The Food Network

When you break your jaw, you realize that the ability to chew is something you simply took for granted.

Sure, I occasionally enjoyed turning on The Food Network. Before my accident, I became fascinated with a show I mistakenly referred to as Paula’s Deep Fryer---because the woman seemed like she was constantly deep frying everything. Every recipe started out with a stick of butter. And when I watched her make a cup of hot chocolate with pure half and half and then top it with a huge dollop of heavy whipping cream----well, it was like stopping to watch an accident. You just couldn’t help but look.

However, after my surgery, I became obsessed. After all, if I couldn’t eat, I could at least watch people cook up tasty dishes.

As I sucked down yet another jar of baby food, I watched Guy Fieri shove huge deep-fried things into his gigantic mouth on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. For weeks, I ate vicariously thru him.

And Giada! She is just so adorable! You just want to hang out in the kitchen with her and watch her make you a delicious pasta dish and a tasty salad. I love her recipes and constantly try whipping up things like her chicken carbonara and her tasty cupcakes with mascarpone cheese. Her dishes are always crowd pleasers. When I made her balsamic vinegar truffles and took a batch of them to work, one of the guys said, “Which cook is she?”

“You know, the cute Italian lady.”

“Oh, the Food Porn Lady!” he said with a laugh. Apparently there are quite a few men out there who simply enjoy watching her cook.

Of course, my absolute favorite is Alton Brown. His show, Good Eats, helps take the mystique out of things like risotto, soufflés, leg of lamb and he even devoted an entire show to the intense workout involved in making a true coconut cake. I love his sense of humor, his pop culture references and the fact that he will squeeze in about five different recipes in an episode about milk. For heavens sake, the man showed me how to make cottage cheese! I always thought that if I had to take a regular 9-5 job, it would be working as Anderson Cooper’s assistant---but that’s a whole other blog. However, in second place, I would happily work for Alton Brown any day. Sure, you might not get to travel around the world---but at least where he goes, there are no wacky wars going on.

Of course, probably the biggest star on The Food Network is Rachael Ray. Tons of chefs (including The Food Network’s own Anthony Bourdain) have made fun of her simple, quick and easy dishes. But com’on, I’d say that about 99.9% of Food Network’s viewers AREN’T chefs. And honestly, sometimes chefs aren’t the greatest cooks. The vast majority of viewers are people like myself---just looking for fun ideas for different things to make for the family dinner or to feed some special guests. Rachael Ray is our hero. And, when I could finally eat somewhat solid foods, her parsnip and potato hash was one of the first things I ate. And it was yummy!

But speaking of chefs, the ones featured on The Food Network are definitely approachable. Even Iron Chef Morimoto, the Japanese chef who is constantly speaking English and still having his English subtitled below. I understand him. Why the subtitles? And, beyond that, he looks like a Japanese Johnny Depp. He could make sushi for me anytime.

And, speaking of Anthony Bourdain---his culinary travels are amazing! And, despite his dig on my lady Rachael Ray, he seems like he would be a great guy to hang out with. A bottle of wine, some Tom Waits and a whole mess of oysters. That’s a great night. I also hear from a friend who has a friend who works for The Food Network that he's a great guy and that all the crew and Food Network Kitchen chefs LOVE him. Not a surprise at all.

And then there’s our loveable Sondra. Sondra’s catch-phrase is “semi-homemade”. She does what she has to do to get delicious, nutritious food on the table. And if anyone has a fascinating life story… Wow. The woman looks like a Barbie Doll with G.I. Joe’s guts.

But there are so many to love. The Barefoot Contessa (I feel a particular affinity with her dishes), Tyler Florence (just so entertaining and great comfort food), and the new pair of The Neelys, and Jamie Oliver. Oh, there are so many!

And I love them all! Why? Because I am completely addicted to The Food Network. What started out as an occasional cooking show here and there has now reached AA proportions.

You see, I’ve always loved to cook. I think my first entrée into the kitchen was helping my Aunt Joyce bake a cake. I was given the arduous chore of sifting the flour---which I charmingly mispronounced as “sniffing” the flour. And I still remember the day I was finally allowed to use a potato peeler. I was given a red potato and a peeler, along with very careful instructions on how to safely operate the sharp instrument. My aunt sat down next to me and peeled almost five pounds of potatoes in the time it took me to do one. However, despite my slow potato-peeling pace, I was rewarded with so much praise and was able to utter my favorite commercial jingle, “It’s Shake and Bake! And I helped!”

