Keys

It's a momentous day.

A boy waits for this.

My boy is very excited to have this.

He can do something new.

Something that requires a click.

Something that requires a turn.

It's blue.

This new thing that he has.

Look what he can do!

The Night Donna and I Ate Waffles in The Village and Were Held Up With a Super Soaker

I wrote a post about the night that Donna and I went to see The Best of Everything. But I couldn't tell the whole story there, it was just too surreal. The entire story of what happened to us on that fateful night needed to be a separate post.

This is what occurred on Friday October 5th 2012.

Donna Archer Cervelli and I met at the Spring Street train station. I called her on her cell phone, because I initially didn't see her.

She answered.
"Turn around!" She said.
There she was. My first thought was "Fish Tacos." But it didn't make any sense so I didn't say anything. But the first thing Donna said was:
"Let's get tacos!"

?????

We were clearly communicating on a telepathic level.

Donna and I searched Spring Street frantically trying to find a place that sold tacos. But there wasn't one.

So we settled on a pizza place. None of the ordinary pizza slices looked appetizing so we chose an artichoke white pizza for both of us. It tasted more like artichoke dip on bread, but that was okay; it was somehow satisfying, although we didn't eat the crust.

After the pizza, we saw the play, it was grand.

When the play was through, we found the Fadermobile and traveled to 7th Avenue and Christopher Street to find the waffle truck.
"No yawning allowed!" Donna said, it was 10:30.

She was right, I needed coffee, we needed coffee, iced coffee to be exact.

As soon as we stepped out of the car, there it was, a giant neon sign attached to a food truck it read:

"TACOS"

"Donna! Look!" I exclaimed clutching her arm.
"What does it mean?" She asked.
We laughed.

We pondered the message of tacos while furiously searching 7th Avenue for the waffle truck. We found it! Waffles and Dinges at our service. We waiting in line and got giant heaping piles of vanilla ice cream and Nutella which were nuzzling up to individualized waffles. Somewhere in the mix were strawberries and bananas.

Iced coffee was provided on the side. It was midnight.

We sat on the hood of the Fadermobile and talked about spirits.

All at once a strange man approached us.
"Which one of you ladies is taking me home tonight?" He asked creepily.
"We're married!" I said, showing him my wedding ring.
"That's okay, your husbands are probably out at a bar." He justified.
"Yeah, probably a tittie bar." Donna said, and we both laughed.
"I can't get into that shit!" Creepy man exclaimed and with that he walked away.

We continued to discuss spirits, moving on to spirit animals.

A second man approached us; he carried with him a super soaker. He pointed the super soaker directly at us.

"Give me 20 dollars or you're both getting wet!" He yelled.
"Uh, I don't have 20 dollars." I said. I turned to Donna "I think it's time to go."
"Yeah..." Donna agreed.
We tossed what remained of our waffles and jumped into the Fadermobile, heading for Port Authority. All the way there we discussed the significance of tacos.

Tacos...

I'm Afraid of...

I'm afraid of death. I'm afraid of it for the obvious reason, not being around any more, but I'm also
afraid of it because I can't conceive of not exisiting. Whenever I think about death I can't wrap my head around the fact that one day I won't be thinking.

It's weird.

Also, I feel like thinking about death makes me feel anxious to accomplish so much in life. I never thought about making a "bucket list" before, but I can understand why people might do that. There's so much I want to accomplish in this life, but I only have a finite amount if time.

I'm not good at time management.

I admire people who are good at understanding and managing time. Time is abstract to me. It's not concrete.

I need an Excel spreadsheet for my life goals.

Become a published author, check! Travel to India, done! Learn to dance, accomplished!

It seems like a great way to keep track of it all. Next thing to do would be to hire a life assistant to make sure I'm accomplishing my goals. Life assistant sounds bizarre; life project manager is better.

On that note I'm going to take a nap.

The Best of Everything

I've been feeling burnt out recently, and in desperate need of hang out time without children involved.

The other day I got an email from my friend Holly Rosen Fink about a play she was the Associate Producer on, The Best of Everything.

In the email she mentioned that this would be an awesome play for a "girl's night out." When I saw that, I knew exactly who I wanted to take with me; my soul sister, Donna.

We're both air signs; I'm a Libra and she's a Gemini and together we make no sense and perfect sense at the same time. Tacos!

Donna and I planned to go see The Best of Everything, and then find the Waffels and Dinges food truck after the play to score some Belgian waffles with ice cream.

We met at the Spring Street train station, found the Here Arts Center and settled into the front row to watch the show.

The Best of Everything takes place in the 1950's.  The setting - a publishing house filled with young secretaries, many of whom are preoccupied with getting married.

The main character, Caroline, is an aspiring editor. A graduate of Radcliffe, Caroline longs to bypass the mundane day to day dealings of secretary life to become an editor.

At the start of the play, Caroline is dumped by her dead beat fiance. She enters the world of publishing in order to heal from her break up. During the course of her office life she meets a group of women who she can commiserate with about men. Among the secretaries in the office, there's a country bumpkin,  an eccentric actress and an office yenta.

