Chase?

I got up this morning and muddled my way through the covers and out of bed. Pajama clad, I went to the bathroom to wash my hands. (Don't ask - habit.) The floor was cold on my little feet and I shivered in the air like an air conditioner blasting into my face. Sometimes, in the summer, I stand in front of a real one to cool down, but usually, it just makes my even-frizzier-than-normal hair hang limp. But that was when I was warm; at the moment, my probably was that I was ridiculously cold. Rounding the doorframe of my room, I stepped over a shape of the floor and set a toe in the hallway. Suddenly, a jingle grabbed my ear and something fuzzy hit my Achilles, followed by the soft noise of motor. The signs were clear: Cosmo, my fat ol' tomcat, was riled and wanted to play.

Cautiously, I set my other foot in the hall. It happened again, from the other direction. And again, from behind. There was only one thing to do. If I tried to pick him up, he'd bite my hand. If I tried to pet him, he'd keep me there for hours. If I got angry and sprayed him with the spray bottle, he'd get even more riled. Yes, it was time for the ignore. I walked down the hall, foot after foot, fast enough that Cosmo couldn't get a paw into the mix. He decided to run alongside me instead. Like me, after an unchasable dream, refusing to admit its win against my spirit. Cats are loyal. Who ever said cats weren't loyal? I'll tell you're wrong about chase. I'll tell you this: Yes I - I mean he - can.

The Oscars

It's special to watch someone you don't know cry over an award you are jealous of beyond belief, gleaming in the whites of your eyes. Whether it be your favorite, like Anne Hathaway, or the favorite, like Anne Hathaway, or a guy you really don't care about at all, like that guy from the Tarantino movie - why did he win again? Sometimes, I imagine myself standing up there, in the red ballgown I bought at an auction in upstate New York, a beautiful burgundy with blue shades; the full skirt would flap around my feet and I would laugh a little as Jennifer Lawrence handed me a little gold man... I wanted to be the youngest actress to ever win best, but now I'm twelve: too late.

The First Audition

First off was the dance portion. My long-time director got up on the stage, and the record-breaking thirty auditioners crowded behind her, trying to see her feet as she quickly walked us through a nine-bar routine to "Tradition." No one got it, despite the large portion of it which was walking, and even the typical stars became confused in their rehearsals and small group presentations of the dance. I was assigned to the last group, so I had lots of time to scream inside. Along the way, I gave the rest of the stragglers lessons in the grapevine and in how to be Jewish for a freestyle at the end. The instructions for the freestyle were "dance in a Jewish way," and as a folk dancer and half Jew, I was the expert. Finally, we were up: seven of us, four in the back and three in the front. I was in the back. The first time through, I simply stood for a bar because I forgot what to do. Then, though, the second time, when I was in the front: I nailed it, even with my neighbor crashing into me in the middle! Well, I'm really busy practicing for part two, so I must go, but here is the choreography for those who care:

grapevine behind and to the right, 3 steps and then together
walk in a small circle on the spot
grapevine behind and to the right, 3 steps and then left heel out
grapevine behind and to the left, 3 steps and then right heel out
ball change, kick, cross the right leg in front
hold hand up with bent elbow and turn wrists once
walk 3 steps in a semi-circle back and to the right, then hop on that foot
repeat going forward
Jewish freestyle

No Complaints

My great-grandmother Janet will turn one hundred and five years old in mid-March. I will turn thirteen in July. It will be around seventy-five years before I am half of her then age. She's seen everything, from the roaring twenties to the Great Depression to World War II to the first color TV and on. The problem is that whatever she sees, she subconsciously compares to all those greatnesses before. For example, when she saw me right before my third-grade growth spurt, she told my grandmother - during lunch - that I had gained weight. So, while we were thrilled that she was coming for fifteen minutes to admire/examine our new house, we were terrified that she was coming for fifteen minutes to examine/admire our new house.

She came in, red blotch marks down her sagging yet startlingly pretty face, her driver on her arm, cane in hand, and gave me her pocketbook. I set it on a small table automatically. My mother gently helped her take off her coat. On the second sleeve, she shouted, "It's caught on my watch!" My mom gave slack and adjusted the watch; sure Janet's strong - at age one hundred, she recovered from a broken pelvis as fast as the average young adult - but she's not that strong. Carefully, we walked her around the ground floor. She was surprisingly happy, complimenting our new kitchen, giving her positive opinion of the wooden floor, and laughing with nearly every sentence. Of course, she was ecstatic that we had a downstairs oven for if we ever decided to be Kosher.

After the tour, we sat down on some couches to talk. After a few minutes of popcorn banter, she reached one bony hand into her purse. (I had carried it back over to her once she was seated.) "You know, in the Jewish tradition," she began, hand paused inside the bag, "when you move into a new home, you bring sugar, salt, and bread - all the necessities." She smiled knowingly. Expectantly, my parents grinned in return, their hands subtly outstretched... "Well," she continued, "you're not there yet." The hands fell. "But here's some chocolate!"

