and I really should keep up better, but damn if I did not want 14. This story arc ("Wolves at the Gate") has had at least one MAJOR BOMBSHELL and I neeeeeed every ish. I went to Comicazi after Newbury and scanned the shelves for 14, but it wasn't there. So I asked the guy at the counter, mostly for confirmation, "if a back issue of a comic isn't up on the shelf, you totally do not have it, huh?" He asked which one, and when I said "Buffy 14" something wonderful happened. He went to a stack behind the counter of every Buffy single issue, every Buffy trade, every omnibus. "This guy asked me to hold these for him, and I've held every one, but he's never shown up to buy them and I never see him. I'm going to sell 'his' 14 to you, because he never came through and I am a business owner. If he were a True Believer, he would have come in for them, and you should have this."

I felt both awesome and awful, because in two ways I'd been a bad fangirl: I'd dallied in getting the ish in the first place, and I'd bought the other issues somewhere else. This guy didn't know me from nobody. I'd only been in a couple of times, but he dipped into a delinquent customer's stash for me. So the question of where I will get all comics henceforth is certainly answered. These guys should get all of my local money. I did not deserve that ish, but I will work to deserve it. I've been a fool, Comicazi! Forgive me! I'll be back!

Thensday

When I related the story of how I am granted every other Friday off in the summer, my friend C remarked at my great skill at having manipulated space-time to get and hold on to a regularly occurring Thensday. You know: a day suspended off of the calendar, not planned, frequently unexpected, and wholly welcome. Snow days. Days when a rolling brown-out shuts down your parent company's server in Jersey and you all get to go home, or when the transformer on your building makes with the big boom and all the computer screens go blank. Every other Friday all summer for me. What better way to spend it than with flagrant idleness, unapologetic consumption, early drinking, and an action movie?

That's what I thought you'd say.

C and S and I arrived at a new-to-me hole-in-the-wall pub in Cambridge at around 11:30 and began to consume mass quantities. And nachos. When the rains came, we retreated from the patio into the bar and said "well, that settles it" and had another round. By the time we began to be a little sensitive about having outlasted multiple rounds of other patrons, the idea came up to go see the 4:15 of the new Angie Jolie shoot 'em up, Wanted.

This is the kind of movie that, upon seeing previews, prompts my ladyfriend and I to turn to each other and start a low, slowly accelerating chant of "brew and view, Brew and View, BREW and VIEW! BREW AND VIEW!!!" The Brew and View runs nights at the Vic in Chicago when they're not hosting a show; for a solid fiver, they play you two (three on Fridays and Saturdays) movies and the bar serves a high-value double (more like triple) well drink for not a ton of cashola. There are certain movies that lend themselves so well to this concept that I want to view them at the Brew and View, even though I wouldn't see them in any other circumstance (in a regular theater, at home, on a plane, at a friend's house...). Summer dreck fares especially well paired with beers, G&Ts, and cheap popcorn swiped off the abandoned table of the couple who are not staying for the second feature.

Wanted is most certainly summer dreck. Only two (almost three) things allowed me to endure it: I love the director Timur somethingsomething (Night Watch, Day Watch), I was drunk, and I have a shameful attraction to Angelina Jolie. That last one is only about 1/2 of a thing, though, as I find her less and less enrapturing as she acquires a colonialist's menagerie of global children. A far cry from "Hack the Planet," which is how I like to remember her. Oh, pixie cut Angie Jolie, you can make it all the way into my wireless network any weekend evening. *ahem* Where was I...ah yes, "dreck." It wasn't the alco-mo-hol that killed my brain cells, it was this movie. It was the un-twist ultimate twist near the end, the non-evocative evocation to action as the final line, the deeply uncompelling characters (how in the bright hell do you make a fraternity of weaver-assassins THIS boring?), and, on top of it all, an overqualified Morgan Freeman phoning--nay, texting--it in. I wanted to say, "This is Jack's disappointment at this worst realization of what Fight Club could be said to have given us as a film legacy." At least the chase scenes were filled with chases, and the film entire had that little Russian "I don't know what" (how do they say je ne sais quoi in Russian? Maybe they don't ever not know what...) that I love from Timur what'shisname.

I feel badly that C and S suffered through it with me, but they were also real tight by this time, and we'd had some ice cream, so the synapses that weren't languid with Newcastle were hopped up on sugar and butterfat.

