theories

The Accidental Tourist

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‘You can take the girl out of the Midwest, but you can’t take the Midwest out of the girl.’

Even though I’ve lived in New York longer than I have existed anywhere else, I am often mistaken for a tourist. (Maybe it’s my ‘Honest Face’.)

I can be swathed in head-to-toe black, topped off with the intimidating authentic motorcycle jacket I bought at the intimidating authentic motorcycle shop in L.A., and still get asked if I’m enjoying my stay.

Yes, that's me. In the scary motorcycle jacket. And yes, I do look like a tourist. Especially since we were doing a very Touristy Thing at the time: going to see the Rockettes

Yes, that’s me in the motorcycle jacket. At the Radio City Christmas Show with two people actually born in New York

Once when I had a freelance gig at Ogilvy, which was then located in Midtown West, I swear I got asked every single day on my way to work if I wanted to ride one of those double-decker tourist buses in Times Square. And it was the same guy who asked me, too. When the gig ended, I kind of missed him. Continue reading

Gimme a kiss. I’m goin’ to work(!)

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‘Embracing Working Momhood without (too much) guilt’

It’s been ages since I felt guilty about working. Nowadays, I’m much more likely to feel guilty about not working. You know, whiling away my afternoons on a chaise longue (which Google, for some reason wants to correct to chaise ‘lounge’) in a filmy peignoir, flipping through trashy magazines while nibbling on chocolates bought with The Dude’s hard-earned money. (Actually, my non-working afternoons are more likely to be spent in the company of SoftScrub.)

But, back when The Child was an actual child, I used to feel guilty about working. My guilty feelings weren’t so much about leaving her adorable self in the care of others (though she was pretty darned adorable, as you can see):

Super-adorable Baby Child, about to be left by Heartless Selfish Mother (Me)

Super-adorable Baby Child, about to be left in the care of Another Person, not her Heartless Selfish Mother (Me)

Nope. My guilty feelings arose because I, um, actually preferred going to an actual workplace and interacting with other adults to hanging around all day with a pre-verbal non-ambulatory person, adorable though she might be. As you may already know from reading some of my other stories, like ‘Gone Baby Gone’, I used to say ‘Hey, if didn’t enjoy getting down on the floor to scribble with crayons before I had a child, what makes anyone think I’d enjoy it now?’ Continue reading

Pi are round

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‘And other hilarious tales of math and memory’

Me, I’ve never been such a great shakes at memorizing stuff. I mean, I can rattle off a bit of verse. (My go-to poem: ‘Listen my children and you shall hear…of the midnight ride of Paul Revere’. Impressed?) And I am of the generation that was pressed to learn (by heart) the preamble to the Constitution (a practice I highly recommend to any and all presidential candidates). But. Memorizing pi? I’m not so sure I even knew what ‘pi’ meant when I was a kid.

Pi comes to mind because yesterday was March 14. Which is, in some circles, known as Pi Day. That’s because ‘pi’, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter (yes, I had to look that up), is commonly given as 3.14. And March 14 is commonly given as 3.14. Get it?

Anyway. Pi Day is sort of a Big Deal. And not just among the Pocket-Protector Set. Pi Day got amazing coverage, not only in The New Yorker, but on Facebook. Yesterday, in fact, it seemed that posts about Pi Day outnumbered those about Donald or Bernie or Hillary. (Um, well maybe I’m just mathematically wishfully thinking here.)

A sample of side-splitting Facebook Pi Humor from yesterday, Pi Day, 3.14

Sample of side-splitting Facebook Pi Humor from yesterday, Pi Day, 3.14

The other thing about ‘pi’, the thing that gets everyone all atingle — well, maybe not everyone — is that pi is infinite. Again, according to my handy online source, mathisfun.com (hmmm, if you have to say something is fun, then is it?), pi is equal to 3.14159265358979323846. And that’s just for starters. See, the digits go on forever, and without repeating. This is like catnip to Math Nerds. Every year on 3.14, they get all excited and try to outdo each other reciting pi to as many places as they can. Seriously. Contests are held. Records are broken. Egos are threatened! Continue reading

Take-a-flying Leap Year

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‘The case for just skipping February already.’

So. 2016 is a Leap Year, which means that February got an extra day. I won’t go into all the scientific and historical stuff you probably skimmed in yesterday’s paper about why we have to tack on a 29th every four years, except to say that it has something to do with the Earth’s Rotation and the Gregorian Calendar.

Your paper no doubt also had at least one cute story about some Grownup who is ‘really’ only 6 years old because his/her birthday falls on Feb. 29. (The NY Times’ choice was a male underwear model.)

Anyway. If I sound a tad cranky, blame February. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks February is sort of a bummer. I mean, it’s four long weeks of not-yet-spring that comes along when you’re getting really sick and tired of winter. I bet even the Groundhog doesn’t get that excited about his Day.

A Valentine from The Child that I had no hand in making. (Thanks, Doris!)

A Valentine from The Child. Extra precious because I had absolutely no hand in making it

Speaking of Days, other than Valentine’s, which can be kind of fun — unless you’re a Mom who has to whip up 36 red-construction-paper-heart valentines and/or pink-frosting’d cupcakes for school — there aren’t even any good holidays in February. Have you ever heard of anyone putting up Presidents’ Day decorations? Poor February. It’s even hard to spell.

