Moment Magnitude

Unlocked is Better

Like most people, I have behavioral quirks.

Whenever I leave the loft, I check to make sure I have my keys - at least three times. The lower lock is always set, so if I close the door behind me, and I don't have my keys, I'll lock myself out. It happened once, and it cost me over $300 to get a twenty-four-hour locksmith over here to fix it. Twenty-four-hour locksmiths leave their cards in doorways and lobbies all over Manhattan apartments. It's gotta be a kick-ass business.

I leave a spare set of my keys with neighbors, but still. I check that I have my keys. I think it's a little bit compulsive.

Another thing. I don't keep food in the fridge. Except for the occasional doggy-bag. Another twenty-four-hour convenience: the deli around the corner. I'm environmental. If the food is in the fridge, I'll eat it. If I have to leave the loft - and check for my keys three times - I'm less likely to go out and get food.

I eat well and I eat enough. I just don't want to fall into the trap of mindless munching as I watch films on the television. And I watch a lot of films.

I wonder sometimes, about these behaviors. The keys. The food. Well, the food. Have I used food to fill a an emotional void? Sometimes, yes. About a week before my period - as any woman will aver - youbetcha. Our emotions get out of hand at those times, and food: chocolate, sweets, savories, they quench and quell the loneliness, anxiety, anger, sadness, the you-name-it.

The strange biochemical soup that courses through our bodies, our brains, makes us funny, weird, and worse. It's the worst of these about which that lately I've been thinking.

I see somewhat similar patterns in other of my friends here at home in the City. The behaviors, the compulsions, the addictions. How one of us might use booze to anesthetize the difficulties of modern life: heartbreak, self-loathing, self-esteem, fears, anxieties, all of it. How another one uses sex, perhaps hoping that one man or ten different men, might be the "all and everything" to fill up what feels like an endless void. How another cannot make it through a week unless she has a date - or three. Or how another claims to want multiple, casual relationships with men, only to break them off, then needle the already fraught situations with nasty follow-up emails and text messages, the results of which are inevitable rancor and ill-will.

What are these compulsive needs - like me and my keys - that perpetuate such behaviors?

Okay, once upon a time, after a lunch meeting, I stood somewhere on Lexington Avenue in the 60s, and I had a no idea where I was. My stomach dropped, I broke out into a cold sweat, and my vision blurred. My "big brain," as I call it, kicked in to emergency drive, and I focused on the street signs, to determine if I was walking downtown or uptown, and I made my way back to the garage where I'd parked my car. I took several minutes and calmed myself.

Later, I said to myself, "I'm smart, but I'm not that smart." I didn't understand what had happened to me. And I sought help. My therapist diagnosed me with an anxiety disorder, and we went to work. That was over ten years ago. That work taught me how to take care of myself, how to be present and be in the moment, and how to manage my life.

Today, I am aware of my compulsions. I like to think that none are too severe, that none hamper my existence, that I can sit back and not take myself too seriously, that I can smile and enjoy the moment. That I can pay attention, especially when I falter - because I know I will.

 

So long?

Hey there. Not sure how much time I can devote to writing here anymore.

Living and working and recreating the second half of my life in the East End of Long Island, the Hamptons, has been all-consuming.

Lately, it feels like Face Book, A Small World, and company email (the latter most of all) suck my brain dry. Oh, and Thursday night karaoke at Sen Spice Lounge in Sag Harbor.

I hope to come back, and so, for now Moment Magnitude is nominally active.

Tra-la.

The Unborn Baby Bird

I know I have to write when I feel the flicker of an idea.

In the past year the flickers have rained across my almost-consciousness like a meteor shower. And I have not taken the time to write. I find that this career switch into real estate leaves me plumb brain pooped.

Poopy-tired. (E.S., if you read this ever, you'll recognize that phrase. Yes you will.)

If I plumb (from the vernacular to the proper use of that word), the purse seine net of those flickers, some flashes include:

How the East End is the new Boulder.

So - Is this a hot flash?

Episodes from the office - This never happened in book publishing.

Us versus them - That didn't take long.

How the local folk are like Jane Austen characters, 200 years after.