However, while my Aunt’s Kitchen was kid-friendly, my Grandma’s Kitchen was no place for a child. Grandma didn’t have the time for my slow potato-peeling pace. The kitchen was no place for fun and games. Meals needed to be on the table and there was no time for nonsense.

And Grandma’s Kitchen was enormous. Two refrigerators. Cast iron skillets. Contraptions like waffle irons and electric mixers. And an entire room off to the side of the kitchen known as a Butler’s Pantry---the cabinets of which were stocked full of spices, flours, dried fruits and nuts, rice, and things like Baker’s Chocolate (which, I learned the hard way, was not tasty at all).

It was a culinary wonderland.

My Grandma was 100% Polish, but born in St. Louis---so her style of cooking was based on a mix of heritage and regional fare. The Polish dishes she grew up with combined with the Southern cooking that comes from St. Louis being right on the border of what I like to call the Biscuits and Gravy Belt, mixed with a bit of Italian influence due to the influx of Italian immigrants that had migrated to the South Side of St. Louis where she lived.

One day you’d get Spaghetti with homemade meat sauce, the next you’d find Southern Fried Chicken on you plate and the next…well, it would be something weird and Polish. Trust me, Polish Kielbasa and Sauerkraut was a good day. Some of those Polish dishes were scary.

Grandma was also my part-time baby-sitter and, may I say, lunch was a crap shoot. Many was the summer day I’d come inside after a long and vigorous morning of playing in the back yard, only to be greeted with a Head Cheese Sandwich.

And for those of you who don’t know what Head Cheese is----well, it sure ain’t cheese. It wasn’t until years later that I learned that what I’d been eating was actually parts of a cow’s head (lips, eyes, snout, etc.) held together with the gelatin from the meat. Grandma would take two pieces of white bread, dip them in a plate filled with apple cider vinegar, and slap a piece of Head Cheese in the middle.

“There you go. Lunch.”

Oddly enough, I actually found this sandwich delicious. Well, you pour a bunch of apple cider vinegar on pretty much anything and I could call it a meal.

It wasn’t till college that I learned that Head Cheese wasn’t actually cheese and I haven’t been able to touch it since.

Head Cheese Sandwiches aside, I was not to be deterred in the kitchen. While my mother worked full-time and really only had the energy to make a weekly Sunday dinner---I was a kid with lots of time on my hands. And suddenly festooned with my newest baby-sitter---my Uncle Virgil. And Uncle Virgil couldn’t cook.

My first classic dish was a little something I liked to call Buttered Noodles. Shell noodles boiled up and covered in melted butter----mmmm. Well, actually it was margarine. But my brother and I did love our Buttered Noodles. It’s noodles and it’s butter. What’s wrong with that?

My second classic dish was Corn Bread and Beans. A can of great northern beans heated up in a saucepan with a quick mix cornbread. Simple and delicious! I alternated back and forth between these tried-and-true dishes for months. Despite the repition, no one seemed to complain.

However, when I wasn’t reading, writing, practicing the piano or cleaning the house---I generally found myself in my Mom’s kitchen with her Joy Book of Cooking. To this day, my Mom remembers coming home and finding little dishes I’d cooked up all on my own. Once, she was out at a relative’s birthday party and came home to find me in the kitchen, welcoming her home with, “Hey! I baked a loaf of bread!”

She didn’t believe me. But I did. And it was amazing. The smell of fresh, baked bread alone was enough to make me want to learn more and more.

When I went away to college, my Aunt Joyce gave me a hot pot for my dorm room. I could make entire meals with just a hot pot and a little mini-fridge. People would come from down the hall to get my spaghetti and my tuna and noodle hot pot casserole.

At my job before moving to New York, I was known for bringing a Soup of the Day into the office. The office loved my homemade lentil soup, my cabbage soup, chicken noodle and all the fresh baked breads I made to go with them.

To this day, I still don’t have a fancy kitchen like the kitchens on The Food Network. But you’d be surprised at what you can do with a few pots and pans, a stocked spice cabinet and a trip to the Farmer’s Market. And, despite my small Manhattan Kitchen, I have all the ingredients of the world available to me in this city.

I moved into my lovely apartment almost a year ago to the day. I do love it here. It’s so peaceful and yet, still Manhattan. Tho don’t get my started on the A Train. Last night I wrote my THIRD complaint letter to the MTA. I’m waiting for my pat response regarding the “ongoing track work”.