If that's not a recipe for a summer movie experience, I just don't know what is.

14 June

Today, we are 29. This is the "pushing 30" year, the one about which many people are giving me that look. That look that implies that somehow this is the last good year.

I hate that look.

They're wrong, of course. I'm really excited about getting older; my grey hair is coming in quite evenly; I'm in the best shape of my life; my parents are still alive. I love my career, even though I hate my current job, and I have high hopes for the next step, which could be here even before the calendar year closes. I love my friends, even though I live near so few of them right now. I have a comfortable, small, lived-in apartment with a well-edited collection of books that only just fill the shelves and homemade art on the walls. I like my neighborhood even if I don't like my city. I do what I want, mostly, and am looking forward to the next thing.

Not too shabby, I must say.

In which I join your so-called "future"

Attention, hep cats:

I have purchased my first iPod. I waffled for some time on the "8 gig Nano vs. 80 gig 'Classic'" question, even calling friend DS for backup. He wasn't there and I was in the very Apple store, completely overwhelmed. In the end, I went with the newly redesigned Classic.

I live in Today now.

And your little dog, in addition.

Dear Alberto,

Enjoy spending more time with your family.

Smooches,
NR.

Ease on down the road, indeed.

Dear Karl,

Don't let the door hit, kick, bite, stab, waterboard, anally probe, humiliate, sensorially isolate, strip naked, dog-bait, or otherwise "bring to the brink of death" you on your way out.

Warm regards,
Nora.


*tip o'th'keyboard (??) to JS

Dinners

Summer vegetable fritters
Grate, sprinkle with salt, and drain in colander over sink:
~one zucchini
~one beet
~one large carrot
~one medium potato
~THEN aggressively squeeze tons and tons of moisture out of that stuff, cheesecloth twist method
Mince fine a handful of garlic cloves, to taste
Small chop leftover raw chard, approx 1/2 cup loosely packed
Leftover brown rice, approx. 3/4 cup, maybe 1/2, you know I don't measure when I'm cooking on the fly...

Toss all o'that in a bowl, mix thoroughly together. Add spice, seasoning, little sauce, etc. I used Penzey's Mural of Flavour generously, with a large pinch of cumin and a big dash of vegan Worcestershire sauce and black pepper. Add some (1/4 cup?) flour for binding, mix well. Make well in center, beat one egg in well, then mix the slurry altogether. Form into smallish patties and fry up aggressively in a bit o' high heat oil (I used grapeseed augmented with homemade chili oil, also grapeseed-based). Eat with a few drops of that same chili oil as dressing, or maybe if you like ketchup (je le deteste) this would be a good time to eat some, or perhaps a creme fraiche or crumbled blue cheese. Makes "5" of undetermined size (I molded my fritters with a small mise that holds maybe 1/2 cup?), so feeds two, or one for dinner and planover lunch. Probably freezes really well. Serve with sweet corn on the cob, as I did, or with a green salad, as I will, or with some sort of chickpea number, heavy on the lime juice and green chili. This could go a lot of ways.

+ + +

Quick tofu and green bean stir fry
1/2 lb. tofu, cut into thin 1"x1/2" planks, or other pleasing shape
large couple handful of green beans, julienned (yes, it's totally worth it to do this, watch your fingers) to yield maybe 1 1/2 cups total
minced red onion, 1/4 cup or so (again, not so much with the measuring)
dried cranberries if you're feeling it
toasted almonds if you're feeling them
for Sauce, mix together a pleasing combination of:
~honey
~rice vinegar
~soy sauce or tamari
~bit of chili garlic sauce (you know, rooster sauce?)
~whatever's sitting around

In a high temp oil (see my above oil machinations), fry tofu on one side until that side is browned. At the halfway point of "browned," add most of the red onion and all of the cranberries. At the "browned" point, add the green beans and toss well over heat. Cook until crisp-tender (or to taste if you're a big soft food lover, you weirdo), adding sauce right at the end and letting it bubble like crazytime to reduce a bit. Pour over brown rice, garnish with remaining raw onions and toasted almonds and just freaking TRY not to burn your mouth, okay?

