For those of you that have never been to Erie before in the winter, well, have you ever seen that movie Misery? or Fargo? Yeah, you get the idea — it’s snowy as hell. In fact, the first time Grey ever came to visit me there, his two day visit turned into a week long stay because we had so much snow the Governor declared the area a state of emergency.
But the funny thing is, driving in Erie is never an issue because of bad roads. I don’t even understand how, but our little city of 100,000 people has the most efficient plowers in Northern Hemisphere. Either that, or in addition to more bars and churches per capita than any other American town, the city of Erie also has more snow removal trucks. Is there an army of 10,000 orange CAT big rigs with jumbo plows just sitting in a giant parking lot somewhere in the northwest corner of PA? I don’t know, but whatever they do — they do it right!
Another snow day below the Mason Dixon Line! Ollie is clearly not Erie, PA born and bred. Living in Virginia has made him soft...
Last night, Craig and I decided that we would have a whole evening devoted to his Nebraska roots. As I have dragged him to the ballet and made him watch chick flicks all week long, I figured it was the least I could do. Plus, I love a cowboy. Even an “I go to Georgetown Law and got these boots at J.Crew” one. There are many urban cowboys at Nick’s. CPAs by day, line dancers by night. But Craig is not one of them. In fact, a little Travis Tritt and a plaid shirt and the man is almost frighteningly c.o.u.n.t.r.y.
I on the other hand am rather intimidated by a synchronized dance. What if I step on my neighbor’s foot? What if I slow up the line with my inferior toe taps? So when the ”El Paso Two Step” was called by a very large man named Scruff and Craig got his “let’s give it a whirl, little girl” look in his eye, I immediately hid my head in his armpit and refused to take the floor. People at Nick’s are amazing group dancers and I just don’t feel that it’s right to infringe on their space. But after two whiskeys, I let Craig push me around the joint and yelled at him for traveling too much. He was just so darn excited to be back in his element that I’m surprised he didn’t start yee-hawing his way across the Mason-Dixon line.
It was fun to see Craig happy as a lark and play hillbilly for a night. And let’s be honest, I absolutely love any excuse for big hair, too much makeup, push up bras and Jack Daniels.
This is a pic from my birthday two years ago. Yes, it was held at Nicks land of "cowboys," Veterans' night, and really cheap shots.
Thursday night I went to see Julie Kent dance the role of Juliet in American Ballet Theater’s production of Romeo and Juliet at the Kennedy Center. Julie Kent has been my favorite dancer since I could mumble “tutu,” and I try to see her dance at least once a year. I mentioned in a previous post that I used to stalk American Ballet Theatre when I was an intern at the Kennedy Center in 2001. And I really did stalk the whole company, but I especially stalked Julie Kent. To this day, I can tell you what she ate and which bag she carried (chartreuse Coach bag – makes sense as she modeled in the campaign!) It’s the sick truth.
It could probably be scientifically proven that Julie Kent is the most graceful human being alive. It’s almost disturbing. It’s like she is half bird or deer. It also makes me feel morbidly obese when I see her dance, but I’ll take it.
Kent, who is a mother of two, turned 40 in 2009. I don’t know how many years she has left in her career, but I do know that I will be in the audience as often as possible until she bids ABT adieu.
Julie Kent, the girl on the vespa in this poster, became my favorite designer in 1987, the peak of my ballet career, when she was in the film "Dancers" with Mikhail Baryshnikov. She was 18 at the time, two years younger than I was when I called the great Barishnikov at home, got insanely nervous and hung up on him.
Julie Kent has children. Two children! But yet she is a stick and in insane shape. I don't know why that swimmer woman Dara Torres gets all the press. Julie is 40 and even buffer (in a skinny ballerina way of course),
Despite my parents being modest, down to earth people, I was an incredibly vain child. I remember being maybe eight years old when my mother bought me a purple parka that was ugly as sin. I screamed and swore I’d never be caught dead in the coat and I think my mom was pretty close to returning it just to appease me.
Enter, my dad.
In an effort to break me of my snobbery and teach me a lesson that appearances aren’t everything, he said if I wanted to leave the house I had to wear the coat. That was the day I was supposed to go to the movies with my friend Kirsten, and so of course, I didn’t want to break plans, but I’d be damned if anyone was going to see me in public wearing the hideous jacket.
So I kicked, screamed, and pounded my fists until my father finally yelled in exasperation, “YOU ARE WEARING THE COAT! Put a bag over your head for all I care!” That was when a slow smile spread over my face…Yesssss, a bag! I was amazed I hadn’t thought of it before! So I cut two eye holes in a brown grocery sack and proceeded to skip to the coat closet to put on the horrendous outerwear. I think at that point my parents were thinking something along the lines of, “Oh, fuck it” and so they grudgingly took my friend and I to the movies (I wore the bag the entire time). I’ll actually never forget the cashier saying to my father, “Oh, I’m so sorry, is she a burn victim?” when she collected our ticket money. My father just mumbled, “Um, no, she just hates her coat.”
