Crazy: (Dwell and Tell V)

The location featured in these pictures is the last coffee-shop stop I made while in Lexington, KY.  I have fallen a little behind in posts, but "Coffee Times" was so adorable a place that I had to include it in "Vino & the Bean" before moving on to the places in Staunton, VA.  Stay tuned.

While I remember a few positives from my year in L.A. (driving year-round with the windows down, always a good time for a Jamba Juice, the first apartment where I put up my own Christmas tree, etc.) mostly, when I think of my year on Findley Street in Los Feliz, I remember sheer craziness.

The landlady was certifiable.

Truly.

She made no effort to conceal the fact that she had been institutionalized for mental health problems.

Lacking sympathy and loving alliteration like I do, I wasted no time nicknaming her "Crazy Carol."

Basically, Carol told me that the job of managing the building was all she was really capable of.  And even the nagging responsibilities of us tenants were sometimes too much to rouse her from her hill of blankets and pillows that I occasionally caught sight of through her open apartment door.  And rent was free for Carol, so, you know, that's good for The Crazies.  Not so good for us tenants.

She took great pride in "hand-picking" the residents of our very small and incredibly well-priced apartment units, which I took as a compliment . . . until I met some of the other guys.  Another Crazy on the floor above me routinely attracted police and emergency vehicles.  He saw alien spaceships.

Bring It

Common Grounds in Lexington is a warm, brick environment with great coffee.  There is a main room with cafe tables and chairs and then two little rooms that have furniture more like what you find in a living room.  There is artwork on all of the walls and much if it is really nice.  The day I went, there were a lot of students at work.  There is also a piano in a corner whose exterior has been artfully decorated with paint.  It's on High St.  It's great.

A:  Did you bring it?
B:  What?  Oh, yeah, yeah.  Of course I did.
A:  Where is it?
B:  Uh...
A:  Did you fucking forget it?
B:  No, no, I got it . . . I just -
A:  Did you lose my -
B:  No!
A:  Marshall, I am going to kick your ass from here to Main Street if you don't soon produce my blouse.
B:  I don't have the blouse.

34th and 34th Astoria, Queens (Dwell and Tell IV)

At "third street stuff and coffee" in Lexington, KY, the walls are decorated whimsically inside and out and there is a shelving unit there stacked with games.  I think I saw four Scrabbles.  There is some interior brick visible behind the decor and the wireless access is free.  I loved the people behind the counter.  I paid $2 for my coffee "for here."  I requested a mug and the guy behind the counter was like "that's the only way to have it, isn't it."  Yes.  Paper and styrofoam are for emergencies only.
After 86th Street on the Upper West Side, I moved to Queens.  I chose an apartment one street block and one avenue block away from my Ex.  Say what you want, but I really had no ulterior motives; it was simply the best apartment I'd seen in my search, in a great location, and at a cost I could afford (if I charged each client $5/hr more for their personal training sessions, except for a few who were "grandfathered" in to their bargain P.T. rate.)  I also truly believed I would never see him.  I have to leave for work at 5:15 A.M.  He wakes no earlier than 10:00!
... But while I was waiting for the new place to become available and crashing at Amy's, on a couch that has hosted many a wayward friend (see D & T part II), this Ex called me up and traveled from his place in Queens to the Upper West Side in the rain to plead his case and try for a second chance.  He also offered to help me with my upcoming move to his neighborhood.
I accept . . . the offer, not the wooing, we'll see how the move goes. . .
He was a champ.
Yes, we got back together.
And yes, he eventually became my husband.
During that year that I lived on the corner of 34th and 34th in Astoria, we really didn't see each other much due to various out-of-town jobs.  I used the Fall to study and get a new Personal Trainer Certification, while working my tail off with the certifications that I already had.  I taught between 6 and 10 group fitness classes a week and trained clients privately for another 20 - 25 hours a week.  I was tired a lot, but I loved loved loved my little studio apartment on 34th and 34th.  I loved the windows in their miniature cathedral shape.  I loved the pristine white walls and the clean new kitchen.  I bought furniture!  It was at this apartment that a not-so-popular Christmas tree drove me nuts throughout the holiday season with its blinking musical lights.  I loved that too.
Then, in early January I was offered a life-changing job with American Shakespeare Center.  The one-year contract they offered me turned into two, and then three, and then two more seasons and the opportunity to debut a play I wrote.  I couldn't have known any of this at the time, but I made the right decision in giving up that Astoria apartment, and perhaps, if I had hung onto it, I might have felt compelled to return to it after one year and have missed out on 3/4 of my experience with ASC in Staunton, Virginia.  But before I left Astoria to work and live in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, I squeezed in one more play:  and one of the Most Whacked Out Scenarios Of My Life Thus Far.
I was going to Maine-in February- to tour a production of Romeo and Juliet