Janet just finished a series of operations on her eye. Never once, in my life, have I been excited to see her when she says hello and kisses my cheek. But what if she hadn't come, leaving only us in a house too big with a family too small? She says, every time we meet, that she doesn't want to go on forever. She isn't afraid of death by any measure; in fact, I think in many ways she embraces it. I've certainly never given her any sign that I wish otherwise. I don't think she can use a computer, but I hope, somehow this reaches you, Janet: Please don't die. I don't know anyone else who I can love and fear and forget and cherish all in one confusing stew. I also don't know how those ingredients can be baked for a little under thirteen years and somehow come out of the oven looking a little bit like a lumpy love.

First Cousins

Today will be a four-generational affair, with family pouring into the house we're moving into from all across the Eastern Seaboard, and also from upstate. Although I guess that's really part of . . . you know, never mind. Anyway, sometimes seeing the gang in action makes me feel at home, and nostalgic for summer days at my grandparents house. Other times, though, I end up feeling like I'm at this awkward in-between place, where I'm not old enough to be treated as an adult, and I have to keep bringing stuff from the kitchen, but at the same time, I'm not young enough to be picked up by my feet and whirled around in the air. Still other times, I relax into it, and glaze over the weird parts with my green eyes that belong to neither my mother (blue) nor my father (deep brown).

Generation One: Me and my cousins, E and T. E and T are the main reason I make it through dinner parties and "let's be adults by having fun while just sitting in armchairs and talking about work" parties, partly because they know my ticklish spots. T is an aspiring actor, and approaches his life with the same wonderful theatricality that he brings to the stage. E is a star in her field, which involves lots of things, but as far as I can tell, the main points are camping and picking litter. Those, at least, are the crudest aspects. The trouble with this generation is the vast difference in age. T, who is younger, is twice my age. This means that they can help me with math homework and teach me about life, but that they don't necessarily want to dance Gangnam Style with me.

Thanksgiving Pt. 3

Almost as soon as our feet touched ground level, a woman spun around and pointed an accusatory finger at my mother. "You!" she hissed, like something out of a blockbuster. "You said you were trying to leave, but you just wanted a better seat!" My mother tells me that this woman proceeded to curse her out, but I found the episode too traumatic and managed to block it out of my memory completely. That can happen sometimes, when we force ourselves to forget an experience and it becomes almost like it never happened.

After only a few minutes, I could not breathe. I was a seven-year-old among adults; they were feet taller than me and sucking in all of the air. Looking up was like looking through a small tube, and whenever oxygen tried to reach me, it was taken in by the tube itself. "I can't breathe," I found the strength to rasp to my mother, who summoned her own strength and lifted me up from the waist, propping me on her hip. Cold, sweaty air reached my lips and I gladly accepted it. After a while, however, I became too heavy on her legs with just one arm around my torso, so she was forced to throw the quickly wilting bouquet we had bought for the party into the trench behind us.

Out of nowhere, my mother felt a tap on the shoulder and spun around. I was crying. "Do you want to get out?" said a man a little shorter than her, with long, brown hair. It struck me that he had a faint resemblance to some interpretations of Jesus.

"Yes, yes we want to get out!" weeped my mom, exhausted and defeated.

"I will get you out," said Jesus, and he raised a fist in the air and began to shout: "There's a child who fainted! THERE'S A CHILD WHO FAINTED!" The crowd, once uncrackable, melted in our hands and parted, leaving a passageway about two feet wide, straight up to the barricade.

As we hurried up, I whispered, "Momma, I didn't -" but she quickly shushed me and kept running forward. We reached the gate and found a police officer, dressed in navy blue and a gun. This could get a bit complicated in someone else's hands, but Jesus knew what to do.

"There's a child who fainted, ma'am," he said urgently.
She pointed uptown. "A few blocks, there's a truck. you can get out." Before I knew what was happening, the barricade was open and we were in the parade. We could see all of the floats, top to bottom! We could experience the roar of the crowd! Sure, we were going in the opposite direction from the marching band that was just passing, but does that really matter when you've just gotten out of suffocation and into a spotlight?

Meanwhile, our followers - remember our followers? - said, "We're with them!" frantically and chased us into the parade, but this time, accompanied by tourists. I guess they figured that it was worth it to miss the rest of the show in order to get a few pictures in the parade for the refrigerator. They snapped their Blackberry cameras like lightning, but in the moment, we forgot to snap pics. There was only one thing on our mind: seltzer. As soon as we saw the TV truck, we dashed out into the empty street and put our hands on our knees, panting.