Needless to say, I never saw that parka again. My mom told me it was “lost in the laundry” but I’m sure she gave it to some friend whose child didn’t throw tantrums when she was made to wear lavender. And even though my dad crashed and burned when it came to teaching me about being a superficial brat, he succeeded in imparting a far more abstruse life lesson (especially for women to learn): hold your ground and call their bluff and you’ll always get your way. Thanks, Dad!
Last night I hosted our monthly book club and was amazed because this time everyone actually read the book! Sounds funny, but usually there are ten of us, and only two or three people will have finished the novel.
Consequently, it’s more like a wine and dinner club, with a few talking points thrown in about a random book we all wish we had the energy to read. No matter what we choose, the club inevitably ends up spending more time chatting about our three favorite topics: Britney Spears, child birth, and people with third nipples. Every. Single. Time. And, frankly, it never gets old!
We’ve joked about making it a magazine club, a place where we meet to discuss the latest in celebrity gossip — where everyone can swap their old US Weeklies and Peoples. But it’s not like we’re choosing books like Ulysses or The Good Earth — we read Jenna Jameson’s How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, for crying out loud. These aren’t hard books, but we just can’t seem to get our time management straight to be able to read (and I’m one of the worst offenders!).
But maybe since it’s a new year and a new decade, we’re turning over a new leaf?
J.D. Salinger was one of those people I really liked having alive. He was of course a hermit up in New Hampshire for the last 40 or so years, but I was always hoping that one day he would just show up on TV and blab about everything we wanted to know. Why did he prey on young Yalies? Is it true he wrote everyday? What about that whole “diet regimen built around vegetables and ground lamb cooked at very low temperatures?” What did he have to say about that?
In this era where a celeb sneezes and it’s blogged about by millions, it just seems like the oddest thing in the world to hide from your well-deserved limelight. But J.D. did it, Thomas Pynchon’s doing it, and I’m sure a slew of others will follow. Still, even if we never saw him, heard from him, or read a single word he wrote after the mid-60s, I still liked having him around.
I remember of course reading “Catcher in the Rye” in high school, but I was always a bigger fan of Nine Stories, in particular, “For Esmé – with Love and Squalor.” It’s hard to write a perfect story with so few words, but I suppose that was J.D.’s forte.
In my odd state of sadness and surprise today, I came across a tribute by Richard Lacayo in TIME. Lacayo is my favorite TIME scribbler, covering mostly art and architecture. But he also did a damn good job paying homage to a man we know very little about. He helped me remember that J.D. loved to drop out of school, slaughtered pigs in Bydgoszcz, saw the worst of WWII, almost didn’t have his f-a-c-u-l-t-i-e-s intact, and really was a hell of a writer. R.I.P, J.D.
My BFF Amy and I are coming up on our two years of friendship anniversary, so I thought it would be very fitting to thank her. Plus tonight she gave me an eraser with the Eiffel Tower on it from Pottery Barn as a just because gift. Amazing! I love erasers. I used to collect them as a child, which is a very healthy Mayberry kind of thing to do.
Amy is a fundrasier from the sunshine state and could convince anyone on earth to give her money for anything. She could raise millions for Satan she’s so damn convincing. We agreed early on in our friendship that we could win “Amazing Race” because I will happily eat bugs and she could cajole strangers into giving us their last dime. But most of the time we are not fictionally competing in reality TV shows. In fact, the most fun I have with Amy is doing absolutely nothing.
Some of our favorite activities to partake in together are the following: practicing cheerleader moves inspired by her days as cheer captain, singing lesbian chic rock (i.e. The Indigo Girls) while stuck in traffic, discussing the Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware catalogs, choreographing dances that resemble restless leg syndrome, and eating 100 calorie snacks. Yes, these activities can keep us entertained for days.
But the most fun we had recently was our trip to ESPN Zone. We decided that testosterone packed men don’t hang out in the St. Regis tearoom and that we had to branch out and pretend to like sports bars. So to the Zone we went. After we cheered for the wrong team on ten foot screens and Amy persuaded strangers that we are adopted Inuit sisters from the midwest, we spent the rest of the night playing air hockey and shooting mini basketballs into moving nets. Yes, I was drinking whisky, and yes, it was amazing. But then again, Amy makes absolutely anything F.U.N.
We love hot rollers and hairspray! Amy and I at the Corcoran museum's fall fête where the hair was big and the dresses were small.
This is a picture of my desk in my bedroom which really serves as a display table for monogrammed items and expensive candles I refuse to burn. I have added Amy's magical eraser to my pile of prized possessions.
