Summer Weekend

There is something truly spectacular about an unplanned weekend in my neighborhood, no matter the season. The past two days bring sun and heat and humidity and incredible thunderstorms to New York City. The thick urban warmth chases many citizens of Gotham out to the area beaches on summer weekends, and indeed, we are frequently among the folks heading for the Atlantic. But not this weekend.

This weekend I follow a random trajectory, walking all over the neighborhood, picking up a few baby gifts for recent arrivals, stopping in at the electronic store to attempt to remedy a computer glitch we are having at home, wandering through the Union Square farmer’s market. The sun filtering from high clouds burned my husband’s neck in the half hour he spent reading up on our roof deck, so I hit the street slathered in SPF 45, and its lemony smell wraps around me, shielding my nose from some of the less pleasant metropolitan funks that tend to surface on main thoroughfares like 14th Street or 6th Avenue. I maintain a moderate pace as I flip-flop my way around town with my canvas earth-saving shopping bags, soon filled with baby books and a video card and ripe tomatoes and homemade peach apple sauce and zucchini and eggplant. I try not to topple a smaller bag with the basil, rosemary, and lemon thyme plants for my window herb pots, feeling some regret for neglecting to grow the little garden from seeds this year.*

My neighborhood is resplendent in rainbow flags, this being Pride Weekend, and the usually laid-back summer vibe of our patch of the City is more celebratory than it usually is. Tourists pack the sidewalk tables of our local restaurants and even those pubs that usually cater to the football-watching hetero crowds don their support with multi-colored pennants. The community is fully in touch with its ties to the heart and soul and history of the movement, and the Village is a village of brother- and sisterhood this weekend. The unquestioned unity is tangible, and reminds me of Chicago on St. Patrick’s Day, or South Philly when the Eagles win the NFC championship.

When I get back from my wanderings, moments before the skies open and unleash an incredible torrent of rain, the slicing and chopping required as I begin following a recipe for ratatouille are therapeutic, offering a fabulous contrast to the research and drafting and phone-calling that occupies my working days. I slip downstairs to check the mail while the pot of veggies is simmering, and delight in the way that my cooking has scented our entire hallway with garlic and tomatoes and fresh herbs. As I put my feet up on the couch and envelop myself in my book, the only interruption is the sound of my husband slapping his hands together periodically, in his unsuccessful attempts to kill a pesky fly who has taunted us all day.

Somewhere around 10pm on Saturday night after the rain and the reading and the ratatouille, we decide to follow our taste buds to one of our favorite restaurants for dessert, and as it’s getting late, we get a terrific corner table. We plow through bread pudding and strawberry rhubarb crumble; we take in the scene through the picture windows: revelers stumble by, lurching their ways towards hangovers, middle-aged couples walk their dogs, gaggles of girls hail cabs.

I spend the early afternoon on Sunday in an independent coffee shop, reading the New York Times until my backside is sore from the metal chair. I try not to stare when I see Jason Bateman come in and order a latte, and hope he doesn’t notice that I frantically alert my husband as to the sighting moments after he enters. Thunder announces the arrival of another incredible storm as I head toward home again, past several groups of police officers stationed nearby in preparation for the parade. I’m saddened by the deluge and the way it will put a damper on the afternoon’s main event, but after 15 soaking minutes, the sun comes through, and I can’t help but look for the rainbow that God must’ve put out in solidarity.

Folks who don’t live here often recoil in horror when I tell them where my husband and I make our home. “It’s nice to visit, but I could not imagine living in New York City,” they exclaim, picturing Time Square or Rockefeller Center at Christmas or the Port Authority bus terminal. “No way.” But New York is not Times Square or Rockefeller Center at Christmas or the Port Authority bus terminal. Or at least, it is not these places alone. For me, New York is the West Village on a lazy summer weekend alone with my husband, when we know that exciting change is on the horizon, and that weekends like these are, in some sense, numbered.

Chapter Five of the GWW text explores “Description.” Can I describe to you where I am in my life? Probably not, but let me just see if I can offer you a snapshot.


* Perhaps best for me to focus on nurturing one life from its inception at a time. More on this later.

Taller than you'd think.

“Can I ask you a question, at the risk of coming off as inordinately rude?”

I was walking down Broadway today when a man who appeared only mildly crazy approached me and offered the above query. I gave him the once-over and kept walking, half-heartedly explaining I was in a rush.

I am pretty sure I can accurately guess the substance of his question.

Well, let me start at the beginning here. As some of you will, no doubt, recall, I have an on-again/off-again relationship with the man who works the morning shifts at my neighborhood Path Train station. When last I reported, Jimmy had breached what I thought was the tacit understanding between train-rider and train-turnstile-moderator (seriously, I really don’t know what his purpose is other than to stand by the turnstile). He had hugged me. He had hugged me, though I never invited him to do so.