Getting to L.A. (Dwell and Tell III)

Okay.  People.  Not that I think you care, but in case you are following the last two stories like Alisa Ledyard is, I feel compelled to tell you that the Dwell and Tell Stories will not be told in the sequence in which they actually happened.  This one dates back to 1999.  You will eventually hear what happened after 34 W. 86^th Street, but it’s delicate material so it’s going to take some time.  I will tell you now, however, that my dear friend Rob had his tumor removed and beat cancer.  He is recovered and happily residing in midtown Manhattan.

I am at Charlie Brown's in Lexington, KY.  The house cabernet is $5 during happy hour and a whole $5.50 otherwise.  The other wines-by-the-glass are $7.25.  Indoor/Outdoor Seating.  Inside, the seating is mostly couches.  Adorable.

How about the time I lived in L.A.?  Friends of mine have heard me put Los Angeles down, referring to it like some stupid ex-boyfriend that treating me poorly and lacked any qualities good enough to justify it so.  If L.A. was my Ex, he dressed well, smelled good, and always had something fun planned.  He was full of jokes, but after a month, I’d heard them all and he told them again anyway.  He was not interested in conversation, not real conversation.  He was a flashy car, a Mojito, a smoothie from Jamba Juice, a workout video set outside on the beach, a song by Smash Mouth.  What I’m trying to say is that while L.A. was not all bad, it was not at all what I wanted.

a chunk of my heart is in apt. 4A (Dwell & Tell Part 2)

I was standing on a curb somewhere in Queens.  I'd just seen another apartment that wasn't going to work out for another good reason and I still really needed to get out of my current situation.  It felt like life and death.  I had been given the number for Bill, a professor at Penn State where I'd recently devoted three years (much of which I wanted back.)
"Bill has an apartment to sublet on the Upper West Side, I think.  86th Street, maybe?," says Jen, who had been a student under Bill while we were both in grad school.
For a fortune, I said.
"I don't know, I think it's like eight hundred."
Impossible.
(I love Jen, but she is even newer to New York than I am, and she obviously doesn't know the Upper West side from a small town in Indiana.  $800 a month rent is a thing of ancient history in New York's Upper West Side.)
"Yeah, eight hundred.  Or something like that."
How come you're not taking it?
"I can't make that rent by myself," she said, in a moment of irony that we would address repeatedly in the months, and even years that followed.  She was living, at the time, on the couch of our friend Amy and splitting that already-low rent.  It could not be argued that there was a cheaper option for Jen, but it wouldn't be long before her salary was sweeping mine into the gutters of the Upper West Side.
Also, 86th Street just happened to be mere blocks from my early-morning job and no more than a ten-minute walk.  It was absolutely unfathomable to me that an affordable apartment was available in the proposed location, but there was Bill's number scribbled on a scrap of paper, back in the days where we did that ---wrote numbers down.
Ring, ring, "hello?"  (He sounds a bit like Tim Gunn from Project Runway.  Or maybe I just make that comparison because Bill teaches costume and set design.  Let's just say that if in the movie-version of this story, I'd get Tim Gunn to play the role of Bill.)