Wimbledon, the Tour de France, the Beijing Olympics, the US Open. Because I like to watch. A lot.

Surfer Girl (and others) defeat The Circle of Misery.

The new weekend.

The unborn baby bird crush.

Let's see if I can get some of these out of my head and onto this screen. Good grief, we've past Labor Day already.

Independence Day

Independence Day takes on special meaning this Fourth of July holiday weekend.

Yes, Richard Ford's luminous touching novel has the same name, and I read it last summer. I hope to dig in to his latest segment of that so-far two-book trilogy, The Lay of the Land. I am an unabashed admirer.

Never mind that same-named throw-away film however many years ago.

Yesterday, the Colombian government somehow managed to complete a covert, daredevil ploy to free fifteen hostages held by Marxist guerrilla forces, each for several years. One is Ingrid Betancourt, who once ran for president of Colombia, and who, in the middle of that campaign, was kidnapped. A few months later, three American "contractors" were likewise kidnapped, and likewise rescued yesterday. Read it here.

There is a connection.

Some ten years ago (approximately), when I was publisher for the sciences at Columbia University Press, I attended the summer meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in Boston. I was there, to first, promote our latest book, authored by Cornelia Dean, science editor for the New York Times. The book is: Against the Tide: the Battle for America's Beaches. I reference it often now that I am living in Sag Harbor and working real estate in the Hamptons.

At that meeting, in a session addressing possible hazards about transporting nuclear waste to Nevada's Yucca Mountain, I met Victoria Bruce. The AGU meetings are attended by some 85% men: Earth, ocean, and space scientists. Imagine boy scouts with big brains. I don't think I need to say much more.

I was used to - and liked - being one of the few women allowed into this club.

And then there was Vicky. Gorgeous, sexy, forthright, and asking tough questions of the big science boys - on the g-forces that would pull on the proposed containers intended to transport nuclear waste down under the mountain with known underlying fault zones (hey Vic - I can still dredge up the old science verbiage). I wondered to myself: Who the hell is this?

I learned later that she has an advanced degree in earth sciences, but was (and is) ever the pistol. We became fast friends. She wrote a provocative adventure-disaster book, No Apparent Danger: The True Story of Volcanic Disaster at Galeras and Nevado Del Ruiz (Harper Collins - as a former ex-boss from the pantheon of my ex-bosses wrote recently: "We're scratching our heads" about the resignation of Harper Collins' CEO Jane Friedman. I know I am. She's tremendous.) The book's true story setting is Colombia.

While there, Vicky allowed herself to be seduced by the Colombian culture. Not long after the publication of her book, she returned to the country, and started to film footage for what would become the documentary (that she co-produced with her partner, Karin Hayes), The Kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt.

That film won the audience appreciation award at Slamdance, the film festival adjacent to and in the same location and time as Sundance. Later, it won the Columbia (the university) DuPont award in 2005, and was picked up by HBO to air on cable.

A few months later, Vicky and Karin made another documentary film, Held Hostage in Colombia, this time about the three American contractors who, while conducting airborne surveillance in Colombia, crashed, and were held hostage. That film aired on Public Television.

As has been exhaustively documented by the mass media in the last day, these people were held in captivity in the Colombian jungle for years.

Now they are free.

Vicky and I exchanged holy-shit-holy-fuck email messages last night.

I've been shaking my head intermittently all day today.

The eve of the Fourth of July. Where the Town of East Hampton will not have beach fireworks - lest they disturb the natural environment of the piping plovers.

Where I've run into an ex-boyfriend (from hell), done with some three years ago. And felt nothing. Except that I didn't want to be in the same particular location, and I just left.

It's all independence.

Time, rescue, maybe without fireworks.

But freedom.

Twenty-Eight on Twenty-Seven

Shame on me.

I have not kept up with my normal pace of posting.

And there is so much - precisely why I have not written in an almost unforgivable span of months.

Since March (ahem), I have so many more customers and clients. This real estate thing ramped up fast, yet I feel like such the neophyte. It's reminiscent of my first job as a college textbook field sales rep for Prentice Hall.