Up along side us came the couple from the trench, grinning and coughing and crying at once, like the rest of us. We nodded at them, and them at us, to mark this memory we would never forget. Into a convenience store - I got black cherry seltzer, Schweppes if you must know - and then onto the subway, we didn't talk. Once we had taken the safe train all the way back to our home borough, I realized that we had never thanked Jesus. I don't know why I started calling him that; I'm not Christian, and don't know the story of the Old or New Testament, but he did seem to be our savior. Leaving him was a regret, sure, but I never forgot him. I'll seem him again, someday, I hope, and I'll track him down and thank him . . . perhaps in Central Park.

Thanksgiving Pt. 2

Trapped. Trapped. So we sat down on a bench and I began to cry. Embarrassed, my mom said, "Let's go downstairs." She led me down a flight, into the waiting arms of another deserted platform. There we remained. She tried to coax me out of my shell for a story, but I refused. Finally, after half an hour, a man ran past us, the first soul we seen that whole time. "Where are you going?" asked my mom, incredulously.

"They're going to open an exit!" he cried. We jumped out of our seats and tailed him. He jogged all the way to the end of the platform, where there was, indeed, an open door. No one else had heard. We were, again, alone, but quite literally a light at the end of the tunnel was shining right in front of our faces. We burst upwards and outwards into the waiting crowd, and found ourselves on a corner, mere yards from room to stretch. "Excuse me," the man began, but a police officer cut him off, somehow stepping in front of him. The onlookers melted into the space he had left.

"You can't go out here!" yelled the officer over the din. The flap of skin under his chin stuck out and wobbled like gelatin. "There's a fence. You can go out on the next block." With his flabby hand he pointed right. His fingers indicated a selection of sidewalk so laden with parade-goers that it threatened to sink away. There was not room to unbutton a coat, unless the wind whipped it open for you. It was quiet possible, the three of us realized, that we could be stuck here until late afternoon when the crowds disbanded. Still, I've heard people quote that "idle hands are the devil's playthings" often; probably from some religious text I've never read. We decided, nonverbally, almost telepathically, that it would be better to try to wiggle our way out.

After about fifteen minutes, we had managed to edge ten feet. By this point, several people with a similar predicament were following us, hoping for a way out. A few more yards, and we were halfway down the block, with no escape plan. The block of people in front of us were as uncracked as ice cubes, fresh out of the machine. Like ice, of course, they still had the potential of breaking open, but - silly us - we had forgotten to bring a pickax. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a woman and her boyfriend descending into a trench. Let me explain: In the city, light is everything, so many buildings have trenches next to them so that the basement apartments can get some sun. It was worth a shot, so I hoisted my leg over the side and the couple helped to lower me down. My mom was right behind.

No one else had yet discovered the trench, so there was blessed air all around. Slowly but surely, our followers leaped down from street level and joined us. The trench dropped off suddenly, like a cliff, but after the ledge, it wrapped around the corner. There was the potential of an escape, if there was a ladder or something similar on the other end. "I'll go," the boyfriend announced bravely, his dreadlocks blowing in the gale. He jumped from the ledge and landed catlike. "Let me poke around." He scurried off and was gone for several minutes. When he returned, he sadly shook his head. Carefully, the blonde girlfriend held his arms and helped him up. Before long, the followers began to climb out, convinced that there must be some way out, but we and the couple stayed. Down below, there was oxygen, there was space, and there was a clear view of Dora's hair and Energizer Bunny's ears. We knew, though, that when the couple made to leave, we needed to get out of there. There was no way my mom could get out by herself, and I couldn't help much. With heavy hearts, we once again entered the death throng.

To be continued tomorrow...

Thanksgiving Pt. 1

Of all the stories I am going to tell on this blog, this is probably the most important to me, so I'm going to tell in three parts. I've been telling it for six years, going over each detail, prepping it for this moment, when I tell the world what happened on Thanksgiving in 2007. It's a long story, but read it anyway; learn the deepest secrets of the Macy's Parade. Well . . . here goes.

It was a bright Thursday morning - no school, no worries. Like always, my family was going up to my grandpa's house in Connecticut where there is enough room to ruffle glorious feathers and soar. There is empty space waiting in the wings, negative space, light and dark. But first, there was some business to attend to. The pianist in my mom's band was holding a party. She lived right on Central Park West, on the third floor, so there was a great view of the floats. If you pressed right up against the enormous glass window, it almost felt like you were soaring, but it was New York City. No room.

So, on the morning of, my mom and I had to set out early (my dad was going straight to CT) and pick the right subway to get the job done. There were two options: the 2/3, which we had taken the previous year with success, or the A/B/C/D, which let off only feet from the party. With cameras strapped in tight, and books for the ride, we boarded a train and stood clear of the closing doors. We sat, and doodled our inside-the-mind doodles on top of all our memories, until our stop. Quite obviously, the mechanical voice inside the train could not see what we could see, because she said the name of the station quite calmly, and through the moving windows, we could glimpse a platform full of people, to the point that a few of them had their backs on the slowing train, trying to push through.