Any-hoo, ever since that run-in, I’ve been a little wary of Path Train Jimmy. I’m sure I don’t have to explain why.

But now? Well, now I’m actually really irritated with Jimmy. He has a new shtick, and it is the sort of shtick I appreciate not at all.

Every morning, I walk through his turnstile and am met by Jimmy’s booming announcer voice (or, actually, given his musical aspirations, I suppose it’s his emcee voice…):

Ladies and Gentlemen, here she is! The tallest woman on the platform! She should be playing for the WMBA!

Every morning. Same damn line.

I wouldn’t be irritated if he had some other, more innocuous line. My daytime doorman says the same thing to me every day, and I love my daytime doorman.* No, it’s the substance of the line.

I am tall. I have mentioned this before at Beyond Pickles. I am actually really quite tall, for a woman. In bare feet, I am nearly 6’0”. In my work shoes, I probably skim 6’3” on some days.

I won’t say I have no “tall girl” issues. One doesn’t grow up as the tallest girl in the neighborhood and come out completely unscathed. And I wasn’t one of those girls who hit puberty and had a growth spurt; I was always tall: tall in Kindergarten, tall in high school. Tall.

I was always a little sensitive about my height, but not devastatingly so. I am blessed with fast metabolism, and being thin counterbalanced some of the tall issues that arose while I was growing up. Though the boys in my 7th grade class may not have been interested in me, some kind adults were able see through the giant frizzy 12 year old hair and my broken-out skin and predict that my woefully bony frame and 5’9”-and-still-growing body might eventually yield an attractive adult. While the feminist side of me hates to admit it, comments like “I’ll bet you could be a model some day” are much appreciated by gangly pubescent pre- teens.

My family never really focused on how unusually tall I was during those years. In fact, the only real ribbing came from my brother, who used to call me “fat.” This was uncharacteristically uncreative for him, and easy for me to let roll off my back. As we are cut from the same cloth, I suspect that his own body-image may have had something to do with his reluctance to mock me. In any event, that I grew to be nearly six inches taller than my mom and three inches taller than my sister was sort of a non-issue at home.

As I edged into the world, I became increasingly aware of how tall I was – and am. College was a bit of a blessed respite, because for whatever reason, many of my girlfriends were upwards of 5’8”. (I did have a roommate who once donned a pair of heels and then looked at me and asked me if the shoes “made her look too tall.” She was still a good two inches shorter than me in the heels, so I reckoned not.) Those were good years. Hell, it was at that time that I met my now-husband, who soared above me at 6’4”. I suppose after my body stopped growing physically, I grew emotionally into my height and began to really enjoy it.

And now, I’d say that I like being as tall as I am . . . about 95% of the time. I love being able to have face-to-face conversations with my husband and our tall male friends. I loved being significantly taller than some of the megalomaniac male partners with whom I worked at my former big law firms. I love being able to see above heads and avoid the sense of claustrophobia that must hit those of shorter stature in subway cars packed wall-to-wall. I love being able to make use of all the shelving in my kitchen without a step-stool.

Of course, there are some irritating things about being tall.

There is the clothes-shopping business. Yes, it’s difficult to find clothes that fit me perfectly (unless it’s a wedding gown. Those of you who are not built like me and who have shopped for a wedding gown might agree when I note that wedding gowns are, apparently, tailored exclusively for thin women who are six feet or taller. I would have a collection of them and wear one to work every day if it were practical.) Indeed, I am still actively boycotting Brooks Brothers after an unpleasant run-in with a salesperson in the Philadelphia store’s women’s department. I was looking for a suit. The sales person told me that Brooks Brothers’ suits “run tall” and that “they were sure to fit me.” She said perhaps I’d have to get the hem let out on the pants. I told her that pants were seldom a problem (everyone makes long pant legs now), but that jackets were. She shook her head vigorously, saying the sleeves in Brooks Brothers’ jackets “ran long.”** I rolled my eyes and tried on a jacket right then and there. Naturally, the cuff hit somewhere about an inch south of my elbow. Her eyes widened as she gasped, “Where do you even find anything that fits you?” I told her I was certain I wasn’t the biggest freak she’d seen all day, handed her the jacket, and left.

Then there is the men-in-bars business. I’ve had separate men, in separate bars, approach me and tell me they were interested in me because I made for “good breeding stock.” Okay. Perhaps these men spent too much time in their 4-H clubs, talking about cattle? I’ve had men send their shortest friend over to hit on me, presumably because they thought it would be funny. Because nothing is funnier than mocking a short friend and a tall stranger, unless it’s dong so from across a crowded bar.