In any case, I realized that a year has gone by and I have yet to have any kind of a housewarming party. Of course, a year later, it’s not really a house warming party. But who cares? It’s a party. And the most important thing to me is making some super fantabulous dishes for my friends. To that end, I am glued to The Food Network for ideas. Sure, I have a few tricks up my cook’s sleeve. But I always love trying new things, new ingredients and new techniques. The plan is to practice a few dishes to see how they turn out. Planning the fest for about a month and a half from now. And the party plan will be to show a few of the new films I’m shooting with friends and just have a great feast with great food and drinks.

And, after my accident, I'm a survivor, damnit. I deserve a party!

Fleet Week

This is Fleet Week in NYC---when all the Navy ships pull into the harbors of Manhattan and unleash loads of sailors onto the streets of our fair city.

Like most New Yorkers, I don’t exactly know why they show up this time every year. They just do. And the young men all look so handsome in their dress whites. And by young I mean YOUNG! It’s weird to think that if danger ever really hit the shores of the Hudson River, it would be thwarted by a bunch of eighteen year-old kids.

Sure, you get some officers who are a bit older. I waited on a couple of them tonight. All decorated up and SO, SO nice. Service people, in addition to always being extremely polite and kind, ALWAYS leave a great tip. I suppose it helps that most establishments (mine included) offer discounts for service personnel. We offer 20% off your bill. Most places in NYC give a 10-20% discount for these folks---and well they should.

But, may I say, I have one tiny complaint about our boys in white. And, well, it’s not really them per se, but the Navy as a whole.

Okay---exactly WHEN did our U.S. Navy stop teaching sailors to tap dance?

Because I’ve met a lot of these guys, and NONE of them know how to tap. Not even a little time-step. It’s a disgrace. There once was a day when the ships would pull up and a legion of sailors would tap down the gang plank and when they reached shore, would sing out, “New York, New York! New York, New York! It’s a wonderful town!”

They don’t do that anymore. I know. I went down there. I watched. They just walk down the gangplank all ho-hum, la-de-dah. Lazy bunch of sailors! What is our Navy teaching these guys? They’re on a ship all day, every day---what else do they have to do? How much swabbing does the deck need? I think what that deck needs is a little soft-shoe, thank you very much.

So this week, I firmly believe that it is my patriotic duty to teach a sailor to tap dance. And he can teach two friends, and they can teach two friends, and so an and so on and so on…

So, if you meet a sailor and he knows how to do the shim sham---well, you can thank me later.

Not Like Carrie Bradshaw: Day Seven

These days, there seem to be reality shows for pretty much everything. Dancers, singers, models, actors, filmmakers, fashion designers, entrepreneurs, chefs, and even wildlife experts. But, to date, there has been no reality show for writers.

And it ain’t ever gonna happen.

Why? Because writing is not Good TV.

A bunch of guys with plaid shirts and beards sitting in a cabin in the woods staring into a fireplace as they try to come up with the best haiku.

Even I wouldn’t watch that.

Unless you can find a batch of drop-dead gorgeous writers who wind up on a suicide watch as they attempt to complete their novel and backstab each other during the read-thrus---well, FOX will not be hopping on that particular bandwagon.

Writing is an interior pursuit. Period. Sure, there are those great TV writing jobs where you write with a partner or even a roomful of staff---but even still, the real writing is done in the head.

And, I have to say, I’ve had some experience writing in those group situations. Comedy, mostly. It’s hard to work on drama as a group. Just doesn’t come off as well. Comedy in groups works because the point is to make someone laugh. And if the other guy laughs, then you know you’re at least on the right track.

But comedy writing is not as fun as you would think. The weird thing is the better and more professional the writers---the less laughing you do. Yeah, you laugh. And yeah, it’s more fun than staring at a blank page all by your lonesome. But the pros rarely laugh out loud. It has to be REALLY spectacular to elicit a guffaw. Generally, the only laughter in the room comes when they’re laughing at private jokes or at themselves or each other.

But when it comes down to the sketch, the mood is often so heavy in thought and they’ve heard so many jokes in their day that often, the best they can do is to pull their hand away from their chin, wave it in front of them and say, with great seriousness, “Now THAT’S funny.”

Sure, there’s some yuking it up going on. But generally, writing comedy is a serious business.

In fact, the ones that laugh the most at their own jokes are generally the least funny. And if you think it’s painful sitting in a roomful of comics spitting out one bad joke after another---well, that’s nothing compared to your mind spitting out hours of shit-poor ideas in your head.

