New York is cold but I like where I'm living

Big Apple

The thing that makes traveling alone difficult for me is not the isolation.  Being alone for a few days is not a problem.  The problem is the vulnerability, the sense of being at someone else's mercy.  When there is someone else to wait for you while you are randomly selected to win a free body scan with a side order of sarcasm, the vulnerability seems temporary and survivable.  When I do it alone I feel overwhelmed and must remind myself to not to hold my breath.  I taste blood from biting my lip.


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You are the silence in between what I thought and what I said.

The grocery store gives you stickers, a number of stickers per hundred dollars spent.  You stick the stickers in the pamphlet so you don't lose them.  When you fill the pamphlet full of stickers you bring it back to the grocery store and give it to the cashier in the Customer Service booth, and she trades it for two beer glasses.  

W is a former student who works at the grocery store, and when we go through her line she gives us more stickers than she is supposed to.  "I'll hook you up," she says.  Our sticket pamphlet books are full, and full, and full.  Our cupboards are busting with beer glasses.  "At last," says Shawn.  "Your career is finally paying off for me."

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SZ has gone to Korea to teach English.  She was a counselling project when I was a Masters student, a verbal sparring partner who told me I was not particularly helpful, and later I took her shopping to show her how an asexual person could dress for a job interview.  And now she writes to me when big things are happening in her life, like cutting off all her hair, or moving- indefinitely - to Korea.  My sense of what is healthy and what is functional has continued to evolve with her help.  She bakes me cookies.  I pick walnut shells out of my teeth and tell her I think she is perfect.

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morning markets

Yesterday one of my grade ten boys asked me whether I considered him "sublime" or "ridiculous".  Fair question since I had recently told the class that their scenes ran the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous.  (His was ridiculous, and I think he knew it.)  This conversation drew my attention to the fact that my reckless use of idioms might be confusing to my students who are still learning English.

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Tomorrow I have taken the day off to go to a doctor appointment.  Another one of those five minute appointments that require me to book off a whole day of work.  This is a second appointment with the BPPV specialist, the point of which is unclear.  He says he can't do anything and that the problem will resolve itself, but meanwhile we should keep seeing each other.  Why?  Really, why?

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the best parts of lonely

On Friday, R mentioned that she felt something was up with BB because she has been extra vicious lately.  I said nothing but I know exactly what is up with BB.  She has been trying (unsuccessfully, so far) to conceive.  Apart from the fact that it signifies pain, I quite love it when BB is vicious.  There is a kind of vicarious satisfaction to be garnered from observing someone else trampling on delicate things that look too pretty to be useful or intelligent or real.  This is probably why reality television shows starring people who are mentally ill are very popular.  I hope BB gets pregnant but I am concerned that she won't, that the chemotherapy has done some damage.


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I went back to Bikram yoga on Saturday at J's urging, and found it was completely possible to do the class without becoming dizzy.  It makes me wonder how much of my problem is psychological at this point, and how much is physical.  Fear has been preventing me from doing things that I can do.  This is important to remember.  However, I did not go back to yoga today, not because of dizziness but because I wanted to run outside in the rain instead.  (Sometimes I like that feeling of drowning a little from breathing cold humid air very fast.)


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season ending injuries

Sometimes I feel a bit betrayed when my regular news anchor gets a haircut.  Change is difficult for me.

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RW is, I think, devastated that he will not be in Europe in March this year.  If I was RW's wife I could not help but be mildly insulted at how sad he is at the prospect of staying home with his family.  But I recognize it is not about them.  Unexpectedly I feel a little bit of it too.  This is the time of year when I am normally feeling wistful and slightly anxious about leaving my family.  To comfort himself, RW has begun to plan next year's trip.  If everything works out, we will go to Berlin next March.  Amsterdam.  And Paris.  I wish I could bring RW with me to New York in two weeks; he is a good travel companion.


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look for these titles

Sometimes "Linked In", in spite of the fact that I do not have an account, still invites me to reconnect with people I have forgotten.  Today it asked me to link with B, a woman who used to work with me before she left to become more important.  An edu-lebrity, a Ted Talk Queen, as if she wasn't enviable enough.  You know those types who post photos of themselves effortlessly hiking Machu Picchu when you're still trying to figure out how people remember to take their garbage bags outside consistently on garbage day.  I did not link.  Not out of spite, but because we are already linked in other ways.  (Linked enough for me to know about Machu Picchu.)  I have not yet determined why anyone wants to link with someone who works in public education as there is no networking involved in public service jobs, which is, incidentally, one of the main reasons I like this kind of work.

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