Today when I was driving the 80s classic Journey classic, “Don’t Stop Believin’” came on. Just as I was about to switch the channel, I stopped, and decided to listen. It’s funny, this is a song I really don’t like on a typical Tuesday afternoon, but when it’s played at a wedding, I love belting out the cheesy lyrics at the top of my lungs, all the while spilling red wine down the front of my bridesmaid or cocktail dress.
Then I got thinking, isn’t that a funny phenomenon? Stuff that you only like at certain times or at certain places? Like hot dogs. I mean, I don’t have any aversion to them, but at a baseball game, geez, I could eat 20 and go back for more. There’s something about guys in knickers and jock straps spitting chew in the dirt that makes reconstituted pig parts mouth watering. Same thing with Milk Duds candy. I would never ever buy these to bring into my home, but they are must-have for every movie I see in the theaters. I can’t tell you the last time I’ve taken in a film on the big screen without that yellow box of sugar and partially hydrogenated soybean oil in hand. Likewise — I love reading “Real Simple” when I’m on planes, the only time I enjoy mass is at midnight on Christmas Eve, I usually hate board games but not on vacation…and so on.
Is it Pavlovian? Or just ritualistic? Or both? I guess I really don’t care — just give me grilled cheese and tomato soup on rainy days and ghetto rap when I go jogging!
During the last song at a recent wedding (pardon the poor quality, our friend snapped it with his Blackberry). "Don't Stop Believin'" has never sounded so good!
I’m beginning to notices themes with my thank yous. One of the most common of said “themes” is probably food — or more specifically, being a pig. Today’s post is no exception. You’re probably wondering how this relates to visiting a psychic but let me tell ya, somehow I can make even the most random un-food oriented experiences circle back to being hungry or eating — like the time my friend Sarah and I went to Lily Dale.
Lily Dale is the world’s largest spiritualist town. It’s a gated community situated on Cassadaga Lake in New York, about an hour from my house in Erie and 20 minutes from the Chautauqua Institution. In fact, it’s kind of like the campy, voodoo version of Chautauqua. It’s a haven for legitimate psychics and fortune tellers — and most likely, their phony counterparts. If you recall, I told you about my friend Katie who died in the Chicago balcony collapse. A few months following Katie’s tragic death, my friend Sarah and I decided we were going to go talk to her via a psychic in Lily Dale.
I’ve heard of people passing through the old wrought iron gates of the Dale and being hit with a feeling of well being or, conversely, the chills. When Sarah and I walked through the gates, all we were hit with was a wave of hunger, despite just having gone out to lunch. I’m not kidding, when I say, I think all the spiritual activity made us ravenous. It was uncanny. All of a sudden we looked at each other and were like, “WHERE IS THE CAFETERIA?!” Even before wandering around the grounds to find a psychic who looked reputable for our readings, we made a beeline for the chow line. Then, after scarfing down grilled cheese and French fries, we strolled around to only wind up at an ice cream stand ordering Choco Tacos. I’d chalk it up to me just being a pig, but this was different because it was like we were both overtaken by an unseen force. Why that force wanted us to stuff our faces, I don’t know, or understand — but it is what it is. I suspect it was Katie playing a joke on us.
So when Sarah had a recent psychic reading yielding lots of pithy information, I had her pass along the woman’s number and the two of us are planning a trip to see her next time I’m home. I figure, it’ll be fun — as long as I don’t mind gaining a few pounds.
The entrance to the Dale - it's a great place to visit; just pack some snacks.
Sarah and I on her wedding day; she's another Erie girlfriend I've known since birth
I am bleary-eyed as I compose this after working two twelve hour days and all weekend (insert sympathy here). This would be all well and good if I was rescuing orphans in Haiti or preforming life-saving surgery, but I’m not. I work for a luxury lifestyle magazine that just happens to take up my entire (not so luxurious) life. This issue was more of a doozy than usual because it’s our who’s who under 40 issue and we are currently sans a designer to make the magazine. So what do you do in a down economy when magazines are dropping like flies? Free labor! That’s where Erika and Ali come in. Two brilliant college students who we coerce into designing and copyediting the entire magazine in their spare time. Never mind that when I was in college I spent my hours between classes hot boxing my car and painting murals with my feet.
Students today don’t seem to have a second to kill their brain cells or make toe art. It’s a tragedy! In between writing papers on god knows what, they work three days a week at the magazine, toiling over the rants and raves of socialites. Tonight, Erika, our design intern, and Ali, my editorial intern, were the last two in the office with me. They caught typos, designed pages, and actually kept me from trying to stab myself with a butter knife. I’m so glad this bad boy is to the printer, and I am so so lucky to have wonderful, brilliant, over-worked interns who make sweatshop labor fun.
Date: 1/26/10. Time: 10 P.M. Who: Erika and Ali, unpaid intern geniuses who just created an entire magazine.
After Saint/Intern Ali and I left the office at an extremely late hour, there were about six fire trucks attending to a fire we couldn't smell or see. Very mysterious and rather exciting after you have been copy editing for 12 hours.
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