Blend

In approximately six days I will change my status of “living alone” to “having a roommate” for the first time in a year and a half. Yes, my cracking maroon and pumpkin walls will be home to two: the maroons for me, and the pumpkins for Maren Monitello, a spritely Ohio native whose sarcasm nearly matches mine and whose love for books just might (gasp!) surpass mine. We both felt the need to grab our financial situations by the cajones, and we also hung out together far too much to deny our relationship its inevitable rise to the next level… at least for the next 3 months.

A few weeks ago, it started: I took pictures of my many dispensable possessions and sold most of them on eBay and Craigslist. {This is a story for another time, but when I sold my olive&plum desk to a bearded Williamsburg hipster, and he towered over me in my kitchen, chit chatting about typewriters and the difference between oak and maple, I couldn’t help but consider asking the guy if he wanted a glass of wine…and wonder how many relationships start via this weird post & pick-up routine that we’ve all begun doing.} I slid my bed to a different corner, my dresser by the world map, the old love seat under the window, and took a deep breath. I dragged the tall bookshelf into my bedroom and the short bookshelf in too, and collapsed on my kitchen floor. I rolled up my green rug and shoved it into the closet… realizing the closet needed a once over twice too. I got down on my knees and scrubbed Murphy’s into the thick wooden slabs that are my living room floor, squeaked a rag over the windows in the front room, and chugged some H2O. Posters came down, nails were removed from their posts, and hammered into others. Lamps switched off and switched rooms. Shelves in the bathroom were scoured, and plants were moved here, and then there, and then back over here. The place was poised for a new life.

Maren started bringing her plastic boxes and paper bags full of books, DVD’s, food processors, cream of tartar, and Cuisine Art pots and pans. The art on her walls will be vintage book covers, the lotion she wears smells good. The best addition by far, though, is the blender. Within 12 hours of its presence in my kitchen, I began to blend fruit, like the old days. Bananas splashed into welcoming orange juice, followed by blueberries, strawberries and peaches. Would you like a free boost with that? My excitement continued when I found an old soup cookbook I’ve never been able to use, and I began blending leeks with diced celery and seedless cucumber and coriander.

With these mixtures and matches of flavors and tastes, comes the blending of two lives, one part Kelly Link and one part David Sedaris; one part Justice and one part Radiohead; one part Tazo Zen tea and one part Mexican roast coffee; one part Monty Python and one part Requiem for a Dream…and I think it will make for a delicious combination.

Mazel tov

i love you, said he

likewise, said she

i'll love you, said he

how much, said she?

so much, said he

me too, said she

will you, said he

yes, said she

In Thailand, Thinking Snow

Manhattan is covered in a screaming white down blanket.

August 23, 2007: 97 degrees and humid:
-I remember building forts out of the mountainous snow banks made by the enormous yellow robots near the playground at Donges Bay - we'd dig holes through the sides, two people on each side to dig and dig and dig until our little gloves were soaked and our fingers were tiny icicles. We'd finally get through, widen the tunnel, and sit inside until the bell rang.
-Sliding around on the ice cover one of the Twin Lakes in West Bend with the whole Camin family and the whole Mattingly family, wearing puffy, light blue full body snow suit.
-Ice skating at Stormath with dad, who had to lace up and tie my ice skates for me. We'd skate around and then come in from the cold and sip hot chocolate from his thermos. He'd tell us stories of three brothers stuck in an underwater tornado of another world, as we stuck our dripping blades on the fireplace.
-Sledding at Meequon Hill with friends, somehow always sledding slantways, straight for the orange fence on the westernmost edge of the hill.
-Waking up every winter Saturday morning and heading for Laake & Joy's to board a bus which took us to Little Switzerland, Sunburst, or Wilmont. The bus rides were usually the highlight, flirting with the foul-mouthed boys and being mean to the frostbitten girls.
-Traipsing through three feet of snow between the trees and over the deer tracks on our property with dad, navigating our way to where our cabin would soon stand.