Carrie Bradshaw never seemed to have this problem. Carrie sat at her desk---relaxed, peaceful and all cozy in her yoga pants---sipping a glass of red wine, taking thoughtful drags from a cigarette, looking out the window for a moment, and then suddenly coming up with the perfect words. I never saw her struggle with just the right word. Never saw her pull out a dictionary or thesaurus.

“Hmmm---should I say ‘connote’ or ‘denote’? Hmmm.”

I never saw her re-write. Never saw any rough drafts or notes. Never saw her edit even one word of her precious thoughts.

In fact, when she finally got an opportunity to write for Vogue, she seemed floored that an editor for a national magazine had covered her two double-spaced pages with red ink. Well, Ms. Bradshaw---welcome to the wonderful world of writing!

Writing can SUCK! That’s why Dorothy Parker, when asked if she liked writing, famously replied, “No. I like having written.”

Years ago, a writer friend of mine stumbled across a great piece that the late Spalding Gray wrote about being at a Writer’s Colony. He made a copy of it for me and I loved it so much, I put it in a little frame and keep it on my desk.

And now, I’m passing it onto you.


Spalding Gray
At A Writer’s Colony

Then I got down to the writing, and it was awful. I don’t know why anyone would want to do it. It stinks. It’s like a disease. It’s an illness, writing. It steals your body from you. There’s no audience. You’re alone. My knuckle was swelling up. I had an arthritic knuckle from the pen pressing against it so hard while writing longhand. I was losing my sight in my left eye. I was going blind in my left eye, which was a horrible experience, because here I was working on all my Oedipal themes, and I thought, “Oh no, there goes the first eye.”

So I’m writing, writing, writing. I’m writing longhand. How long can you write longhand? Three hours? Four if you’re lucky, and your hand’s like a claw. Then what can you do in six hundred acres of woods? You go for a walk in the woods. And you walk and you walk and you walk. You go back to the main house and you drink. And you drink and you eat. And you reread what you wrote and you get up in the morning and you write. And you walk and you walk and you drink and you eat. And you reread what you wrote and you write and you walk and you drink and you drink and you drink. And you drink. I just wanted to get out of there!

But how could I leave? I was in a privileged place. Something had to draw me away----some disaster. Someone had to have a heart attack. Who would it be?


While not all writing is as tortuous as this, it’s not too far from the truth.

That is, except for Carrie Bradshaw.

Carrie Bradshaw and her perfect, un-edited, 500-word, overpaid columns can kiss my sore-from-sitting-too-long-in-my-desk-chair ass.

Writing is not that easy. Nor that financially rewarding for most of us.

But it does have its other rewards. The joy of finally figuring out the perfect twist in a plot. The thrill of discovering that a small element you accidentally planted on page 3 magically pulls the whole thing together on page 119. The adventure of finding out that pacing the floor to stimulate a dialogue between characters not only works---but helps bring a three-dimensional element to your cast.

And, last but not least, the ecstasy of hitting “PRINT”.

Nothing beats watching those pages roll out of your printer like little sheets of gold.

Of course, then you have to sit down with a red pen and mark that gold all up. But that’s okay. Because you’ve finally got something tangible to hold in your hands.

It’s even better when the piece is finally complete and you can make a title page and stick it in a binder and hold all that gorgeous bulk in your arms. It’s got to be the closest thing to giving birth---without all the great drugs.

But it’s your baby. You created it. Nurtured it. Sacrificed for it. And painfully pushed it out of you with sheer force. And there are no caesareans for writers. Not even forceps. Just you and Mother Nature alone in that six hundred acres of woods.

And then, before you know it, the day comes when you have to send it off into the world. You’ve done your best to raise it and help it become the best it can be. It’s your baby and you love it---and you hope the world will love it as much as you! With great expectations for your child, you let it go.

Unfortunately, the world can be a cold, hard place for your child. As it gets rejected by society, it crawls back home and winds up on your doorstep again. You take it in, of course---but do everything you can to help it get back on its feet. You give it everything you can give and send it out into the world again.

But after awhile, when your kid keeps marching back home to Momma, you have to face reality and realize that, as hard as you tried---well, you just have a shitty kid.

Luckily, for writers, we can just stick that shitty kid on a shelf and try to make a better one.

Today, while sitting on the train to work, I realized that I was currently raising a pretty decent child. Two of them, in fact. And sure, they take up a lot of my time and energy. And yeah, they can be a pain in the ass sometimes. But I think I’m doing a pretty good job of raising them in a big city as a single Mom on a waitress salary.

