On the Subway, Without Pants

It surprised me how incredibly organized everyone was: a herd of smiling sheep, huddling close, crossing intersections, walking down the dirty stairs silently into their assigned positions.

A crowd of 300 of pantsed persons gathered in Foley Square yesterday, waiting patiently to hear when and how would be de-pantsing. We weren't the only ones. Stations strategically placed throughout the city and many of it's bouroughs held just as many of us, covering all trains from the 1 to the 7, the A to the Z, and 66 cities around the world (apparently this is huge in Berlin) joined our bare-leggedness worldwide. We were broken up according to our birthday month, Januarys in the front car of the train, Decembers in the back, and then from there we broke up into subsets as to who would be de-pantsing first. From the City Hall 6 train stop, all the way up to 59th street, we gradually became less and less trousered. Eventually, all 3,000 of us converged in Union Square for a Pantsless celebration. I slid my jeans off around Astor Place, and waited on the platform for the next train, listening to my iPod and reading a book. Another pantsless gentleman came up to me, commenting on my shoes. I kicked out my naked leg and non-chalantly thanked him.

Throughout the frigid experience, we felt our adrenaline rise, our modesty fall, and our sense of unity completely solidify. The mid-winter whiteness of skin and goosebumped inner thighs only brought us closer together. Our audience (innocent unknowers) at first was baffled, then entertained, then charmed at the scene. And it was a scene, but a quiet one. Everyone minded their business, saying "excuse me" when they bumped someone with their boxered bum.

Check it out at Improve Everywhere

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Or This Random Website

Fifth Gear

Through the sideways snow, the looping traffic of Chicago and the stinking cities of Indiana, the frozen white Ohio farmlands, and the rolling foothills of Pennsylvania, I could feel the miles spread out between me and home. As we wove into and out of tiny cities made of ashes, Dylan, Blind Melon, The Brothers Avett and our favorite Cult of Clouds mingled with our best belting karaoke voices. There were stretches on I-80 where we made plans in silence, knowing that the crumbs would fall wherever they damn well pleased: in the cracks of the seats, inside the seat belt slot, within the fibers of the carpet - and we'd find them eventually if we needed to. Tossing pennies in the tolls and flicking off slip-sliding semis, chugging coffee and cursing the New Jersey Turnpike's ghostly curves, we made it through the well-marked Manhattan streets, over the Brooklyn Bridge, down Court Street. As the blinker ticked to the left onto Butler Street, I began to breathe again.

Between the brain-busting trivia of which pop band was originally from Gary, Indiana, the ever-popular "who can spot the most states on the license plates" game, and the name-that-author ABC game, I stared out the side-view mirror, watching Christmas memories float out in the exhaust.

I hugged more people than I had planned on hugging, and ate more gyros than I would ever have imagined eating. I played a good amount of Rockband, and watched the Packers with a new found zeal. I felt my nephew slide like a fish beneath my hand, beneath skin, warm and waiting for January 27, and dove into his drawer full of tiny clothes with monkey feet and into his crib full of caterpillars and soft blankets. I experienced the difference between HDTV and regular TV and realized that its all TV to me. I had a hearty dose of Madisonalgia, ate at new restaurants and drank at old bars. I noticed cracks in the lettering in my Wisconsin t-shirts, cracks that narrated the years between me and college. Somehow I found myself at a swim meet in Homestead, smelling the sweet and sour smells of high school lunches and flirtatious hallways. I watched as gifts were showered upon one of my best friends, and under the blanket of wrapping paper and ribbon, my Mequon kindreds and I felt due pangs of pride in knowing we'd be standing next to her come October. We found others from our circle and danced harder than any prom, homecoming, or sadie hawkins combined. I looked into the face of a far-away love, cried tears drenched in hello and goodbye, cheeks red and breath held, we closed the swinging door, hopefully for the best. I sat by the fire on Christmas eve as my dad handed my brother a certificate of ownership of a company - and as they shook hands we all felt like we were on the top of the trees. I cushioned awkwardness with whiskey and found myself lost on a scarfless journey for a time - one that Karma would punish me for but I'll punish it right back soon enough. I played poker for high stakes with the big boys, and wrestled with the best presidentially named dog in the world. I travelled back in time to a cabin in Rhinelander, where it was just us girls, where we dipped our feet into the water while the rainbow trout nipped at our toes, where our chanting made the motor run, where we wrapped ourselves in songs and affection for one another, where our mothers giggled on the moonlit porch, where we will return someday.

I watched as these memories escaped behind the speeding Nissan, and then finally faced forward: making new years resolutions to say less, to stop worrying, and to stop cussing. I put it into fifth gear, and smiled at the decade ahead.

Bike City

Salvaged from the cobwebs of the garage, disassembled & dragged through 17 hours of highway, reassembled and ready to rock. Soon enough I'll look like this.

You Know What's Crazy?

My grey kneesocks are in Dolsky’s basement.

Alcohol can completely change the vibe of a party. Completely.