Scholastic: 1 Year Review

A series of stairs and elevators parade and slide me into and out of my day...after day...after day, and from February 5, 2009 to February 5, 2010, I've learned...

Title means book.

Advance means $$$$.

That there are clues. 39 of them. And everyone in the world wants to know them.

That this guy puts my rent check in my landlord's slot, with a magical wave of his wand.

That you can be 27 and write amazing books.

I can write 45 emails in one hour.

If you stare at a screen for too long, your mind/soul/creative juices go blank.

That the food is delectable in Italy and the efficiency is incredible in Germany.

That the art in a picture book can be just as stunning as the words.

That liquids are essential: coffee in the morning, water throughout, and wine afterwards.

That I am a human chess piece.

That employment means security, contact lenses, education, satisfaction...

...but it is binding, taxing, at times degrading, and has bogarted my sense of freedom.

The Words of Scott Turner. Because, Wow.

I love Brooklyn.

I hate Brooklyn.

Is it any wonder these battling eternities go hand in hand?

Somewhere in the recent past, Brooklyn turned into "Brooklyn." To use one of Mayor Bloomberg's more jackassed constructs, Brooklyn has become a "destination." What does that mean? For starters, it's something for visitors to Brooklyn, not the people who live here. We're already here. How can it be a destination?

Normally, that kind of idea would just be a mostly-harmless tourism inducement. But with jackals like Bloomberg and Markowitz, it's far more harmful and insidious.

Bloomberg has made a mayoral career out of keeping his hands clean when they're dirty beyond all measures of political hygiene. He throws more money and legal bribery around than Boss Tweed ever dreamed, all the while the local media and citizenry letting him scamper back to the Upper East Side, unaffected and untroubled.

Hizzoner doesn't do the hard work on issues that has residents screaming -- affordable housing, job creation, education. Instead, he focuses on big-ticket projects that only enrich real-estate friends of his -- the new Mets stadium, the new Yankees stadium, Atlantic Yards, Willets Point, Columbia expansion, Greenpoint/Williamsburg rezoning, Coney Island, 4th Avenue upscaling, the West Side Stadium, the 7 train extension, the Hudson Yards, the Olympic bid.

You know what? Marty Markowitz is the most Manhattan-centric guy in the borough. He wants an NBA team...like Manhattan has. He wants tall office and condo buildings...like Manhattan has. He wants an onslaught of tourists...like Manhattan has. He wants a huge sports arena...like Manhattan has. He wants corporations in Brooklyn...just like Manhattan has. He wants asthma-exacerbating traffic jams...just like Manhattan has. He wants more wealthy people to move into "urban Brooklyn" (his phrase) with the inevitable displacement of working-class communities of color, just like Manhattan has...he wants as many big non-union chain stores as he can get...just like Manhattan has. He wants Brooklyn to have "destination status"...just like Manhattan has.

And still...and still...there's the beauty. Flatbush on a summer day with reggae and soca pouring out of the shops...the elegant latticework of the Brooklyn Bridge...the delicious food from anywhere in the world just about anywhere in the borough...stoops in warm-weather twilights...the history of the place, from the Battle of Brooklyn, Weeksville, Ocean Hill/Brownsville, Yusuf Hawkins, the Crown Heights riots, the wharves and small businesses and the Dodgers (and also Royal Giants, Americans, Tigers, Bay Parkways, Bushwicks, Bridegrooms, Robins, and yes, the Superbas!) and Walt Whitman and Shirley Chisholm and the Roeblings and Jackie Gleason and the Fox Theater and immigration stories piled high and tall-tales piled even higher.

Brooklyn is fists ready to fly and fists held high.

Precisely the reason that if Brooklyn is to survive and be more than just a spiteful diminutive man's "destination," it has to agitate. Always and forever agitating. Every heartbeat an agitation -- the energy necessary to pump blood through our veins. Agitation for life, for eccentricity, for oddity, for community and family and at least one good locally-owned pizzeria within walking distance. As contentment is the death knell for rock bands (and rappers too), so will complacency walk Brooklyn down Memory Lane after the lobotomy kicks in.