There is also the random-comment-on-the-street business. This is a little odder than the men-in-bars business, because presumably, the people who make these comments are not influenced by alcohol:

I’m in line for pizza when the woman standing next to me smiles and says, “I have a girlfriend who is 5’11”!” I never know what to say to people like this. “Congratulations”? “Good for her”?

I’m waiting to board a plane and the ticket-scanner asks me how tall I am. What? Why? Is this like an amusement park ride? Am I too tall to fly?

Or, I’m trying to commute to work like a productive adult, and the turnstile guy wants to announce to the entire platform how I should go pro in a sport I’ve never been able to play with any measure of success.

I don’t mean to whine. But come on. Why is it okay to comment on how tall I am? Would you go up to an Indian person and say, “I have a girlfriend who is Indian!”? Would you ask a heavy person how much she weighs? Would you announce the presence of a short man on a train platform, and suggest he should be a jockey?

You would not. It is not generally acceptable to comment on the physical characteristics of a stranger.

So, what about that marginally-unbalanced man on the street today? What was he going to ask me? Well, I’ll never know for sure. But if I were a betting girl, I’d wager he was going to inquire about my height.

But I’m not really upset with him. At least he appeared a little off-kilter, and therefore has some sort of an excuse for his behavior. It’s everybody else that needs to have…maybe just a little more couth.



*This is true, even though for the life of me, I can’t seem to remember to call him by his real name, which is ‘Ramiro.’ Instead, I call him ‘Emilio,’ which is the name of my street. I am particularly aggrieved by this error, because it forces me to confront the possibility that I believe all Latino names are interchangeable, which can’t possibly be the case, given that I am so progressive and open-minded, and know many, many Latino people. Of course, I don’t call the other doormen ‘Emilio.’ Is it because their names are Pierre and Tony? Ugh. I hope not.

**It drives me nuts when people who aren’t “tall” talk about how I should try so-and-so brand because it “runs long.” Does it? Let’s see. You’re 5’5”. I am seven inches taller than you. Does that brand run seven inches long?

Long Before the Real Slim Shady Stood Up

The exercise on page 85 of the Gotham Writers’ Workshop text instructs the writer to draft a passage from the point of view of an “unreliable narrator”, i.e., someone who skews the facts, intentionally or unintentionally. The exercise brought the book Atonement by Ian McEwan to my mind right away, wherein a small girl’s misinterpretation of a romantic encounter has catastrophic consequences.

Little kids usually do make unreliable narrators. In fact, I can think of a number of times when I, myself, was the unreliable narrator in my own internal monologue. Much of this was due to my own misinterpretation. When I think back on what I thought was true, my “logic” makes me laugh.

For example, as a small child, I somehow got the impression that when I was a baby, I had been black. What? This makes no sense to me now. I’m not black. I don’t even get tan. I don’t recall having a theory on what had happened to turn me white, or whether I thought my siblings, too, had been black as babies. It is possible that this theory stemmed from the fact that as the youngest in my family, there was a disproportionately small number of photographs of me as a baby, and those that existed inexplicably were often of me in a shadow. Perhaps I thought my skin-in-shadow was actually African-American skin.

Hm. What else? I recall inquiring as a child about the large tower near the highway that bore the name of my home town on its large, spherical top. My parents explained that it was a water tower and that it was the source of our entire neighborhood’s water supply. I gave this some thought, and figured out how it worked. With my own rudimentary engineering skills, I determined that late at night, while I slept, the tower shot water out of a blow hole. This water then soaked into everybody’s yard and was absorbed into our homes via pipes. (For what it’s worth, I’d probably do no better today trying to figure out how a water tower actually operates.)

One summer, when I was about seven years old, I went to our swim club in the late afternoon with my dad. He carried with him a small Tupperware thermos that he planned to offer to my parent’s friends while we ate dinner alfresco. One of the men teased my dad, mockingly asking what he might have in his thermos. My dad then laughingly swore to the man that it was lemonade. About forty-five minutes later, I came out of the pool ready for a thirst-quencher, and proceeded to take a good long swig of what was probably the worst-tasting lemonade I ever had.

Indeed, I would have supposed that the “lemonade” landed in the incorrect slot once it burned its way down my throat, for I had also figured out digestion and anatomy on my own. I envisioned that if I were sliced open, you would find something that looked a lot like a pinball game. Instead of organs, I imagined my insides had specific slots for every kind of food, e.g., an area for chicken, a small area for soda (which one could only consume on special occasions in my house), an underused area for peas, which I despised. I mean, how else would things work?