Unsure of the cause, we got off the train and into a mob. From everywhere, women, men, even children were pressing in on all sides, trying to get to an exit. There was only one glimpse of light up ahead, and no movement. "What's going on?" I screamed. The train doors closed and it couldn't have rocketed away fast enough. I quickly moved away from the edge, afraid of falling.
"It's only because these people have to get through the parade, don't worry we'll be out soon."
The mechanical voice was back: "Due to overcrowding, the exits are now closed." I shrieked.

"Don't worry!" shouted my mom, but she sounded panicked too, and like a wolf's ears, I could see her eyes, giving her away. "We'll just take the next train."

Another mechanical comment: "Due to overcrowding, this station is now closed." As if to prove its point, a rickety D train shot through the station as though it was poisonous and headed uptown. We were trapped.

To be continued tomorrow....

Overflow

I bought the first two bottles of bubble bath after the midterms were announced, because I heard through one-ended telephones that they might calm someone down. Wasn't able to decide between vanilla milk and sweet pea, so I bought both. They tugged on my arm as I carried them home. A capful should do the trick. With shaking arms and a feeble eye twitch from looking at the textbook too long, I uncapped the vanilla milk and slopped some into the deep lid. The water sprung on; I adjusted it to medium scorching and dumped the mixture in. Slowly, bubbles formed at the surface of the water and bobbed along like babies thrown out with their bathwater. The process was tedious, too slow, too slow, and there couldn't be anything wrong with another capful.

So I left the scene, like any goos criminal, and plotted my alibi. There were no instructions on the bottle! I forgot that I had already put in a capful! But before long, like any good criminal, I moved on from the fear and became immersed in a book. Page after page flopped on, until I dropped the book in shock after reading that Valerie was about to be shot and killed... Bending down to pick it up, I heard a faint running sound. "What is that?" I murmured to myself. No one was home. Then, strike.

I ran to the bathroom with alien speed, flung open the door and discovered a tower of bubbles hovering over the bath, about to hit the floor. It had been about ten minutes. I twisted the faucet violently and the froth teetered dangerously on the slide of the shower door. Overflow again, like out of my mind after a good study session. Now if only I could keep the bubbles off the floor and in their water. Remembering.

Fangirls

"I love to see girls fangirling over gay guys," said the woman standing next to me to her friend. I didn't approve with her take on things; I was not a fangirl, but merely an aspiring triple thread hoping to meet a few successful adults. So, maybe it was true that the second "Newsies" ended I dragged my friend N along behind me toward the exit. I guess you could say that when the area around the barricade began to get crowded my stomach jumped. Still, N pulled through, and we were exactly in the middle of a barricade surrounding a small, closed-off area. The theater managers walked through and closed the doors; a few people more pressed up behind us, but many walked away. For some, seeing the mother of one of the actors/a star of Dance Moms was enough for one night.

Not for me. One after one, the extras spilled out. They signed my program by their name. A few took pictures with us. One pair went at exactly the same speed and both got to my open program at the same time. But I was holding out for the two leads. They didn't come for quite a while, so I accumulated many names, but finally, Katherine poked her head out from the door on the right. Gradually, she edged towards me - I caught my breath - I knew exactly what I was going to say -

"It's my birthday, so yeah," yelled the annoying woman next to me. I had been about to say, 'You're incredible. I hope one day I will be as talented as you. I aspire to be on Broadway.' She beat me to the punch. So Katherine went on and signed my program, but the whole time she was talking to that dyed-blonde-haired, nose-ring-wearing young woman who was acting like a child. I never got a chance to tell her what I meant to, but there wasn't much time for that, because all of a sudden, the male lead appeared on the left. (Not that I could see with Nose Ring's ginormous hair in the way.)

Corey Cott is an exceptional actor, and I urge you to look him up. (I'll put a link to a good picture at the end.) He hasn't been in anything, but that's only because he's fresh out of Carnegie Mellon. I'm not one of those girls who'll fawn over a guy, especially a celebrity, but I must admit, he is very good-looking. More than that, though, he is a phenomenal thespian. His performance of Santa Fe had me nearly in tears. Now he was coming closer - edging towards me - I caught my breath - I knew exactly what I was going to say -

Instead, I blurted, "Could we have a photo with you?"
"Yeah, sure," he said, as though this happened every day (which it did). We turned around and smiled broadly and a flash went off in my face from my mom's camera. I noticed vaguely that his arms were around our shoulder, so before anything got weird, I spun around and held out my Playbill. He obliged, of course, and it wasn't hard to find his name. It was first.

So is there a point to today's blog? Maybe yes, maybe no. I certainly think so. This time, you try to find it, like in real life. Hey, you could learn something, but you certainly don't have to. I won't make you. It's vacation. Here's a hint: For some people, every day is Punday. If that didn't make sense, there's not much I can do for you. Take a picture, hold out your Playbill, and I'll move on.