+ + +

I've gone a little nutso from the farmer's market. Tune in next time for caramelized sweet onion and goat cheese pizza with, you guessed it, homemade chili oil, and the not-quite-a-quesadilla-not-quite-a-pupusa-but-it-acted-like-both. See also Big Salads, Too Hot To Bake, and Box of Mac-N-Cheez.

It's all coming together

My finger cut, that is... nine days from the day I inflicted it and it's healing nicely, despite the fact that I bashed it open in the sink doing dishes--and twice in the shower, and on my work mailbox--during the week. As with most injuries, one doesn't realize how wonderfully and thoughtlessly in concert even the smallest parts of the body work until a part is taken out of commission. Turns out I use the thumb-side side (non-palm) surface of the "pointer" finger of my left hand quite a bit, most notably to brace the eyelet side of a hook-and-eyelet brassiere fastening. An unexpected inconvenience.

+ + +

In New York this past weekend for a event I never even considered wondering about the possibility of attending: fricking Television played in Central Park. Even without Richard Lloyd (hospital, pneumonia, and then amicably retired from the band) it was a good time. Even when they skewed juuussst a little jam-y for my tastes, it was a good time. The big closer, of course, "Marquee Moon" itself, and I held my cell phone up and recorded about a minute of it onto friend D's cell phone. His return message: "okay, two possibilities: you saw a really great Television cover band or--and this is obviously false--you saw Television." Ha.

Stayed with JS & M in Brooklyn, nice little two-level walk-up with a neighbourhood that felt on the cusp of gentrification. An exciting stay, and not just for a fine evening at Florent (delicious, with a completely nonstandard lack of pretension given the Frenchness and fineness of the cuisine) and chill grill out of a Saturday night (in the dark). No no. I hope they'll forgive the "we," but: in the middle of our horror movie showing, we discovered we had mice. During a particularly tense moment in Dead Ringers, out of the corners of our many eyes, we saw the first shadow dart across the floor. I thought cockroach, J thought mouse. J was right. Over the next hour and a half, we went from one mouse to the firm belief that there were no fewer than three, possibly four, in the house. And they were eating the stray dog food nuggets on the floor. A quick assessment of the human foodstuffs revealed they weren't yet all up in the apartment's oatmeal, and I suggested they'd just wandered in recently, to scope the joint. We put away the loose doggy nuggets, verified that the cabinets were sealed fully against the wall, put all the pantry foods in either cabinets or the fridge, and made the plan for the next day: Stinky, Dinky, Blinky, and the unconfirmed Winky would shuffle off their mousely coils at our hands, and a thorough clean would purge the crevasses beneath the fridge and stove of any habitats or leavings.

At the hardware store in Williamsburg, we had the most brutal business of all. No key cutting, fan buying, or bolt-cutter renting for us: we'd come for the lowest-fi of pest control devices, the snap trap. I was (inappropriately I admit, given that it's not my apartment) adamant about the merits of the snap trap over the glue trap. I hate those things, and if you're gonna kill something I think it should be swift, not stretched out over many sticky minutes of starving and panic. We asked the guy at the register if they really worked and he said "dees things been used for t'ousands a years, of course they work, right?"

Right. I wasn't there, but J and M reported that Sunday night they swept beneath the (relatively un-moused) stove and fridge and set out the traps. Monday morning it was requiem eternam Stinky and Dinky. Was there ever a Winky? Did he or she beat a hasty retreat to less patrolled regions of Brooklyn? No se.

+ + +

I hesitate to reveal my Friday night plans, but this 4-hour Ken Burns PBS documentary on the Lewis and Clark expedition surely would be better (than it already is) if that red wine hadn't soured on me...

Today was my birthday, and it's been quite a week.

I received three birthday cards, each one featuring a cat in a state of either whimsy or affection. All senders pointed out the similarity between the cat on the card and my personal cat. I thought, whose freaking birthday is this, anyway? Mine or his?

Happy birthday to me, y'all, ME ME ME.