I must’ve spent a lot of time thinking about food, because I also used to think that if you ate a product at the same time you were watching an advertisement for it on television, that product would taste better. This last one actually makes me want to cry, for certainly that was exactly the intent of the advertisers. I remember the time I figured out that this wasn’t true. I was eating Corn Flakes while watching Saturday morning cartoons, and determined that they did, in fact, taste exactly as they always had.

It’s such a strange thing, remembering your old theories and ideas. Some of mine are actually a little embarrassing (as opposed to the above, which clearly demonstrate my developing genius?). My best friend, with whom I played all of the time, from my toddler years on through the first or second grade, had the same first name as I. We spelled it differently, but our formal names were the same, and we both went by the same nickname. I can recall introducing ourselves to people. We’d both say our names:

“I’m Actchy.”
“My name is Actchy, too!”

But then I’d always add: “…but I’m the real Actchy.”

Um. The real Actchy? Why on earth would I say that? My friend wasn’t pretending her name was Actchy. Her name was Actchy just as much as mine was. And yet I remember feeling really strongly that people should know that I was the real Actchy, because I was the real Actchy.

What’s even stranger is that the other Actchy didn’t protest this at all. She would just sort of nod and we’d be along our way.

Years later, I asked the other Actchy what that was about, and, specifically, why she hadn’t protested my claims as the real Actchy. She remembered things differently. She does recollect that I would always say I was the real Actchy, but she claims that this assertion would be followed by a lighthearted mock debate that consisted of the two of us exchanging the line “No, I’m the real Actchy!” until we got tired of it.

Okay. Well, maybe? That would make me feel better about myself, at least. I would rather think I was part of an Abbott and Costello-like routine (albeit sort of a lame one), than a self-important bossy mini-diva.

Who is the unreliable narrator here? Sadly, I think it might be the other, “unreal” Actchy.

But I’m curious. Do you have any memories that could bring the unreliable narrator into focus? Do share.

My Favorite One is from TV's "The Jeffersons"

So, some of you loyal Beyond Pickles readers may be wondering whatever became of Path Train Jimmy. When last you heard, I had illegally purchased one of his “R&B” CDs for the bargain price of five dollars.

“So?” I hear you asking. “How was the CD?”

Um.

Dream sequence:

Actchy arrives in the Christopher Street Path station and feeds her fare card through the turnstile. Path Train Jimmy approaches her timidly.

“I wanted to thank you again for supporting my musical aspirations, even though it meant risking an unfortunate interaction with the Port Authority police. I would love to hear about your thoughts on my album, if you have the time before your train arrives,” Jimmy entreats.

Actchy offers Jimmy a kind smile.

“Jimmy,” she begins, “I listened to your CD. It was much different than other R&B albums I have in my collection. And while your voice is not bad, and the fact that you have pursued the production of an independent musical collection demonstrates a certain amount of industriousness on your part, I wish you would consider the ramifications of your lyrics. They are both degrading to women and vulgar to the point of embarrassment. And while it sounds like you have given a great deal of thought to your image, perhaps you could try to consider exploring themes aside from what you, personally, find physically alluring in the opposite sex? It might make for a more meaningful artistic expression.”

Jimmy nods. “Actchy, I hadn’t thought of it that way. You know what? I think you might be right! I hope the album didn’t offend you, and that you didn’t play it on your computer at work or within earshot of small children.”

Actchy beams at Jimmy, and gives him a wave as she boards the train. Jimmy offers a thumbs-up as the train pulls away. He resolves to work on new material when he completes his shift.

End sequence.

Oooooog.

Okay. So, first off, Path Train Jimmy’s CD is a really, really bad rap album. It is crude without any hints of humor to temper the vulgarity. Each of the songs* includes a lengthy lyric about EJ(AKA “Path Train Jimmy”) and how jealous all of humanity is of his prowess and how talented and successful he is on the rap circuit (“Dey don’t kno-o-o-ow what dey fuckin’ wid…”) Suffice it to say, this seems like a bit of a stretch to me.

Oh, and I fear Path Train Jimmy has engaged in a bit of copyright infringement, in that one of his songs includes a verse from the theme song from TV’s “The Jeffersons.” I suppose it’s possible that Jimmy secured permission before dubbing in Ja’net Du Bois’ voice belting out “We finally got a piece…of the pie” during the beginning of “Gangsta Funk,” but I tend to doubt it.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out how inherently odd it is that Path Train Jimmy/EJ is a white guy.

Now, I didn’t listen to the entire album, soup to nuts. It was just too much for me to digest. Frankly, I didn’t feel like I owed the guy anything, at that point. I mean, I didn’t have to purchase the CD to begin with.