And the great thing about my kids is that if they turn out to be completely worthless---well, abortion is always legal at any age and any stage of development.

So, there you go. A week in a life of a NYC Writer. I wish I had more for you. Wish there were some major career developments or plot twists or new characters for you to identify with. But, while life here is occasionally like Sex in the City---it’s generally like life anywhere else. Or writers anywhere else. No matter where you live, it’s pretty much just you sitting down with your thoughts, some paper and a pen.

And while this has been an interesting exercise for me---well, frankly, I need to get back to work. Writing these daily essays takes quite a bit of time away from my regular writing duties. On average, I would say it’s taken me approximately 3-4 hours to write each one. Sure, some of it is done on the train back and forth to work. Some of it is me actually AT work jotting down ideas and bits and pieces in a small notebook I keep in my apron pocket. But it definitely takes time.

And, to be honest, I’m not thrilled with these pieces. I will admit to occasionally going back and making small minor changes in the blog from the previous day or even the day before. It’s hard to write so quickly and then just let it be. These aren’t exactly shitty kids. They’re more like a houseful of foster kids I didn’t pay enough attention to. If they wind up in jail or hooked on drugs, I can always say, “Hey, I only had them for a short time.”

But this has certainly been a challenge. And, for me, that’s one of the fun things about writing---constantly being able to challenge yourself and damn the risks.

So, while Carrie Bradshaw may never have written a less-than-stellar column---she never really took any risks. In writing, at least. We all take risks in life. That’s where the great stories are. And you can’t REALLY write if you aren’t living. So, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my fabulous life in this amazing city. It’s not exactly Carrie Bradshaw, but then, I don’t have to constantly turn everything into a pun. God, I hate those puns.

And just so you know---at this moment, I am sitting at my computer, sipping a glass of red wine in a pair of comfortable yoga pants while looking thoughtfully out my window. And the perfect words are coming…

With the help of my thesaurus.

Not Like Carrie Bradshaw: Day Six

As far as I can tell, Carrie Bradshaw never wrote anything besides her column. A weekly newspaper column would probably be a mere 500 words a week.

That’s not that much. 500 words add up to about a single-spaced, typed page.

Now granted, this was immediately going into print, so everything had to be not only tight, but perfect. But frankly, that’s not a whole lot of writing. No wonder Carrie had so much free time.

Today was my day off work. And in my precious little amount of free time, a vast number of errands needed to be accomplished. I’m happy to say, I got pretty much everything done. I even surprised myself. I also managed to find enjoyment in my errands. And almost achieved that Zen-like inner peace as I hauled home close to 100 pounds of goods.

How did I achieve this state of near-bliss?

With the use of this baby right here!
I finally broke down and bought a shopping cart. The best twenty dollars I ever spent.

I resisted for a LONG time. You see, my Grandma had a metal shopping cart. She didn’t know how to drive, so once or twice a week, she’d wheel her silver shopping cart down the street to the market. And, while I loved my Grandma---I wasn’t ready to look like an old lady wheeling her groceries down the street.

My first few years in NYC, I lived in a brownstone on the top floor---a fifth floor walk-up. Carrying the groceries and cat litter home was one thing. Hauling it all up five flights of stairs was another thing entirely. And the laundry. The closest Laundromat was about five blocks away. I felt like all I did for years was constantly haul shit back and forth. Even if I had a shopping cart, it would have been more trouble than it was worth trying to lug it up five flights of stairs.

So, when I went looking for a new apartment last year, one of my main criteria was an elevator building. Well, I got my elevator. And it makes my life SO much easier. There’s even laundry in the basement. All should be well. Or so you would think.

Because it seems that the milk, laundry detergent, soda water, flour and heavy cans of peeled tomatoes always seem to run out at the exact same time. Buying in bulk to save money is out of the question. Not only that, but I’m constantly having to make numerous trips in and out and back and forth.

So today, I eyed this baby in the window at a little home store in my neighborhood. This is not your grandma’s shopping cart. This lady is sleek, stream-lined and in an oh-so-fashionable black that goes with anything.

I proudly wheeled my brand new shopping cart down the street. I passed other shopping cart people. Not old ladies. But young, fresh college students, new Moms, and young hipster guys. Like people with the same cars, we gave a nod as we wheeled past each other.

Tourists to New York City are always perplexed by the logistics of living in a place like this. Where are the grocery stores? Where are the gas stations?