+ + +

My series of unfortunate mornings began plainly enough: unexplained 20 minute transit delay on Monday. We sat on the bridge right before Charles MGH for some time. On Tuesday, I thought I'd save a few minutes by hopping on the bus--turning a 10 minute walk into a 3 minute ride. But traffic turned my 10 minute walk into 15 minutes of going nowhere. On my train car, the doors stopped working, which lead to 15 minutes of futzing at Harvard before they emptied my car into the adjoining and moved us along (and I'd even had a seat too...). On Wednesday, I thought, "I'm going to get up in plenty of time to take a shower, really think about what I'm going to put on, eat breakfast, and make it to work on time, finally." Instead, as I sliced the bagel that I'd purchased at the farmer's market the previous afternoon, I sliced open my left index finger. Even as I did it I realized my stupidity--bagel slicing! The number one home kitchen injury! And me with six years of bagel-inclusive food service work! I screamed silently in the kitchen, bagel cast to the floor and bloody knife askew on the block. Then I ran to the bathroom, dripping blood--finger cuts bleed a lot and this one was not deep but definitely open. Once I'd taken the edge off the throb with cold water, I slapped a pantyliner on it and went looking for the gauze and tape. Which I found, right where it should be. My cut is now knitting together from the bottom up, from the little comma at the bottom of the slice created by the serration of my bread knife.

For my birthday, all I really wanted was to not oversleep, not get on a dumb bus, catch a train that went straight to my stop without breaking, and not cause myself injury. Everything went swell.

The actual day of my birth was a Thursday, moreover. My dad and I hashed this out over the phone this morning, with the last of the juice my mobile had (who lets their phone run down on their birthday? Me.). I don't recall what Thursday's child figuratively is, but it is not meek and mild. Is it swarthy and busy? Meticulous and stingy? Bad with names? Shouty?

I am many things on many days.

Down the block, around the corner

It's amazing how rosy my disposition has become. Love the new apartment, love the new neighbourhood, love that Johnnie's Foodmaster down the block had Boca fake sausage, faux burgers, and meatless patties on sale, two for five. I got four for ten. Bring on the summer grilling season and whathaveyou: I am ready to hit the park, the beach, the streets.

Today I picked up ingredients for a sorbet I saw in The New York Times: buttermilk lemon. Buttermilk is one of those items that you really need when you need it and have no idea how to use otherwise. So now I have, in addition to a really stellar tart-sweet sorbet (so what if a certain someone is stuffing her piehole with gelato even as we speak (well, 6 hours ahead of our speaking time...)), about three-quarters of a cup of buttermilk. Waffle party? Waffle party. Additionally, as I was feeling ambitious, a big dinner: roasted sweet potato, beet, and quinoa "salad" with orange-shallot-garlic dressing. Big on quinoa right now. Very tasty and, if I can believe the box top (seems the honest type) amazingly healthy in that whole-food-for-a-whole-planet way. Also fun to pronounce: Keen Wah. Wah ha! Will make a great lunch tomorrow with that avocado I've been waiting on all week.

You may not believe me, but I write about food about 1/3 as much as I talk about food, and about 1/5 as much as I think about food. When I am bored at work I think about food, and when I'm waiting for my ebay auction on cherry red danskos to end I shop for tiffin boxes.

Does this seem familiar to you too?

True believers, we move this weekend. Here's how it all came down.

Three (four?) weeks of searching, the toughest aspect of which is the way the broker system in Boston rules the market, comandeering Craig's List like a personal tool of their trade, which I think is gross misuse of a community resource. I find the perfect place in my second outing, but when I call 45 minutes after leaving that broker and that apartment, I've been scooped: someone's written a check in the time it took me to show my partner the pictures I'd taken. About two weeks ago, I find a listing for a non-broker unit in Somerville that fits our needs. We visit, we like it, we take it, the end. And all without a broker fee, so take that. Lease signed, truck booked (curse your black hearts and low rates, U-Haul, for I am rolling the dice on you again), and we're more than half packed. It's half the size of our current suburban travesty, and I'm looking forward to living small and better with a gas stove, hardwood floors, front porch. House of the Rising Somerville.

First rule of moving: GET RID OF IT.
"Second rule, is:" well stacked is half packed.
Three: call a few friends.
(Some readers may note that this is the same third rule as "how to set up your backyard pool.")

That's how we had the smoothest of moves (at least, to a point) last August, and that is how we will have the finest move this Saturday. I will lean out the window and yell "so long, suckers!" as we drive away.