The material is not intellectually challenging. But there is so damned much of it. I have been packing my brain as fast as I can (short term memory lapses notwithstanding) with what they call the "inventory," that is, the few thousand homes out here in the East End of Long Island that are available for rent and or sale.

The core/corps of my friends in NYC know well what I am up to these past fourteen months or so. But my wider social network may be less informed - to which I say: If you want to rent or buy a house in The Hamptons - yep, east of the Shinnecock Canal (which separates this part of Long Island the way NYC is separated by the Hudson from the rest of the United States), then pop me a query right here, in the post-a-comment section.

At some point soon, I will go wider, just as GV-Wonder has advised.

Surfer Girl moved out here too.

CAN YOU EVEN???

NO SHE DIDN'T.

YES SHE DID, WHY YES SHE DID.

But of course, as she says, throaty and husky, "I've had dual citizenship between the city and out here for years."

Someone else out here remarked, "She's world class. She's wild." It's important to know what matters.

On her occasional forays to and from parts West, she stops, as if inserting push-pins on a map, to check in with um, various surfer-buds along the way. I suspect that back massages are involved, at the minimum.

And then, to coin my own phrase, albeit adopted wholesale by Surfer Girl, there is in our East End world, The House That Doesn't Suck. But more on that later, as I peel back the layers. Let's just say that years of watching The L Word, have opened new friendships, that also include speed boats, wake-boarding, all-night parties, spontaneous karaoke, and the last season of American Idol. Two words: Dave Cook.

And me, well. I think I may have started peri-menopause. I think I had my first hot flash in February. And it lasted two months. Which did suck. And then one of the last eggs in my body must have dropped, because I menstruated again after a six-month hiatus. What???

Well, now. The 27-year-old has been operating mostly in the text message periphery, but maybe because he's turned up a couple of times this spring, my body remembered how to be a female. Two times in as many months. That's the rate that my current headspace can handle (never mind the puns, I know what some of you are imagining - and it's all true - so there).  I asked him if he had had a birthday since we met last summer. He said he did. I told him I had one too - and that means I am still twenty-one years older than he. As before, I say: Nevermind.

On one of the last times (apres rendezvous) he rolled out on the main drag out of here, westbound. I was driving east from Southampton when I spied his car on the opposite side of the road, leaving for now. I flashed him - my headlights, that is.

Twenty-eight on Route 27.

That doesn't suck.

Bruce Willis Mac 'n Cheese

Last month I conducted business over a late lunch in a favorite neighborhood hang: Cafeteria.

Cousin T. is its unofficial mayor. Open twenty-four hours, I've been there all hours of the day and night. When I've gone there with Cousin T., it's as if we are dining in "our" family restaurant.

I ordered a side of their mac 'n cheese (my favorite), and assembled papers and documents with my client. We were talking when Simone leaned in to my left side, and asked, "Excuse me. What do you think of the mac 'n cheese?"

Without missing a beat, and without looking up, I responded, "It'll change your life."

And when I turned my head, I cam almost nose to nose with Bruce Willis.

"Okay," he said. "I'll order it."

He, and this gorgeous brunette woman sat at the table just next to us. I looked over to my client, and tried to gesticulate while mouthing the words, "That's Bruce Willis (!)."

My customer joined us and I managed to focus on the transaction at hand, mindful the whole time of the party dining just behind my right shoulder.

I looked up at the faces of the people sitting at the table across from me. They looked dumbstruck and stared agape at the table behind me.

I turned as the waiter served Mr. Willis his mac 'n cheese.

"Excuse me," I said, "You got bacon. Bacon on your mac 'n cheese."

"Yes I did." I saw a flash in his movie star eyes, the look we know from the mega roles he has headlined.

The waiter interrupted. "Oh I'm so sorry! I'll get you bacon the next time." (Such a doll.)

My client, customer, and I completed our transaction. In the back of my mind I knew I had to seize the moment. I remembered something. Something from two decades earlier.

Mr. Willis and company were paying their check. When he finished, I turned to him and said, "I have to ask you something."

He looked at me. "Okay..."

"I have to ask you about...Sam Shepard. I saw you perform in what was it...?"