I hear these questions from tourists in the restaurant at least once a week. The answer: Get off the tourist track and you’ll see them. Both grocery stores and gas stations require lots of space. You’re not going to find either on Park Avenue. Skyscrapers are the norm. And who wants to live above a gas station? Tho if someone did manage to find a way to put a one-bedroom over a gas station---it would probably go for about $2500 a month.

The markets tend to be (in Midtown, at least) from 8th Avenue and up to the Hudson River. The gas stations don’t start till about 10th. The center of Manhattan (5th Avenue) is generally the most valuable space. Nothing but high-priced boutiques and maybe a Starbucks or two there. Then, on the East Side---you’re looking at Lexington Ave. till the East River for those practical amenities.

But pretty much anywhere in Manhattan, you can find the delis---or bodegas, as some call them. Little corner stores that primarily sell soda, beer, cigarettes, lottery tickets, snacks and a few household items. Think of a tiny 7-11 without the Slurpies. While these places are tremendously convenient (and generally open 24 hours a day) they’re often hugely over-priced. Most neighborhoods have at least 10 delis within a five minute walking distance. You’d think the preponderance of these places and the high-prices would cause these tiny markets to go out of business within a matter of months.

But these shops not only survive---they thrive. Why? Because New Yorkers don’t drive. I only know a handful of people in the city who actually have cars. Most of them live in New Jersey or Queens. Keeping a car in the city is not only expensive, but…well, kind of useless. It’s much easier to hop on a train to go thirty of forty blocks than to sit in traffic for twenty minutes and then spend another ten minutes looking for an over-priced parking space to go the same distance.

Hence, the shopping cart. The shopping cart, the hand cart, the dolly and the rolling suitcase are all commonly seen wheeling things down the streets of Manhattan. I regularly see people wheeling office chairs, bulky furniture and even whole racks of clothes down 8th Avenue.

So today, after I joined the rank and file of Manhattan with my new shopping cart, I headed to the Mecca for writers. No, not The Strand bookstore. That’s way downtown. And that’s another thing I never saw Carrie Bradshaw do---read. I never saw her read anything other than a fashion magazine or a blurb in The New York Times about an upcoming (and pertinent to the plot) wedding. No. The Mecca I’m talking about is the office supply store.

Down to my last sheet (literally---I had ONE) of 3-prong paper, I had no choice but to make my first stop with my new shopping cart at the nearby Staples.

Unlike many artistic pursuits, writing has historically called for very few instruments. Early on, it simply required paper, ink and a quill. Over the years, the weapons of writers have changed dramatically.

When I first started writing in grade school, all I needed was a blank notebook and a No. 2 pencil. Even our little school essays were handwritten. In high school, we graduated to typewriters. But by college, word processors and computers were the norm.

Today’s writer will benefit by a computer with a high-speed connection, a fast laser printer, and a vast array of accessories like flat screen monitors, digital cameras (for capturing those lovely photos posted on blogs), a cordless mouse, mouse pads and keyboard wrist guards to help prevent carpal tunnel, back-up discs, storage bins for those discs, label makers for those discs, and a whole array of paper clips, binders, staplers, folders and all sizes of envelopes in which to mail our professional-looking submissions.

Office supply stores are a virtual wonderland of writer supplies.

Being a person with a fairly adequate desk set-up (as well as a person on a budget) I kept my puschases to the bare minimum. Mainly, paper. Two reams of three-prong paper. However, I couldn’t resist a package of my favorite pens.
As a waitress, pens come and go in my life like men to Samantha Jones. Sometimes they just seem to appear in my apron pocket. Other times customers seem to think my personal pens used to sign their charges are complimentary.

Okay, a little dining out rule: Unless the pen the waitress hands you is emblazoned with the name of the establishment, DON’T TAKE THE PEN! That’s MY pen. And I need that. Sometimes, it’s one of my favorite pens. That hurts. Everytime you leave with one of my personal pens, I curse you to the rest of the staff. Then, I spend the next few minutes hoping you'll realize your mistake and bring my beloved back. You never do. Pen-napper. Damn you.

But these ballpoint pens from Staples are my favorites. Black ink, a clicker for me to push up and down when I’m having trouble thinking, a soft bit of rubber at the base to grip---and the look is gorgeous. I fell in love with these pens so much that I gave a packet of them to a writer friend of mine as a little gift.

“Really,” he sort of apologized, knowing that I was on a strict budget, “I have so many pens. You shouldn’t have.”