I found this show to be charming, and laugh out loud funny. The characters were vastly different from one another and that made them fun to watch. I continually wondered what was going to happen to each of them.

The show has multiple themes, one of which is the dichotomy of being a working woman versus settling down and getting married. It addresses how in the 1950's these two roles did overlap, but rather they were mutually exclusive.

The audience watches Caroline struggle with her ambition as well as her need to have a romantic relationship. Ultimately, one of those needs wins out, but you'll have to see the show to find out which one!

Donna and I really enjoyed the show. Afterward, we replayed some of the lines that made us crack up.

And then we got waffles!

If you need a girl's night out, this is it ladies. Click here to learn more about The Best of Everything. You know you want to...click it...click it now. Have you clicked it yet? 

**Disclosure statement- I have to write this. Yes I do. I got comp tickets to this show. But guess what? It was funny, I laughed. But I have to tell you that the tickets free. Yes they were, they were free.

A Taste of Wool Part 15

"Don't you bring those muddy shoes in this house, Cindy Harmon!" Nancy Harmon shouted at her 11 year-old daughter. It was a soggy day in Helenville, New Jersey. The rain had just cleared up, and Cindy and her friend Jamie had been romping around in the mud in the backyard. Nancy fastened her apron tighter around her waist turned to face her daughter, who was standing in the door way of the kitchen waiting for her to come inside from the mud.

"Aw mom!" Cindy whined. Nancy Harmon turned her back to her daughter and resumed her task of rinsing off string beans for dinner. Cindy saw her chance. She motioned to Jamie to follow her into the kitchen and upstairs to Cindy's room. A little mud never hurt anyone, right? Cindy was half way across the kitchen floor when Nancy Harmon whirled around, flinging several string beans into the air.

"Aha! Caught you! Girls, take off your shoes and socks and leave them on the porch. Cindy, I want you to mop those foot prints up this instant! Jamie, you can help me with those, she said motioning to the string beans. Cindy sucked her teeth and went to get me out of the closet.

The End.

***

This concludes A Taste of Wool. If you'd like to read the story from the start click here. 

Please post your reactions to the story below as comments.

Chemical Pregnancy

The mistake I made was that I got excited.

***

It was five days before my period, and I began to feel nauseated. I was emotional. I cried harder than usual at The Maggie Gyllenhaal movie. Something didn't feel right.

I took a pregnancy test.

It was negative.

A couple of days went by...

I continued to feel sad, sadder than usual.

I took another pregnancy test.

It was negative.

I missed my period that same day I  went to Sleep Therapy Yoga. I told Nick that I knew I was pregnant. I took another pregnancy test. It was positive.

"99 percent accurate," it said.

Early results as soon as five days before your missed period. I had missed my period.

I text the picture to my best friend.
She said ''Well then."

I told Wil.
"I don't want to get excited until you see a doctor." He said.
"I don't need to see a doctor to get a excited." I argued.

I told people.

I told my parents.

I told my brother.

I got excited. Some were concerned others were excited. I welcomed it all in like a sponge.

There was a question mark in my mind.

My friend Liz brought over an extra test. I took it. It was negative.

My best friend came over and she brought me another test, from the 99 cent store. It was negative. I was confused. I was angry at the positive test.

The next day, I got my period.

I bawled. I didn't understand it. What happened?
I text my doula. What was it?
"It's called a chemical pregnancy." She said.

It never implanted.

I cried. It was the worst period of my adult life. Every time I went to the bathroom and saw blood I was reminded that there wasn't a baby in my uterus.

I cried and cried. I cried into Wil's armpit. I cried into his shirt. I saturated his clothes with tears.

I am not pregnant. This never happened. It was all an illusion.

I'm angry at myself for getting excited. I'm angry at myself for telling people. I'm angry at the fact that there is no baby. I am angry at each and every pregnancy test that I took.

The anger is stuck in my chest. I want to reach in deep and grab it out, throw it out of my body.

This happened. It's real. I'm still here.

Nick Atlas and Yoga Sleep Therapy

I was 10 years old. I remember sitting in Hebrew school class furiously sketching a poster. I was working on the detail of a Pepsi can, hoping he would notice my artwork, hoping that I could decode what was going on in his mind. He was enigmatic. I couldn't figure him out. He was tall and skinny with black eyes that seemed to see through you. He loved kickball. I was clumsy. I was quiet, but I loved art. I lived through writing and colored pencils. I was shy, he wasn't. Even though he was seemingly outgoing, there was something underneath the surface that I couldn't get to. He wasn't giving it up. I was afraid to scratch it, but I was curious to know what was there.

His name was Nick Atlas.

After elementary school, we went our separate ways, him to a private school and me to a public arts high school.

Life is funny, and so is the internet. We connected 22 years later through Facebook. He was no longer a jock, but had transformed into a yoga teacher.

We talked online, and Nick told me he was going to be teaching a sleep therapy yoga workshop in New York. I signed up, I traveled to the Om Factory, and I took the workshop. After engaging in yoga and meditation for two and a half hours, he told me his story:



For more information on Nick Atlas click here.