"Fool for Love. It was Fool for Love."

Yes it was."

"You're one of the privileged few."

"I am?"

"Yeah. That show ran (x number ) of performances, and let's see, (another x number) of people saw that show."

"And I was..."

"And you were one of them. That show got me my agent. It changed my life."

"You were incredible. I'll never forget it. I've wondered about that performance." (This was before Moonlighting.)

He smiled, and before stood, I asked, "So. What did you think of the mac 'n cheese?"

He leaned toward my client. "It's criminal. It makes you want to do crimes. White collar."

He walked around our table and introduced us to his girlfriend (very beautiful, great smile).

"Are you buying and selling something something here?"

My client smiled at me.

"Well, yes. I represent real estate in the Hamptons."

"Do you have anything in the Caribbean?"

We laughed.

And then he looked at me with intent. "You are going to be great at this."

For what it's worth, I got my first commission check this week.

The Endless Pool of Tears

The Endless Pool of Tears.

That may not be a direct quote, but it's at least close to a line I read in Mary Edwards (I wanted to write Ellen, that must be a Catholic upbringing hangover, unwelcome) Wertsch's book, Military Brats, a book my father gave me (fraught) that I used in therapy some fifteen years ago. Among other things - but that's a whole big-ass episode in my life about which I may address or not.

But that endless pool. While my violent, controlling, rage-aholic father, who started out as military, somewhere getting scooped up into covert activity under the aegis of National Security (NSA today), wrecking havoc on my childhood - and my Irish twin brother's (although I expect he is still less likely to admit as much) prevailed upon me to become adult before experiencing my own childhood, here I fucking am.

I've been clean for a long while. It used to be that I would break down in these uncontrollable periods of tears, sobbing racks, animal howls, torrents of tears, most often thudding my head again the steering wheel of my car, after a night out with friends, one drink too many, in the back of my mind grateful that no cop car caught me, parked, and free to let loose all the pent-up pain, rage, and fear in a flood of salt water.

It happened tonight. And I let it. I was present in my pain. I allowed all those tentacles of tangled pain wrap right around the firmament of my psyche.

All I could think of was my sister, when she was maybe three or four years old. I was pushing her on a swing. We were living in Germany. I think I remember that she wanted to go higher - something about which my mother warned me - but my little sister was never very fond of me (preferring my brother), and I wanted to please her. I think. I pushed harder.

(What the fuck is that weird feeling I get in my hands when I write that, godammit?)

I pushed her higher.

And she fell. On her face, Her bottom teeth almost perforated the place right below her bottom lip. Panicked, I picked her up, I know she was crying, screaming, and hauled her back to our house. I don't remember much after that. I I'm sure my mother took her to the dispensary, where she was stitched up, injected with penicillin or tetanus or something, and that was that.

To this day, I feel culpable. There's no getting around it.

My sister is dead.

Every so often, these sharp images come at me, so fearsome. That endless pool of tears wells up to the point where I can barely see through the windshield of the car as I drive home.

These days, I am less inchoate. These days, I say "I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry..."

Not that it makes one lick of difference.

I get out of the car, eyes swollen, and I look up at the crystal clear night, the stars so clear out here in the country. I can see all the way back in time, universes ago.

I know that it's just a roll of the dice. This consciousness, this fucking self-awareness, in all its glory, in all its agonizing responsibility, drives home the intrinsic thing: There is no god.

But it's hard.   

Candy Darling

Before 2007 fades into history (history, dammit!), Liz Taylor Jr. celebrated her birthday, notwithstanding that her latest amour, a yummy, young fellow, flew up from his Caribbean-isla home, but not before he advanced two cases of Perrier Jouet and three dozen orange roses to NYC. Now that's a statement. Pedro's got my vote.

Who but Surfer Girl to upstage LT Jr., and on the latter's own anniversaire?

And so, to paraphrase, from the story delivered not from the honeyed lips of "she-who-challenges-the-Ditch-Plains-break," but from the distillation of the drunken bacchanal that ensued in honor of LT Jr.  Yep, an email, photos shared.