But the fact remained that Path Train Jimmy awaited me every morning at the turnstile.

First he asked me if I loved the album. Not what my thoughts were, but “if I loved the album.”

“It was great.”

“What’s you favorite song?” he wanted to know.

Favorite song? Crap. Oh, wait. I do remember the Jeffersons theme song! I offered that as my preferred EJ number.

“Yeah!” Big smile from Path Train Jimmy. “That’s what everybody says!”

Bah.

Anyway, I thought the exchange was over. Done and done. No more talk about this stinking album. (Which, for the record – pun only partially intended – is called “November, 2007: V. 1”. Very creative, Jimbo.)

Except then Path Train Jimmy began a daily series of inquiries over whether I had added his work to my Ipod. Okay, honestly? Enough of this. I am NOT putting that crap on my Ipod. (This is really saying something, because as you may recall, my standards for music on my Ipod is pretty low (read: MMMBop by Hansen).) I would reply every morning with, “Not yet!” and an increasingly irritated smile.

Eventually, of course, I lied and told him that I had, indeed, added him to my Ipod.

And somewhere around this time, he began greeting me by doing a fist punch high-five: the knuckle-to-knuckle variety. This greeting makes me a little uncomfortable in general, because it’s totally unnatural for me. I’m not even a regular high-five person (I tend to “miss” every once in a while when pursuing a high-five; coordination isn’t necessarily my strong suit.) But, whatever, I figured that it’s far more sanitary of a ‘hello’ than a high-five, and certainly more so than a hand-shake. So, knuckle-punches it is. Word.

And then, all of the sudden, he was gone.

Path Train Jimmy disappeared from the Christopher Street station. I thought at first that he was on vacation (South Beach seemed a likely destination). Weeks passed, though, and I began to suspect the worst. Clearly Path Train Jimmy was canned. Probably for selling albums during his official work hours, on Port Authority property.

Fast forward to this past Monday morning. I am heading through the turnstile, per my norm.

“Heeeey!”

I look up. Jimmy!

“Hey! Where the hell have you been? I thought you were gone for good!” I exclaim, removing one of my earbuds.

I was astounded at my delight in his reappearance. I had actually been somewhat relieved when Jimmy ceased to be a part of my routine, for I had begun to dread our exchange each morning. It was as if he were a joke that went on for too long.

“No way man! EJ is right here, in full effect!”

And then he moved forward, and – I shit you not – gave me a hug.

Welcome home, Jimmy.


*“Heated on the lock”
“Sexy”
“Haters”
“Gangsta Funk”
“C-N-D Anthem”
“Ghetto Vibe”

I'll tell you what to do with that coffee can

Page 81 of the Gotham Writers’ Workshop text instructs the reader to draft a story about a person who goes to mail a letter that will deliver bad news. The trick is that the assignment asks for a re-write of this same story a few different times. Each time is supposed to include the point of view of a different sort of person: a teenager, a middle-aged man, a widow, etc. You, the writer, have to consider how the same set of facts can affect people in myriad ways.

It’s certainly true that a situation will mean different things to different people. And indeed, as I would’ve gathered from the chapter heading, it’s all about point of view.

I recently went to visit the new home of one of my friends for the first time. She took me on a tour, including the room of her fiancé’s teenaged daughter. The room was a little messy. My friend expressed mild frustration, noting that she had asked the teenager to make it spick-and-span clean, and that apparently this disorganization was the result.

I shrugged, though. I was a sloppy child, and a disgracefully messy teenager. My parents eventually gave up on me to some extent, and only forced me to clean my room when the clutter was “four feet high and rising.” Indeed, as a young child, I thought “bomhidditt” was a word that meant “a really messy room,” for my mother frequently announced that my room looked like a “bomb hit it.”

With hindsight, I really appreciate that my parents seemed to comprehend that I was innately unable to keep a tidy room. They didn’t force the issue, and seemed to understand where I was coming from. They had one child who was a neat-nick, one who was a disaster, and one who fell somewhere in between. They instituted an early rule that so long as I hung my uniform up after school, general chaos could otherwise reign.

Chaos really did reign, too. My Lord. During my high school years, when my mom was back to work, my parents hired a cleaning person to come in every couple of weeks. On those days, they insisted that I make it so that Vavoom* could vacuum and dust. I took the instruction literally. I would pick up the piles of clothing, books, notes, CD cases, bottles of Dippity-Do, etc., from the floor and bureau surfaces and pile everything onto my bed. At the day's end, my room was clean, but still a nightmare.

Hell, I remember my sister standing in my room and observing the carnage and saying, “Actchy, your college roommate is going to hate you.”

So, did I think my friend’s stepdaughter-to-be was a disgrace? Hells no.