That everything around us, out of our control (or in it) takes over our lives, predicts it, changes it, navigates it:

            The Internet

            Money

            Alcohol

            Technology

            Gender

Speaking of gender: that’s what else is crazy. Women will always correct, motivate, push their lovers to be as best as they can.  They will glance across the center console, shooting lasers from their eyes to their men…always signaling: get on with the story/stop talking/you drive horribly/I need Subway. 

And men will always be there, dog-eyed and willing: to bend, to break, to fix the lamp and to build the wall, to hold your hair back and to calm you the cuss down, to hear it without having to listen, to turn off the light when you’re already under the covers, to warm up your cold hands, to eat what you make for him, to love love love love love, to agree with your opinions or counter them neatly and intelligently, to stop when you tell him to, leave the party with you when you’re tired, disagree with someone in your defense, eat your crusts, call you beautiful, tell you you’re right when even you know you’re wrong, internalize the feelings you’re thowingtossingchucking at him INCESSANTLY, breathe.  It’s so much more than opening car doors and paying the check.  

Ailing Shins and Enlarged Spleens

Paul only came to New York with a few expectations: to eat a sandwich in Brooklyn, to not see a Broadway show, and to spot a rat in the bowels of the subway. Check, check, and check.

We walked over bridges, under overpasses, and through steaming piles of Red Hook dog feces to find the best sandwich in Kings County. Pressured by the squawking Italian deli owner, he ordered a large, which was the size of a small child and was supposedly topped with razorblades.

Instead of seeing a Broadway show, we put on a 3-night show of our own, starring ourselves, with various props such as stuffed birds, chandeliers, a love seat, and the Garden State Soundtrack. The plot thickened as we educatedly debated the only thing we disagree upon (O) and I realized that he is the only person I can stand to prove me wrong...and then I lit my hair on fire. The second act of most of our shows included very little dialogue and the four of us "dancing" (if you consider jerky arm movements dancing). During intermission, we bashed crafts, made sure our socks were in our pockets, sang in the shower, complained of ailing shins and enlarged spleens, and made up new ways to cheer when the Packers scored a touchdown. Laughter was really what rubber-banded it all together, and it erupted not only from the audience but from on stage: silently, rolling on the ground, re-arranging my hernia.

And finally, as we dragged our feet to the A train to JFK, a fat rat appeared in the tracks as we hugged goodbye.

Good Winter to You

Bon Iver slips into my Pandora playlist from time to time, and no matter what mundane chart I am re-arranging, no matter what street corner I am on, what cafe I am in, no matter who it reminds me of or why... I cry.

Scholastic Holiday Party

I hit send on my last email of the shortened Friday, closed up the contract database, saved and closed the grid I was poking at, straightened my piles of this way and that papers, put my shoe back on, and headed for the stairs.  It was Friday, and it was party time.  The muffled bump and hum of rap music had slid up to the 9th floor from the 6th like the smoke monster on Lost, and the smell of chocolate and cheese wafted down from the 11th.  For some odd reason my apprehension far exceeded my excitement as I walked up to check out the scene with Maren.  I'd  imagined that it was going to be a scene straight out of The Office, or possibly the British Office, seeing as the alcohol intake of children's book publishers is much higher a percentage than one would innocently imagine.  Maybe we need more substance in order to come up with whacked-out ideas that children would love, like "Is Your Mama a Llama," or "I'm Your Bus." I expected awkward mingling, too-sweet wine, some table cloths, and  a chat or two with some people I only see hunched over their keyboards.  I was mistaken, in the grandest of ways.  

The 11th floor had a dance floor, packed with younger revellers, head bobbing and fist pumping to "Empire State of Mind," overlooking the lower Manhattan skyline.  I spoke with an art director who's breath was rank but I had never known she was in love with Belgium, had amazing taste in music, and was clinically claustrophobic.  

The 6th floor, which is usually the floor where all meetings take place, had catered delicacies like shrimp, leg of lamb, and cheese, cheese, cheese.  Somehow, we had found heaven, squished within the walls of Scholastic.  Maren and I tracked down our only crush - in publishing women don't have many options - whom we had nicknamed and swooned over just because.  He played it cool, though, poking at his iPhone and pretending to ignore our pleas to go up to the dance floor.  

The 2nd floor had coffee and cakes and randomly a huge screen with a video of snow falling in a quiet forest, on repeat.  I wasn't sure what to make of this video - was it supposed to make us feel that warm Christmas-y feeling?  I felt more like I was in a scene from Into the Wild.  People kept standing in front of the projector, the shadows of the falling snow drifting down their faces, until someone awkwardly pushed them to the side.  

We figured the 11th floor was where the In-Crowd was, so we headed up, wine glasses in hand, through our asylum of employment, the eeriness of drinking amid the deserted cubicles setting in.  When we arrived back on 11, the majority of the crowd stuck with "The white man's overbite" as their move of choice, but as the night wore on, the dancing became somewhat graphic.  

That was when Maren and my brown and blue eyes locked, glazed over, and we peaced out, to skip down Broadway and join the masses of the wintry Manhattan evening.