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The Order of the Phoenix

Have you ever met someone you has not read Harry Potter? If you have, I am sure you have felt the red hot desire to force their eyes open and drag a copy of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" in front of them. (For all who own the book, please read page 592; if you replace the remedies with not reading the book, then Mrs. Weasley can represent all of our frustration at Anti-Potters.) I suspect that very few of you, however, have had a close friend who hasn't even read more than three chapters of the first book. Probably some of you find the very idea disgraceful. Maybe you will make exceptions in religion, in politics, even in education, but J.K. Rowling is just going too far. My purpose in this situation is to explain to you what it is like to care deeply about someone with whom you disagree on such a basic level. Your parents may have talked about comprising on fashion sense, or humor, but as I hope you all know, anyone who has never read Hermione's devilishly accurate interpretations of Cho Chang's inner turmoil cannot possibly understand love. Or can they?

My best friend N is bored by magic, bored by Hagrid, and bored by the worst first chapter in the history of a good book series. Who can blame her for that last one? The best thing to do is to speed through it without taking the time to interpret the meaning. Still, I can't deny that it is troubling that N did not have the stick-to-itiveness to make it through the muddle and reach McGonagall's chess game. It makes me wonder if she has the stick-to-itiveness necessary for our long distance friendship. Unless we are together, we don't talk much, although it is pretty amazing that we stayed friends, even on a once-a-year basis. Harry Potter can teach a person so much about themselves, and about life, but that doesn't mean that his creator is the Messiah. J.K. Rowling, though a brilliant and gifted woman, cannot possibly teach us everything about the world, because we each have our own part to play. We can take the "Which House Are You In?" quizzes online (Hufflepuff, thank you), but they can't tell us which colleges will accept us. We can look for clues as to which situations self defense works best in, but we can't match each moment to a page.

Not everyone believes each word in the Bible, nor the Qu'ran, nor the Vedas, nor the Torah, etc. Not everyone can see the subtle truth in the fantastical world of Harry Potter. Still, they can touch the world with as many fingers as the rest of us.

Solidarity Forever

My dad is very independent. He doesn't like anyone to get water for him. He feels uncomfortable if I give up my chair for him at the table, because he likes his seat a bit away from the rest of us. When we swing dance, he leans back and away, and claims it's for better velocity. I would doubt it. But Daddy, in case you are reading this: I love you, and you are a swing master.

Yesterday, while cleaning up for the eminent arrival of N (who is here now, peering over my shoulder with each click of these keys), we were assigned to construct a shelving set for my bedroom. The pieces had lain there for months, dust-covered and breathed over like additions to the floor. Grudgingly, I sat on top of one of the pieces and Daddy began to read the instructions. Cam bolt here, screw there, became rhythm of screwdriver on wood as we installed side one. Well, I say 'we': As he installed side one.

"Can I help?" I asked. "Can I please do this side?"
"No, I think I don't need you right now. Maybe later."

Instead, I was assigned to dust (more details in 'Chlent'), and each time I sat down on the second floor landing to rinse out and wring the sponge, another shelf appeared. He was building up as high as he could go, and I was soon that sure the whole thing would crash to the floor. Still, there was always another step to master, another piece to dust off. He didn't give up, even though he "didn't care." Remember. Learn.

Chlent

To get our house ready for my friend N to stay, I had to spend the day hunched over in the stairwell, scrubbing furiously at dust on the handrail. It was kind of fun, singing "It's A Hard Knock Life" and rolling down the stairs in perfect time. The downside was that after all of the work, my back felt like it was about to split open. So, armed with a champagne glass full of seltzer and a few semi-sweet chocolate chips, I sat down to watch my own personal 30 Rock marathon on Netflix. Time slipped away with the sun, and before I knew it, I had devoured half a bag of the chocolate. Chlent, as usual, has failed.

Chlent is a holiday I invented, which takes place during Lent. It starts on Ash Wednesday, and ends whenever I get tired of not eating whatever I gave up. I'm not religious, but as far as I can tell, Lent is meant to show your devotion and sorrow to Jesus, and your respect to him as well. For Chlent, one gives up something to show respect for me. It started out that way, at least, as a joke. Then I had a better idea. Chlent is to show respect to yourself. To do that, I gave up sweets, so I could maintain a healthy weight. I couldn't keep it going for more than a day, though. Maybe a day and a half.

Does it come in bunches, the self-respect? Does it come like Christmas cards for a few weeks before petering out? Do we hold it in bouquets which we throw away after one use? Perhaps I can dry the flowers, and store it away in an attic for next time. Life fades, as youth. So goodbye, Annie; "It's A Hard Knock Life" for real.

Face Tape

The Compliment Club met each third grade Friday, on the rug in the back of the room. We were required to attend each week, and one of us was always the guest of honor. The week leading up to it, the name of this week's special speaker was posted by a small tub. Beside the tub sat a pile of green and blue papers with the name of the club printed across the top. Before the year was over, we had explored the good in everyone, no matter how hard. For each person, we all had to submit a compliment, no matter our personal matters. Even my archenemy scraped up something on my week: "You are really good at spelling and you are a good friend." (I was supremely confused, as we were not friends.) That was the magic of the Club.