When I was a kid I heard a very funny radio essay, probably by Charles Kuralt (very droll, of the late lamented ‘On the Road’ and ‘CBS Sunday Morning’) making a case for eliminating February altogether. Darn it, even with mad googling I couldn’t find the actual piece, but the gist of it was that since February is kind of a downer, we should just, you know, repurpose it. Continue reading

Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered by The Brits

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‘Cambridge gives The Child the Evil Eye’

Back in the Dark Ages BB* I used to make movies. I filmed anything—and everything—my family did. Then I edited the footage, set it to music and churned out dozens of DVDs that I foisted on one and all. It got so that the mere sight of my cute little Flip video camera drove them into hiding. “Mo-om! Stop flipping us!’  Hah. They didn’t realize how good they had it.

*BB: ‘Before Blog’. A more innocent time, filled with pestering people with filming, then pestering people to watch said films

Well now I don’t need no stinkin’ camera. Because now everything is fodder for The Blog. Including the fact that The Child just might be a witch.

OK. So these two Samanthas don’t look all that much alike. (For those of you who don’t already know, yes, that is The Child’s real, actual name, which I wouldn’t normally reveal, but there you go.) And for those of you who don’t get the ‘Samantha’ reference, here’s some info.

Basically, the black-and-white Samantha pictured above was the main character in a 60’s TV show called ‘Bewitched’. She was a witch married to a ‘normal guy’ who forbade her, for some inexplicable reason, to use her powers. Personally, I’d be all ‘Honey, could you turn my fat ugly boss into the toad he actually is?’ But that’s just me.

Samantha the TV Witch uses her powers to do laundry instead of winning the lottery

Samantha the TV Witch uses her powers to do laundry instead of to win the lottery

But back to what happened in Cambridge. This Witch Story occurred to me because a year has gone by since The Dude and I made our trip to visit The Child while she was studying at Cambridge. A whole year! And there’s still a big ole file of yet-to-be-movified footage staring me accusingly in the face every time I open my computer. Oh well. One of these days. Right now I’d rather tell you about The Witch Thing.

We were winding down after a full day of touring Cambridge—the Botanical Garden, the Scott Polar Institute, college after stately college—and enjoying a nice meal at a restaurant called St. John’s Chophouse. The Child had picked it because it featured Huge Cuts of Meat, which is something students, even students not at Cambridge, can’t afford. (Sushi; same deal. Flesh, raw or cooked, swimming or hoofed, is what Students want to eat when Parents are paying. No ‘Oh, Mom and Dad, can you please please take us to the vegan place?!’  Uh-uh. It’s pricey protein every time.)

Continue reading

Trainspotting

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‘Celebrity sightings, and accessories after the fact’

Twitter was aflitter last week with Helen Mirren sightings. She was on the R. She was on the Q. Whatever the letter, she was on the subway. And she looked so amazing (she is 69! that can’t be her!) that her fellow riders sometimes doubted the evidence of their own eyes. You can read an amusing summary of their internet astonishment here.

So where was I when all this subterranean drama was unfolding? Alas, I was consumed with Scary Dental Issues (see ‘Is it Safe?’ for colorful detail). But now I’m ready for some rhapsodizing about la Mirren and some blathering about Celebrity Sighting in General (well in general in Manhattan, anyway.)

See, one of the reasons that celebrities love being in Manhattan is that Manhattanites ignore them. Completely. Famous People can walk around, stand in Shake Shack lines, ride on the subway — all in relatively unmolested peace. It is considered extremely uncool (and very non-New-Yorker-ish) to go up to the Celebrity of One’s Daydreams and say something like Continue reading

On being (a) Yo Yo Ma

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‘The Empty Nest has its Ups and Downs’

By now you probably know more facts about The Child than The Child feels comfortable about you knowing. But she’s off in Boston making a name for herself as a software engineer and therefore can’t roll her eyes heavenward in ‘My Mom is Oversharing Again’ dismay. At least not where I can see her.

So I’m going to riff a little about ‘parenting’. First, let me make my distaste for terms like ‘parenting’ clear. The use of nouns as verbs (‘crafting’, ‘birding’, even ‘blogging’) tends to make my own eyes roll heavenward. I mean, if I’m ‘parenting’, is The Child ‘kidding’?

But I must admit that I rather like my new not-yet-trendy term ‘Yo Yo Ma’, which I will explain shortly. But first, have you heard of Snowplow Parents?  Continue reading

Sex is like Santa

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‘Birds and Bees? Ho Ho Ho.’

Did someone spike the eggnog? Last week it was Incest. (See ‘The Incest Mug’ for details, but not just yet.) This week it’s Sex Ed. Fingers crossed everyone’s out of the house bolstering the economy, especially The Child. Because this post is about how You-Know-Who learned about You-Know-What.

The story begins innocently enough, with me walking said Child home from school. Third Grade, I believe. Which would make her about eight at the time.

So this adorable innocent girl holding my hand looks up at me through impossibly-long eyelashes and says: Continue reading

All Saints’ (Birth)Day

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‘And the years just keep on coming’

I simply must stop wearing The Child’s discarded Stuyvesant High School tee shirt. It says ‘Seniors’ on the front, and the other day a friend thought I was declaring my membership in an Age Group.

While I’m not at an age where I’d like to blurt out a number (I think you have to be either really young — “I’m 3! Going on 4!” — or really old — “I’m 97! If I make it to June!” — to want to blurt), I do feel okay telling you Continue reading