The thing is, I outgrew being a disaster. I really did. I’m not sure exactly when the change occurred, but I’m no longer a messy person. And I’d have to survey my college roommates, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t hate me. Perhaps I heeded my sister’s warning? I mean, I wasn’t the “neat” roommate by any stretch of the imagination, but I wasn’t Oscar Madison either.

I actually believe there was an evening out among my siblings and me, eventually. My neat-nick sister is now tidy but not anal-retentive-ly so (of course, this may be attributed to the fact that she has three children and couldn’t keep a perfectly neat house unless she was some sort of cyborg). I keep my home neat and clean (occasionally tricky, for my husband is, in his natural state, pretty damn sloppy). My brother has stayed somewhere in the middle. Perhaps we had some sort of blending of our points of view?

Although, I suppose one of the reasons for my eventual transformation was the roommate I had during my first year of law school. She had never lived outside of her parents’ home, having been a commuting undergraduate student. We were randomly assigned to share a two-bedroom efficiency in the law school’s residence.

She was So. Freaking. Messy.

She actually explained herself to me on this matter, once. Apparently, her mother forced neatness upon her when she was living at home, and the fact that she now controlled her own realm made her feel independent. Bully for her independence, but it nearly killed me. Aside from the giant hairballs she produced which migrated into my room, my closest, and occasionally into my food, she was horrific at cleaning. For there is a huge difference between “sloppy” and “dirty” and I am sad to report that she fell into both categories. For example, she was one of the early adopters of the Atkins diet. For weeks on end, she ate nothing but gefilte fish, cheese-filled hotdogs and bacon. (For what it’s worth, I do understand the irony of her eating patterns, choosing both traditional Jewish dishes and that which is completely non-kosher, i.e., “meat”-wrapped dairy and, well, pig.) She would place the empty gefilte fish jars next to the trashcan, where we kept our recyclables, but would actually place them there while still full of the liquid in which the gefilte fish came. (If you think days-old, non-refrigerated fish juice smells funny, you are correct.)

And then there was the bacon. The bacon was a huge problem, for she had absolutely no idea how to clean up after bacon-cooking, nor, apparently, a desire to do so. After realizing that everything in the kitchen was covered in a half-inch of congealed fat, I gave her an empty coffee can with lid and instructed her to keep the bacon grease in it, noting that it would solidify in the refrigerator and we could then throw the can into the trash.

Fast forward a few weeks. I was making myself dinner, and was out of olive oil. I began opening up various cabinets looking for a substitute – because we had very different eating habits, my roommate and I kept separate cabinets and I seldom ventured into hers.

I think you may guess where this is going.

In one of her cabinets, I found the coffee can full of bacon grease.

The can did not have the lid on it.

It was just sitting there, its sides slick with fat, containing an uncovered putrid stew of indescribable awfulness. I almost hyperventilated. I mean, we weren’t attending a school out in the woods somewhere: this was Washington, D.C.! Divine intervention is the only way I can explain the fact that we didn’t have a colony of cockroaches scrambling in our cupboards.

Man. I’m getting the willies just thinking about it again. It was horrible.

So, yeah. After that I really tried to keep things orderly in my home, wherever that happened to be (and you might guess that home never again included this Atkins-loving woman.) Maybe the bacon-grease deal was a “there but for the grace of God go I” moment, but to be honest, I don’t really think so. I had started to transition long before my first year of law school.

And I think I can thank my parents for not forcing me to keep my room ship-shape. Perhaps the answer to the question “how can I get my child to keep a clean room” is “you shouldn’t.” I mean, one minute you’re insisting they pick up their dirty laundry, the next thing you know, they’re stowing fish juice on the floor next to a hairball the size of the family cat and unrefrigerated bacon grease in dark closets.

The desired point of view should be somewhere in the middle, where a random pair of shoes on the floor won’t send you off the deep end, but there is no immediate threat of plague-bearing vermin in your walls. Admittedly, it’s a slippery slope.



*Our cleaning lady was not actually named “Vavoom.” The name stems from the very first time a cleaning person arrived at our home. My father was expecting some sort of doddering, white-haired older lady (I’m not quire sure why; possibly he thought there was an abundance of English housekeepers in New Jersey), and was startled when an attractive, mid-30s woman arrived in tight-fitting aerobic attire. She cleaned the house while bopping along to her Walkman. After that first day, my dad reported to the family his surprise. “Vavoom” stuck, irrespective of the different women who have come and gone: “Actchy, pick up your room; Vavoom is coming tomorrow.”