When the meeting began, the speaker stood up at the front, a canvas for our thoughts. One at a time, we got up and extracted a slip from the tub. Read the name. Read the note. Then we pulled off a piece of tape off the dispenser and stuck the good vibes to the person's face or arm. We did it right before dismissal, so they had to wear their bling outside and into the street, the papers fluttering behind them like wings. It is rare that they are stuck on; on most days, we must sprout them ourselves.

Pen Only

Imagine the scene: A near full art room, bedecked with students sitting at the tables in bunches, still seems nearly devoid of success. The kids (including me) just keep saying how much they hate their work. We were supposed to be drawing a portrait, but we hadn't really been instructed on how to draw yet, so we were lost in a twister of eyes and philtrums and cheekbones, swirling around us without bothering to slow down so we could trace their stupid contours. Needless to say success was varied; while R copied C's widespread eyes and slim cheeks perfectly, A ran into difficulty when he needed to re-do a nose. We were only allowed to use pen, though, so there was no going back.

We started with the eyebrows. The two kids who went on to the eyes had to start over, so the rest of us took caution, and to be safe, just kept staring at our model's brow. I had never noticed the way in which L's inner eyebrow pointed down like an arrow, while her outer broke off in elegant steps. Over and over, I ran the tip of my ballpoint over the dark lines. When I finally looked down, there it was: a perfect eyebrow - that looked nothing like L's. Apparently M was having the same problem, because he waved Mr. T over and asked, "Does this look at all like J2?"

"Not yet," responded Mr. T, in his cynical, satirical, eccentric, and - let's just say it - impossible-to-describe way. "But it will, once you have all the pieces on the page."

So, my turn: Does today look at all like a day from a happy, successful person's life?
Not yet. But it will, once all the days are on the page.
In our lives, time races on, and we can't re-do any of it. Like the portrait, we are only allowed to use pen, so there is no going back.

Laughing Gas

Valentine's Day is officially in three hours, forty-one minutes and fifty-three seconds. Yippee. Being a hopeless romantic on the day smothered in romance is a curse in disguise, in case all of you lovebirds were wondering. Every year (okay, every year for the past two), I wander around the streets and see the angels, the doilies, the pink hearts, and the chocolates in every window, and wonder why I'm still out in the cold and not inside the store where everybody is purchasing corny-in-a-box. It's just the type of thing I adore, and hate, and wonder about until March comes and I forget.

To make today even more terrific, I went to the dentist and found out I need to get a tooth pulled, and braces, and a palate expander, and more! When he told me, my whole body tensed up, like somebody had run a telegram through it and forgotten to turn off the line. "So, Mom, we have two options," he said calmly while scratching at my molars with his stick. "We can do it today without the laughing gas or she can come back next week." Frantically, from my lying position in the nasty blue chair, I held up two fingers to indicate my favorite option, and I shook my fingers crazily, like maracas. Please, please, please notice Mom. "Are you familiar with how laughing gas works?" he asked. My mom must have shook her head because he waited a second and then kept talking. "We put her on it - just to take the edge off, to make her less nervous. Then it's off after a few minutes, with no precautions. She's an excellent candidate for it."

That gave me an idea. Going into tomorrow, I'll breathe my own laughing gas all day. In my mind, it'll "take the edge off" and let me enjoy seeing the box of Ferrero Rocher I've heard whispers about from my friends go to someone else. If you forget that you are old enough to care, you can resort back to when you were little and you didn't even know what a crush was; you just thought the flowers your mom put out were pretty. Laugh it off, laugh it off. Who knows? Maybe I'll be able to follow my own advice.

Or not. Yeah, I think I'm going to hate Valentine's Day for a while. What can I say? I tried.

Phone Tag

Phone tag: When two people keep calling each other, wishing to speak, and always reach the answering machine and leave a message. I happen to play phone tag all the time, so often in fact, that it has become a part of my daily life. Wake up; brush teeth; go to school; come home; play phone tag; go to sleep. Like magic, I only find a message on my voicemail about a year after it's been sent, and by then, usually the caller has forgotten my name. We all have our quirks, I guess, be it paper mache turtles or three-hour-long bubble baths until our fingers get wrinkly or phone tag.

Sometimes, I use it as a test for a friend. If they remember me, what my favorite color is, where I grew up, after a year, then something must be right. It's not like I set them up and try to quiz them on me to see how much they've been stalking me, though I know that's how it sounds, but no, no, no: The point of phone tag is avoiding what you most want because it is too scary to catch.