The Pimp and The Ho (Dwell & Tell Part One)

I had just gotten back from the U.K.  I'd brought a show that I wrote and performed to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  What had brought my American audiences much laughter and then to their feet at the end had a less than earth-shattering effect on the Scots.  In short, it didn't go over so good.  To be fair, it's difficult to gauge the reaction of a crowd when their absence is more prevalent than their presence.  I had some shows when the audience numbered in single digits.  Nice.
It rained a lot while I was there and I was recently broken-hearted.  The two go together well, like $10 Pinot Noir and episodes of 11 P.M. Law & Order.  Edinburgh, for all its beauty, stomped on my already beaten-up heart and sent me home lonelier than I'd ever felt.  Sadly, I like to think that I am my plays, and if they get praise, I get praise, and if they get hammered, well . . . (I am getting better at this.)  Oh, and I didn't get laid either, which I thought was sort of a given circumstance of a summer in Europe.  Nope, not for this Sad American Girl.

M & D and 41 Years

My parents celebrate 41 years of marriage today.  They are the kind of couple who respond humbly yet not without humor about their marital success.  They act like they made it by the skin of their teeth.  It goes like this:  Chuckle, Eye-roll, Not-Sure-How-We-Did-It Joke, Ha-ha, Next Topic?  In short, they cannot take a compliment.  M & D -as they are exclusively referred to in my journals and letters over the years- act as if 41 years of marriage just happened to them.  Like, maybe Time should get the Congratulations, not them, the very members of the marriage.

Ugly Cake

So, several years ago, I’m dating this guy and I fall in love.  It is unclear whether he has fallen with me.  At a certain point he just falls off the planet.  We were long distance at the time and I remember hitting one of those relationship walls that don’t hurt so much as simply stun.

I cannot stay in this if he doesn’t love me back.  Equally.

Otherwise, I’m just dumb, and my friends are having intense conversations over turkey wraps that include phrases like:  “a little worried about her” and “should I say something?”

So, I tell him about the wall –in more (or less?) poetic terms- preparing myself that he will stammer and back out of the whole thing.  But, by gosh, he starts fighting to stay in! 

However,

He wants to stay in without saying “I love you.”

I think if you are 17, you get a pass on the L word, but not when you’re 40. 

Ode to Dad

I was eleven years old when I attended the second audition of what was to be too many to count.  I attended a small ballet company on the east-side of Columbus, the second of the three ballet schools of my youth, and in my opinion, the best in the city.  The audition was for membership in "The Company" which performed publicly and at schools around the city.  I had not made the cut the year before, but now, at eleven, I had so much more going for me...!  By the time I was eleven, I was probably in dance class four or five nights out of the week.  Both of my sisters danced.  My mom took classes, and also, for a period of time, taught movement classes for very small children.  Someone in our family was at dance class at Alan Miles Ballet Academy on almost any given night between 1983 and 1987.

My father did not take ballet classes.

Remember Me Tall

Among the many steps into adulthood that I must take is the uncomfortable action of creating a will.  I guess its time.  It's always time, isn't it?  It is always the perfect time to make a will, just like it is always the perfect time to break-up with a married man or start those exercise videos or that watercolor class.  All choices, I recently read, are made from either faith or fear.  Let's see:  I choose to sort the stacks of Cd's in our apartment rather than create a will out of . . . ?  

Yet, I am married now, and the thought of my husband having to make difficult decisions without my advice fills me with more fear than faith.  I mean no offense, only that I think about these things, and he doesn't, and when I bring them up, I have little faith that he will remember the conversation at all.  Especially if I am dead.

Abundant Sunshine

This morning, the light fills our little apartment in Queens in a way that makes me feel hopeful beyond any shred of reason.  Nothing particularly special is scheduled for this day -- unless you are of the belief that the world is coming to an end.  I think that's pretty special... and I don't even know which end of that boxing match I want to be on.  Either, I float up to the sky and feel 'chosen' - a middle-child's dream come true- or I am left to suffer the ruins of our planet and forge a new world with the little that we have -which doesn't seem that different from what we're already doing.

where's the vino? where's the bean?