+ + +

More is afoot as we transition to the House of Effective Use of Space. Bed buying? Certainly. More Ikean shelf units? Don't mind if I do. Long-term mattress sharer and co-cooker, roommate and chosen life partner going to Rome for the whole summer? Why not. Tune in for her exploits at the agricultural office of the UN--and all the papal miscellany you can possibly stomach (more, even!)--at romarama.blogspot.com (now, with my camera!). (I suggested she call the blog "Shit Be Old," but I got vetoed.)

How shall I cook for one?
How will the cat react to the sudden 50% drop in number of Moms?
Will my plan of "drink more this summer" lead to troubles or the most fun of all?
How far can I burn through our 180-item Netflix cue?

She leaves on the 2nd of June, then we both turn 28, then we'll see. We'll only see.

In which I allow that it is possible that I [heart] New York.

As I'd feared, this past weekend was a dangerous thing: put Nora in a big city and give her some friends and a real burrito and what happens? She begins to draw even more unfavourable comparsions between this possible life and her current life.

Yes yes y'all (tick tock y'all, to the beat y'all, ya don't stop...), my maiden voyage to New York was a total success. On Friday night, as we walked to the diner, we acted as first responders to a pretty serious cab-and-bike accident that happened right in front of our eyes, and my lady hit 911 first--an accident in New York reported by a native Wisconsonite visiting the city from her home in Boston but calling on a phone with a Chicago number. We are modern young America and we move around a lot.

We walked all over the place on Saturday, a fine, sunny, cool day to be in Central Park, watching the beautiful people stroll their bebes about and the bikers ride their beautiful bikes... Then to Brooklyn to the art museum and the feminist art exhibit including The Dinner Party, about which I'll write later. Indian food on the outskirts of Park Slope, and staying up late talking with friends who live in Hell's Kitchen.

Sunday brought me to my set of tasks: yogurt, shoe store, brunch. Check, check, and frickin check: we hit the Lower East Side, Soho, Little Italy, and a few other slivers of neighbourhood that I certainly can't discern from each other. I bought a bag that looks a bit like it's made out of tanned human skin--it is not and it is vegan. We popped into a candy store (Economy Candy) that was filled with kids acting like some kind of kids in candy stores. We brunched in a precious place in Freeman's alley staffed entirely by fellows with moustaches and lithe girls with effortless ensembles (damn their lack of effort!). My friend Jen took a shine to the lipstick our server (server? waitress?) was wearing and asked after it. A quick boutique search and she'd become That Girl With The Red Lipstick On, very oo la lah. All this and a trip to Zabar's for bagels and a $20 tub of truffle stock, with which I'll make some knockout risotto later this week.
I feel a little stupid, a little imprudently smitten. There was just...something about being in a city laid out on a grid again, a city with a big ass subway system, a city! My lady's and my dissatisfaction with our geography grows, and the lure to leave is great. My employer has a large New York office; surely there is much work in immigration law for my partner. One thinks, why not? It is never too late, and one is obligated to search out happiness because life is short.

+ + +

Life is short and the bag I bought is made by a house of design. My bag has a name on it that is not the name of a friend, as was the case with my previous bag. I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, it is a really delicious bag. On the other, am I not a brand-name girl; I own almost nothing that is marked on its exterior by its maker. I'm afraid that someone will say to me "oh, is that the new 'name & name' bag?" and I'll have to say "Umn, yes."

It's really a soft, glossy bag. I femme out on bags and shoes. I've made my choice and I stick by it.

Gaudeamus Igitur

I GOT THE JOB, and they're bringing me in $2500 higher than list, because I'm JUST THAT GOOD, y'all, I'm so very desirable. They will not regret it. They are probably already not regretting it.

I start on the 12th, so I have next week to set my affairs in order, tell my freelance clients that I'll have decreased capacity going forward, do my 2006 taxes, buy some work pants, and so forth.

The prospect of imminent paychecks is making me a little giddy...will I go to the record store or the comic book shop first? Do I need some new kicks? I may need some luxury groceries--like olives, juice, and danish butter (!!!). Or maybe I just need to see a matinee movie each day next week, with a big cherry coke in one hand and a box of hot tamales in the other.

Hot-cha, my brothers and sisters: my time of bust-ass brokeness and uninsured nervousness is nearly over. I can kick off another 401K! I can go to the doctor and get my prescriptions for the reasonable rate of $20 a month instead of $50! I can get out of the house every day! I can start living like a big girl again!

2007: so far, high marks.