The Cheddar Chive Biscuit

It's nice that even today, among speeding SUVs, and Pepsi trucks emblazoned with the slogan "don't let a bureaucrat tell you what size drink you can buy" to campaign against Bloomberg's stand on obesity, and ads in Saturday Night Live commercial breaks for "his & her lotions" (okay, ick), there are places where the old way thrives. I am a nostalgic person, I must admit, often to the point of pining for a time I have no experience of. Oh, how those platform sneakers tantalize! I think to myself. The sweet song of that brass section on a cracked record machine is intoxicating! I must infer that somewhere out there, there is a place where community rules the marketplace and vintage flowery paper is pressed onto the walls.

There is such a place. It is a few blocks from the house I am moving into: Cafe Madeline. When the diners are done with a dish, they are expected to carry it to the end counter. Seltzer is served in screw-top bottles with Depression-era blue and white labels. A newspaper is left at an eight-seat community table for general use throughout the day, and is replaced in the morning. Best of all, the back wall is covered in vintage flowery paper, a sharp contrast to the pressed white tin of the ceiling.

This reminded me of something my dad told me. He no longer works as a special ed. teacher, but did for years on years. He says that when he was growing up, he and his sister dreamed of a school they would run together someday, a school where the best children, the one in the gifted and talented program, would be taught in the same school as the children who, whether or not they were smart, had no way to succeed in school without help: the emotionally disturbed or mentally unstable kids. A few weeks ago, my new friend K told me about a school downtown that fits the bill. The place my father had long given up on as an idea that could only belong to him and would never strike another happened to have existed all along.

There was a song we used to sing at my elementary school that goes "to everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn." To me it always seemed like some Quaker school joke I was forced to listen to and not get as many times as my teacher A forgot he had already told it. I think I might finally be the one on the inside of the joke. For anywhere that you've always imagined, for those places that seemed to perfect to propose, there is somewhere in the world. Somewhere that houses your own dreams will spring up, and with them, your fantasies.

New Song

Today, I stayed up watching the Grammys and don't have time write a post, so I'll share with you my latest song!

Just assumed you'd be waiting there

like we had written down

It seems so long ago, I guess

you let the old dreams drown

Figured we'd pick up again

where we had once left off

Doesn't make a difference now

that I didn't get enough

Was I stupid to think it meant something

when you promised me last year

that at some point in future time

our paths would cross again here?

I should forget we ever knew

each other like ourselves

I should ignore the past

and straight let go the great mind meld

Rearview Mirrors

On the way to the park today, I passed a car, revving in the middle of a snow bank. It had about eight inches of snow right on top of it, and it was not able to move. Snow spewed out of its wheels. People on the sidewalks pressed themselves up against the iron grates so common to our neighborhood and watched apprehensively as the car jerked around inside the drift. A small square of windshield was cleared, probably because the driver, who had parked just next to a fire hydrant, needed to get across the street in order to avoid a ticket. The driver pulled out into the street; Alright, we figured, now it'll pull over. But no. Instead, it began to back up, though they had no back windshield to see through, to rearview mirrors to check, and no Chloe's parent there to shoot at them if they went up onto the curb. With bated breath, the onlookers could not stop looking at the car. When the parking brake was pulled and the space across the street was filled, we all let out our breath in a big gush, knocking a piece of ice off of the SUV in front of us.

Sometimes we have to plunge into the depths of uncertainty. I'm not saying I'd drive with my eyes closed, but I'm not saying I wouldn't. The danger is what makes it uncertain, but if there was no danger, we'd know everything. What would we wonder about at night until we fell asleep? What would we do our thesis papers on? What would we ask if we only had one question, as the saying goes? The questions are the danger is the chance, is the no ticket.

Until Then

There is a question which governs our lives, dictating our movement and plotting out everything we as though we exist merely to be portrayed on graph paper: What next? After a while, it will always pop up. My best friend J asked it when I told her I had to switch schools. (She used the time to explore old, untouched relationships for a while.) My aunt used to it plan a new life when new power lines under her home made it impossible for her to sleep. (She moved to the Caribbean.) I whimpered it when my first good friendship slipped out the door and onto a plane bound for California. (We visit each summer.) No matter where in our lives we are at any given moment, there is a next moment, right up until the very last one, at which point we must focus on the present before we get too teary-eyed.

There's no story to tell today. I just wanted to tell you all that I am done dwelling in the past. What next? The future. As I move forward, I finally figured out how to answer that question correctly every time. As black as the past might loom, the future will always come next.

The Empty Car

(First, a note: Forgive me. I do not feel able to write on this subject without reverting to vignette style, but never fear; tomorrow, I will be back to my normal style.)

On the platform. Still half-frozen air hovering on my cheeks. A long slow, screech, as a tunnel-long train slides up next to me. On either side, a car stuffed to maximum. Straight ahead, through thawing glass, a body lay, covered in an oversized green coat. No movement was detectable. No face was visible.