Aries, the Ram

The Point of View chapter in GWW got me to thinking about Beyond Pickles, and the fact that I have inserted myself as your narrator in the first-person. This is typical for a blog, I suppose. Could I have written from a different point of view? I’ve always liked the idea of the “omniscient narrator.” Maybe I should’ve tried that?

“Actchy glances at the calendar on the wall, notes the circled ‘28th’ and smiles. She has always loved her birthday.”

Today is my birthday. I am thirty-two years old.

I’m not one for getting hot and bothered about another year under my belt; indeed, I sort of like to look back and think about how I’ve grown. (Figuratively, not literally – although during my youth it was truly amazing how much I had physically grown each year. I used up several adolescent birthdays wishes pleading my body to stop. I think it worked, though it was touch and go there for a while; fortunately, I didn’t get past six feet.) This year is no exception. Birthdays are for celebration: another year spent with people I love, generally doing things I like to do.

I’ll have a fine dinner tonight with my beloved. Tomorrow we are hosting a small get-together, which should be fun. I kind of wish, though, that I could consult with the omniscient narrator, to see what excitement awaits me.

Last year, on the night before my birthday, I had dinner with some college girlfriends at Pastis, a restaurant in our neighborhood. I love the restaurant; though it gets a little scene-y, it has nice food and fantastic warm, lively atmosphere. Also, it gets its fair share of interesting clientele. That night was no exception, and indeed, Barbara Walters sat at the table next to ours. New York restaurants being what they are in terms of space, she was sitting about six inches to my left, conservative estimate. I said nothing to her, though I did smile at her when she left. (Regular readers might guess that I no longer trust myself to speak in front of celebrities.)

A few hours later, in the middle of the night, my husband woke me up by shaking me lightly and exclaiming, “Actchy. What the hell are you doing?”

Hm. I was trying to scratch my back. I had been dreaming that my back was itchy.

Wait. My back was itchy. It was really freaking itchy.

I got out of bed to examine myself. Sure enough, my back was covered in a rash.

There is only one explanation for this: I am allergic to Barbara Walters. (I had thought that perhaps I was allergic to being 31. However, I did not pass the remaining 365 days of this year in hives. Further, I have not seen Barbara Walters since this encounter. Ergo, Barbara Walters is the probable cause of my creeping scourge.)

I’ve had a few other goofy birthday-related mishaps. When I was sixteen, my birthday fell in the middle of the week. My best friend joined my parents and me at home for a small celebratory dinner. My mom brought out my birthday cake with the obligatory sixteen candles. When I leaned over to blow them out, the left side of my (admittedly large, Jersey-esque) hair caught fire. Nice. The force of my scream actually extinguished the flames before anyone could dump a container of water on my head or pursue other fun flame-quelling tactics. I will tell you what, though: few things smell worse than burned hair, unless it’s burned hair that had been shellacked with Dippity-Do to control the frizz.

Me and my big hair. For my 30th Birthday, I got to revisit those big-hair days when I attended an 80s Prom-themed house party. It was a really freaking great party. So great, in fact, that it went on into the wee hours of the night. So great that I thought, in those wee hours, when my husband and I walked our friend out to find a taxi, and a strange woman -- in what could’ve been deemed 80s attire -- asked if she might join the party, I readily agreed.

And that is how I accidentally let a prostitute into a house party when I was way old enough to know better. (Not to worry. She eventually left.)

Anyway, I’m hoping I don’t break out into a rash, catch fire, or invite a hooker into my home this weekend. But I suppose a small part of me wants something ridiculous to happen. And maybe I am glad there is no omniscient author at Beyond Pickles. It’s nice not to know for sure what will go down. But something, no doubt, will. Otherwise, it just wouldn’t feel like my birthday.

The devil in my gym

I have this thing about stories that aren’t true.

I always want to believe them.

It’s not that I am gullible. On the contrary, I think I’m fairly good at picking stories that are grossly exaggerated from instances when the speaker is telling a verbatim account, to the extent possible, of what happened. It’s more that I hate when people tell lies. I’d much rather just play along and try to convince myself that the person speaks the truth. I’m not one for calling people out, even when I should (e.g., my client who assures me that she “sent me the information I requested last week” and that my computer must’ve “eaten the email.” ::eyeroll::)

I try to give the benefit of the doubt especially in those instances when I can’t get a read on the veracity of the story, but it comes from somebody I know and trust. Like, say, this old friend of mine from high school.

She lived in an old house in an historic town. The summer after our senior year was a strange one for that old house.

It was visited by a devil.

My friend saw him. She saw him when she came home late at night. He was a very small man -- a little person, actually -- wearing an old-fashioned 1920s era suit and a top hat. He didn’t move. He sat in her living room, in the middle of a formal sofa, and stared straight ahead.