The birthday dinner (the birthday bash started the festivities the week before at Niki Beach), was held at Phillipe Chow's, a kind-of offshoot from the 80s-dinosaur, Mr. Chow. Surfer Girl commented that she nearly went blind from all the ice on parade (unlike my concern during this procedure), the likes of which would cost as much as her entire apartment building.

I'll bet the blingerati stared harder at our girls, as maitres d' escorted them through the dining rooms, through the kitchen, "Goodfellas" style to the private cellar, where their gussied-up table awaited.

No mention was made of actual food. Drink was. Oh, and...

"When dessert was served, I got up, clinged (?) my wine glass for everyone's attention, and announced, 'If anyone needs sugar for their coffee or tea, I got the goods.'"

At which point, Surfer Girl unzipped the front of her top and flashed all fifteen people at the table, in addition to three waiters, and two other adjacent dinner parties.

"My candy bikini top." (Recall photos, above.)

Her quickie backstory (my asides in italic, parenthetically): "A few months ago, I was getting drunk (I am shocked) in Chelsea with my best gay boyfriend (duh), when our bartender hooked me up with a bikini top made of candy. It's the same candy used to make candy bracelets, the ones that ice cream trucks display, hanging next to the ring pops."

To me, they look a confectionery version of puka shells. C'mon now, retro 70s-chic, I saw a resurgence out East last summer on (ahem) younger fellas. But back to Surfer Girl, baring her almost-all, chez Phillipe's cellar tables.

"There were three people at out table whom I had just met. I doubt they'll be forgetting me. I had to give a Tara Reid apology, the 'nip-slip,' because I had no control over my candies."

Now take a harder look at those photos.

"The waiters told me to come back very soon."

Heck, I just jealous of her tan!

The fur hat-and-jacket poses came later, reportedly four-something in the morning. Note what appears to be an empty bottle of designer vodka. Even if it is a water bottle, I'm wagering the contents were swapped out for something Russian. Da!

January First

I spent most of yesterday traveling, returning from New Mexico, after spending the holidays with Mom and Step-dad.

The trip was uneventful, despite snowy weather and a two-plus-hour layover at Chicago-O'Hare.

I have spend, oh, probably thousands of hours on airplanes and airports, but this is a first.

Once boarded upon the second flight and final leg bound for New York's La Guardia, the bursar, or head flight attendant, or whomever, came on the public announcement system with this information: A passenger, who had told the flight attendants of her "airborne peanut allergy," requested that all other passengers, if they had any food items containing peanuts, to refrain from eating them during the flight.

I raised my eyebrows, and at first, said to myself, "Only in New York." Except that we weren't in New York, yet.

Then I thought of the little white masks I have seen folks wear in Chinatown. Couldn't one with such an allergy wear one of those, instead of making such a request - to a whole planeload of people?

Okay, maybe the allergy is so bad, that this person would go into anaphylactic shock at the merest whiff of a peanut. Maybe. I'm just saying.

The words "high maintenance" fluttered across my mind.

Anyhow, once back in NYC, and back at my loft (sans automobile), I bumped into friend-neighbors, and we set off for dinner at decades-old Florent on Gansevoort Street. Half way through our meal, Ethan Hawke came in with companions. My friends commented that they see him frequently, on the street. We all live in Chelsea after all.

Later, back at my now semi-empty loft, I popped around "My Favorite Blogs," scroll down below the photo albums in the left-hand column, yep, over there (<<<).

I hadn't checked my favorites in a while, and I am so happy to say that (with the exception of one that has been dormant), they are as vibrant, witty, and as wonderful as they have ever been. Bless you, insomnia haiku. I laughed out loud many times. You rock.

I also received my first comment of 2008, on the post, Lemonade, comparing my writing to Susan Orlean (!). Except that there is no bloody way I could ever have a crush on Dick Cheney (urgh), ironic or otherwise (apologies to Ms. Orlean).

Still, that's what I call a nice start to a New Year.

Chapter Six

The year is almost finished - and I posted another chapter on Plot Participant.

Each time, I get a fleeting urge to knuckle down and finish the whole damned manuscript, but I never do.

Anyhow, go check it out, Chapter Six.