Beside me, a window opening. A head, covered in dreadlocks, was exposed a few moments' paces away. Lung maximum: "Next car. Next car." Into the crammed car I creep, with questions. Questions about the green coat, the empty car. Questions about the dead body I could feel, unmoving, inside it. That I knew was there.

Questions about dying alone, with no one and nothing. Questions about customer service, and how far it could go. Questions about what was disgusting, and what was sad, and what was ignorable, as if it was a Monday in some past year that no one can recall. If my heart were to stop in a subway car, I would at least want a few witnesses to my Brooklyn-Bridge-bound funeral, however rickety on the tracks below.

How-To #1

How to direct a play: Do note give your actor a script one day when their mom is cleaning out their backpack the very next day. (My supporting actor told me this morning his mom had discarded his copy.) Under no circumstances overpower the costume designer. (The genius designer working on the play became offended quickly when I gave her my vision of a long braid, blazer, and skinny jean for my lead, and I didn't want to interfere with her process.) Don't worry about relying too much on the student teacher; believe me, he is way smarter than you. (If it wasn't for Mr. D, our period of set design would have been wasted arguing with my lead on the location of a green screen.) Whatever you do, do not tell your actors that their ideas don't work. (Much as you want to, don't ruin your relationship over one idea.) Finally, the last piece of advice I can offer: Don't try to talk your best friend into faking a romance. ('Nough said.)

Dew Point

Today, for our life science lab, me and my three lab partners followed the rest of the class outside to the flagpole in order to perform "The Weather Lab." Carrying a can, we trudged out into the snow. We were laden down with a pipette, a thermometer, and an icebox, but none of it came close to the crippling weight that went with the freezing ice water splashing onto our hands.

The basic idea was this: stir ice into the can, brush our fingers on the outside, and record the temperature the water was at the time that the water condensed on the outside of the can was evident enough to make us yelp. I was assigned to ice duty, with my black gloves. I was the only one who could bear the cold.

This happens a lot in life. My friend J had to surgically remove her own heart when her love left her hanging by a thread and a classmate by a rope, merely because she would hang on and Ms. Rope Girl didn't know how. L had to do an entire project alone because she was the smartest and could figure out the research process unassisted. And I? I always seem to end up taking everyone else's because I am the one who doesn't know how to say no.

The Super Bowl

I have never watched the Super Bowl. I'm talking ever. I just don't get the idea of bashing an opponent shoulder to shoulder, head to head, but still being unable to see eye to eye. When my mom was taking driving ed. in high school, the teacher/football coach would give pop quizzes on how the team did. My mom refused to attend the games and began to fail the class she excelled in, so she took a stand. My mother quit the class and had her dad teach her Americana-style, down a road, dusty road in the south, out into the tomorrow.

A few weeks ago, when a wrestling instructor came to our school and half-ton black mats where hauled in from who knows where for us to jump on, I kept my mom in mind. The teacher was the only female wrestling silver medalist for the United States ever. That's pretty impressive. But I? I thought of Mom, all alone in a world of full-fledged attack addicts, who managed to stand for what she believed in. In my head, the story twisted and turned, changing from a drop of water in the ocean to a wave crashing down on the shore. I, thank you very much, refused to wrestle. Even in jest.

All that led up to last night. Perhaps it can also help to not at all explain how after a mere thirty seconds, I got bored with the Puppy Bowl and changed the channel to CBS. I can tell myself that it was for the ads, or in pursuit of yet another ridiculous halftime show. Maybe it would be fun to pretend that the main attraction was the blackout, or even that I was succumbing to peer pressure. But honestly, the reason that for the first time ever I watched the Super Bowl is that I finally understood the violence; I could feel the tearing feeling inside that could push a person to make their way by literally knocking others down. As I mentioned in the previous post, I have recently bashed all expectations of me by failing to be in the top quarter of interested writers in the city from 7th to 12th grade. When I first read the list last Thursday, I was sure I had read it wrong, that I had skimmed over myself in a hurry. When I proved myself wrong, I had a wrestling match with my blankets. I knocked them shoulder to fabric, head to fabric, but I could not bring myself to see the comforting circles in the print eye to eye.

The Elusive Yellow Dress

I logged onto Google+ this afternoon only to discover my friend L's peril. While exploring the city, she had come across a beautiful yellow dress - lacy, 40s, long-sleeved, and completely ironic. Eagerly, she rushed home to buy it online, presumably because she did not have enough money on her. Unfortunately, after trolling the store's 300+ dresses online, she came up empty. The dress had completely disappeared.

This kind of reminded me of something that happened earlier this week. I had entered the Scholastic Writing Awards, a contest that everyone from teachers to parents to random people who read my poems online told me a was a shoe-in to win. It was so tangible - just like the dress in the window - until the results came back, and though I did not go unmentioned (honorably), I did not win an award. If she had the means, L could have gone in right then and picked it up and paid and worn it the very next day. As soon as L could actually reach the dress, however, it was gone. Rather like my victory, I might add.