where's the vino
I've given up drinking for a while.
(Waiting)
No, I am not pregnant.  Naturally, this is the first questioned I am asked after I drop the on-the-wagon bomb.
No, not pregnant, just need a break from my favorite escape.
No, I have not given up coffee too.  That would be cray-cray.  (The "bean" in the title refers to the me-bean, not the coffee-bean.)
The vino has been released of her duties for the time being.  The bean is laying low.
There is, however, a quarter-bottle of red wine on the kitchen counter, which on my (drinking) watch could never have survived the days between last Thursday --when it was opened and so cooly abandoned by the male guests we had that night-- and now.  The quarter that remains is probably embittered. With its label directed ever-so-slightly out the window it appears to be looking away haughtily, defiantly:  "Fine.  You won't have me?

i got dance in my pants

Three years old was "too young" to participate in Miss Linda's Ballet Academy in the mid-seventies in Columbus, Ohio . . . or so it had been decreed.  "Ballet I" For Children would consist of primarily five-year-olds, though Linda Robinson would occasionally accept a "Mature Four."

I was not yet four.

To say I was a "Mature Three" prances beyond oxymoron and does a double pirouette on the word "lie."  My mother is a truthful lady, so she didn't even try.

Thus, week after week, three-year-old me was expected to wait patiently for 30 or 40 minutes of torture as the Fives and "Mature" Fours plie-ed and relevee-d and -oh!- performed leaps across the floor diagonally (!) at Miss Linda's store-front-sorry-excuse-for-a studio in suburban Ohio on Wednesdays at 4:00.

Cut my three-year-old heart out.

I will die.

6 inches of st. patrick's day

Please click here:  http://www.examiner.com/ny-in-new-york/le-pain-le-park to help my writing success on Examiner.com.  Each article is 200-300 words about the coffee shops where I write the real stuff for vino and the bean.  Below is the real stuff.


St. Patrick's Day had been a rough day.
Teenagers in green tights under scandalously short shorts and shamrock make-up cluttered the streets, the sidewalks, and even Central Park.  Why are you in Central Park?  There is nothing adolescently sexy about this place.  They must have been Juniors or Seniors in high school because their clothes were just provocative enough that they might be confused with college kids, but their presentational smoking was not.
She glanced lazily in their direction, not wanting to be bothered, not wanting to look their youth in the face, or in the midriff, or anywhere.

do you think they have facebook in heaven?

A:  Do you think they have Facebook in heaven?
B:  Nah, they have better things to do.
A:  Hmm.  Do you think they have Facebook in hell?
B:  No way, dude.  No pleasures in hell.
(Pause, while A. considers this.)
A:  Do you think they have Facebook in limbo?
(Pause, while B. considers this.)
B:  Facebook is limbo.

The sixteenth anniversary of my older sister's death came and went.  I buffered myself with a visit from my long-time friend, Megan.  A pedicure.  A pancake.  A few drinks as the sun set on the Sarasota water.  The subject did not go untouched, but it did not drag the day into a melancholy ditch, as I have been known to burrow on other occasions.  When the moon replaced the sun on February fourth this year, it literally smiled on Megan and me.  (And, you know, dear readers, how infrequently I use the word "literally.")  The moon appeared as just a sliver of a thing, but turned on its butt with its pointy ends up.  In the middle of the sky!  It was impossible to document on my digital camera, so you must just take my word for it.
Lots of people remembered her, my deceased sister, on Facebook, which I find sweet, and yet, odd, in this way:  having died in 1995, she would not even know what "Facebook" is.  

Directions from NY to the Czech Republic

My Little Sister moved to Prague.  I'm not gonna lie to you, it hurts.  She will, I am certain, understand when she reads this that I am not after sympathy here, nor am I trying to guilt her.  But we lost our older sister fifteen years ago to a teenage drunk driver in Toledo, Ohio in the dead of fucking February around one o'clock in the morning. 

fixation

I don't know why we do it to ourselves.

I had an episode on Monday which illustrates this befuddlement at human behavior.

I was driving to St. Petersburg when the rain came.  CAME.  And kept coming.  I knew where I was going, but it was so heavy that visibility was limited to just a few feet ahead.

(Mom, you might want to skip this part.)

I am pretty good in these situations.  I grip the wheel a little tighter and lean forward, but I remember to breathe and I talk to myself to ease the tension.  Other drivers had pulled off to the side of the highway but we were on a bridge and it just didn't seem any safer.  Plus...