But every time I stopped by his place, the pens were scattered all over the place---one next to the phone, one on the desk, one by the bedside. Trust me, they’re that good. They will quickly become your favorite pens.

I plopped the paper and pens into my shopping cart and headed to the market. No worrying about how much I could carry home today! This was great! And, in New York City, so many people have these carts that the market shopping carts actually have these tiny metal hooks attached to the tail end of every cart. You just fold up your own cart, hang it on the back, and start shopping like normal.

Then, with your groceries all bagged up, you unfold your cart and toss your bags in. So simple. So easy. It has totally changed my life.

I did all my shopping for the week in one trip today. No more getting the smaller container of milk because I’m also buying cantaloupes and the larger milk would be too heavy to carry. Oh no. Today I bought it all.

I will admit something that some people don’t know about me---I don’t know how to drive. Nope. Just never learned. No real reason. Went to Catholic school and they didn’t offer a driver’s ed. College was a small town. And everywhere I’ve lived since college had pretty decent public transportation. So this is the FIRST time in my life that I’ve been able to get all my groceries for the week home in a single trip. It's possibly the most tremendous, life-altering thing that's ever happened to me!

My mother (who DOES drive) laughed when I told her on the phone tonight how a shopping cart had changed my life.

“I might even give it a name!” I exclaimed in my utter joy. “Like people name their cars.”

“A boy’s name or a girl’s name?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I guess a girl’s name. People always name their cars after girls.”

“You should give it a boy’s name. Because it’s carrying your groceries home.”

Yeah. She’s right. In college, one of my best friends got an old GTO for her first car. It was huge, gas-guzzling, and incredibly old. Vintage, sure. And pretty cool-looking. But could often be unreliable when it came to getting us to the local clubs and back. For some reason, she called it “Dwayne”. Not just “Dwayne” but “Dah-wayne”---like the kid from “What’s Happening?” If the car faltered as she reved up the engine, we would tap on the dashboard and say, “Hay, hay, hay Dah-wayne!”

And he would always start up.

So my new shopping cart is now named Dwayne. And, in one day, he has saved me enough time that I was not only able to write this 2500 word blog (that’s 5 times what Carrie Bradshaw wrote each week), but also another 4 pages of stuff for my latest project.

Maybe Carrie Bradshaw would be too embarrassed to be seen walking down the street with Dwayne, but I’m not.

Not Like Carrie Bradshaw: Day Five

Another exhausting day at work. Carrie Bradshaw NEVER worked as hard as I do.

Out of all the four main characters on Sex in the City, Carrie Bradshaw is supposed to be the one with which most women identify. She’s the Everyman. Or Everywoman.

At least, she’s supposed to be.

All the elements are there---attractive (but not drop-dead gorgeous), middle-income (at least for NYC), average apartment, average success with men and relationships, and just enough quirks, insecurities and daily mishaps for women to believe their heroine is “Just like me!”

Personally, I’ve often felt more connected with the character of Miranda Hobbes. And while I don’t have a high-paying job at a law firm, nor do I own a huge Pre-War apartment in the 80s on the Upper West Side, I DO have something in common with Ms. Hobbes---Household Chores. And, like her, no time to get them all done.

Of course, On Sex in the City, Miranda easily solves at least part of this problem by hiring a housekeeper---Magda.

And today, as I prepare for my day off tomorrow by making a list of all the Things I Need To Do Tomorrow---I also try to think of ways that I can perhaps start to accomplish my weekly errands in less time and with less effort.

But one thing I know for sure---a housekeeper is out of the question.

Not that I necessarily want one---tho, in NYC, they are actually one of the few great bargains in town.

You see, last year I was between apartments. After losing a great sublease in Midtown, in an act of desperation, I took a place a block away for a mere $800 a month. What do you get in Midtown Manhattan for $800 a month? A shithole. Not only your average shithole. But a shithole literally the size of a walk-in closet. I fondly referred to it as “The Rapist Building”.

I was there for several months while I looked around for something better at a reasonable price. Just to give you an example of how horrible a place you get for $800 a month in Manhattan---a gay hustler down the hall was apparently gang-raped by two guys and was killed by having his head bashed in.

Yeah. The police tape was on the door for months. My cop friends filled me in on the details and told me to hurry up and get the hell out of there.

Luckily, a good friend of mine had a gorgeous, 2-bedroom/2-bath apartment with a penthouse view, and spent a lot of time out of town. So, for a few months, I trudged back and forth between The Rapist Building and a Luxury Hotel.