She ignored him for several weeks. I’m not really sure why. But then again, I’m not sure what I would do if I saw a strange little person in my living room late at night.

Eventually, one night, her best friend slept over. While the little man didn’t appear that night on the sofa, my friend finally decided to share her story. It was her best friend, after all.

The next morning, her friend woke up and reported that she had dreamt of the little man.

When my friend opened her closet to get changed, she looked at the inside of its door to find an outline of the little man, complete with the hat.

At this point, my friend dissolved into hysteria. She woke her mom and told her the entire story. She showed her the drawing. Her brother heard the tale and reported that while he had never seen the little man, lately, every time he walked through the living room, all the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

The family had the house exorcized.

I kid you not.

The little man never came back.

Right.

So, do I believe this story? Well, I’m not sure. I saw the drawing on the back of the closet door with my own eyes, and my friend’s mom confirmed that the house had been exorcized. Her mother shuddered when she told me, shaking her head swiftly and saying, “And that’s the end of that!” I.e., no more questions, Actchy.

I have no reason to believe my friend wasn’t telling the truth. I do, however, have some questions as to whether her best friend is a crazy bitch who decided to freak the shit out of my friend by etching a small man on the inside of a closet door.

I don’t necessarily believe in ghosts. Or devils. But to be honest, I don’t really ever think about ghosts. Or devils. Who am I to say whether they exist or not? I mean, this was New Jersey.*

Anyway.

So, I go to this great gym. The facility is vast and clean, and it offers a ton of classes, a pool I will never use but seems worth mentioning in a list of the gym’s attributes, a basketball court that hosts games I can watch while I lift weights, and an extremely diverse membership. (The diverse membership is arguably my favorite thing about the gym. I once got on a treadmill only to notice that the man next to me was Hasidic. His treadmill was winding down, and unfortunately, I was never able to ascertain whether he had been walking, jogging or running in his dress shoes, white button-down, and black socks and trousers.)

I’m not fanatical about working out, but I am fairly good about it. I’m best when I’m working toward an event on my calendar. My best friend is getting married soon, and so for the past three weeks, I’ve been getting to the gym regularly. But by “regularly", I don’t mean that I’m there at the same time on the same days – I tend to hit the gym somewhere in the course of a 3 hour window on a few random days during the week, depending on my work schedule.

So you can imagine that I was a little surprised when I noted that lately, I see the same person every time I go to the gym.

I realized it tonight. I noticed this person initially because she’s so distinct. She’s very short of stature – perhaps even a little person. She appears to be wearing the same outfit constantly: cotton black pants with a black, long, full-sleeved cotton t-shirt and a baggy black cotton vest. She always wears the same black visor tucked into her voluminous shaggy hair. Every time I see her, she is on the abdominal crunch machine. Her face is always expressionless, and she wears no headphones. She works at a slow, methodical pace: a mechanical push forward…a mechanical ease backward. Repeat.

You see where I’m going with this, of course?

I thought of it today, because I was at the gym much later than I usually am, and I was flabbergasted to see her again. I suddenly realized that she’s always on the same damn machine. Whenever I’m doing my free weights. No matter what time I am there!

I have never seen her in the locker room.** I do not see her on the track. I don’t even see her on the other machines.

Is she really there?

Can anybody else see her?

Wait, did the hair on the back of my neck just stand up?

Believe me or not. But do consider the source: here at Beyond Pickles, we do not lie.

I may tell my husband about her tonight. So help me if I wake up to an etched image of her on the inside of my closet, though. It’d be tough to find a priest with an open schedule during Holy Week.


*For those of you who aren’t up on your Garden State history, I will explain that the Jersey Devil is a real part of state folklore. Hence the name of the NHL team. Which, for what it’s worth, is a sore spot for one dapper octogenarian I once met on the Newark Light Rail. I helped him get his ticket when he was having trouble navigating the automated dispenser, and thereafter he saw fit to tell me that he was in town entreating everybody under the sun (the archbishop, a professor at NJIT, the mayor of Newark, the CEO of Prudential) to band together and remove "satanic imagery from the State of New Jersey's Ice Hokey team." I quote from his petition papers, a copy of which he gave to me to share with the law students with whom I was working at the time. I may have forgotten to do that.

**I actually usually keep my head down in the locker room. I’ve had an uncomfortable run-in or two, e.g., the time I saw a colleague of mine on her way from the shower with a towel wrapped solely around her waist. I have heard tell of worse stories: my friend T. was once changing in a crowded locker room, when he bent down to take off his gym shorts. In so doing, he accidentally hit the man sitting on the bench adjacent to the lockers. He hit him in the face. He hit him in the face with his bare ass. T. still hasn’t recovered.