The de-lux apartment in the sky included another amenity---a housekeeper.

Nellie.

Nellie came in once every two weeks and made everything all better.

Having never dealt with a housekeeper before (outside of the occasional hotel stay)---I really didn’t quite know how to deal with it. First of all, before she came, I would clean up. Yes---I cleaned up for the maid. Because heaven forbid the housekeeper walk into a messy apartment. Occasionally I would even help her clean. Nellie and I spending the afternoon chatting away about her son who was a musician, my inability to find a reasonable apartment in a decent neighborhood, and how our respective holidays were going.

But honestly, it feels weird to just sit there while someone else is cleaning up your mess. It’s not even a class thing. Or a master-and-servant issue. I just felt like I made the mess and I should clean it up---or at least help. Sure, if you have a spouse or a bunch of children---well, you can kind of justify the help in cleaning up THEIR messes. But your own mess? While she was well-paid for her bi-weekly chores, I often found myself slipping her an extra $20 if I’d been extra messy that week. Since the guy who actually lived there was so rarely home, a lot of weeks she’d have it easy by just tossing a few coffee cups into the dishwasher and doing the regular round of dusting and mopping the already clean floors. Not to downplay her role in the house at all---no matter how clean or dirty, she left that place spotless.

And then, in comes me----a person who actually COOKED in the kitchen instead of opening up a container of take-out. A person who took lots of baths that left rings around the tub. And a person who frequently left piles of paperwork and dirty towels all over the place. She always tried to refuse my money and my help---but I always insisted. “I just feel like when I’m here, I make your job harder.”

She was sweet, hard-working, reliable and above reproach. One of those rare gems you could totally trust in your apartment alone.

But until I can afford a Nellie of my own (and can get over my Housekeeper Issues) I have to do all my little errands and housekeeping myself. It’s generally not too bad. I don’t mind cleaning my apartment, doing laundry or buying groceries. In fact, if I had more free time, I would undoubtedly find a Zen-like satisfaction in these mundane tasks.

But usually there’s so little time to get these things all done that the sought-after relaxed yoga state becomes more like an intense, high-powered spinning class.

So, as we speak, I try to come up with ways to slow it all down. Enjoy the cleaning, the laundry, the errands and the cooking. Be in tune with the moment. Not exactly Carpe Diem. More like Carpe Munus. Seize the task.

Speaking of foreign languages: Tonight at work, I bounded back and forth translating, once again. Not only my own tables, but two French tables the other waitress had. She came over begging, “Please! They don’t speak a word of English and I don’t understand a word they’re saying.”

Tonight I translated for French, Spanish and Italian tourists. I also picked up some more Bengali from the busboys from Bangladesh (who always love when I speak Bengali to them). People at work often wonder how I pick up so many languages. Well, I certainly don’t have a photographic memory. In fact, I don’t think I’m naturally adept at languages at all. But I like to talk to people and I like to listen to them. And I’m a writer. It’s just another synonym.

Today, outside of this blog, I wrote nothing. Sometimes you have those days. For me, it’s rare. I tend to write at least something everyday. Even if it’s just working on a blog, returning emails, jotting down some notes, or writing in a Word Pad that has become a sort of disposable journal and way to think things out on paper. I don’t keep a regular journal anymore. I may decide to start one again at some point. But right now, I just don’t feel the need. I’m too busy writing other things. Besides, it would most likely just turn into a long list of errands that constantly needed to get done.

Years ago, I remember reading The Once and Future King. One of the most memorable parts of the book for me was a description of ants walking in a line simply saying over and over, “Done. Not Done. Done. Not Done.”

It’s an apt description of our sometimes mundane lives. Of course, everyone (no matter how well-protected and affluent) has errands. I’d bet that even the Pope has a To-Do List. Or at least a To-Delegate List. After all, Pope Benedict XVI speaks German, Italian, French, Spanish, English, Latin, a bit of Portugese, and can read Ancient Greek and Biblical Hebrew. Synonyms or not, you don’t learn all that without at least a short To-Do List. And a housekeeper. No time to learn Ancient Greek when you’ve got to launder your own vestments.

And, while I’m not exactly seeking a Pope-like Inner Peace---I’m just happy to recently discover that my local pet store will deliver my cat food and litter for free.

And Carrie Bradshaw didn’t have a cat. But Miranda did. And you can bet she had those 25 pound bags of cat litter delivered.