Oh, I tell you, living in the East Village has certainly improved my social life. Which is pretty ridiculous, since I could have easily gotten anywhere I chose from Chelsea, which in fact had way better transportation than my current neighborhood has. I think the thing was that I was simply out of town to most of my friends, who frequently have cause or desire to be in the East Village/Lower East Side area, but who never have any reason whatsoever to be in Chelsea, so they kind of forgot I was out there in exile.
So last week, would you believe I went to the ballet TWICE? I have a friend who works in phone sales at the New York City Ballet, and he hooks me up with tickets. I must say, I was surprisingly unimpressed by three of the ballets I saw. I went to an all Jerome Robbins evening last Wednesday, and I LOVE Jerome Robbins and was prepared to be enchanted. With the exception of the last ballet...I wasn't.
The first piece was In G Major, with music by Ravel, and it left me totally cold...the problem is me, I think, not the ballet. I'm a rank traditionalist, and this was Robbins in VERY modern mood. The music was interesting though, because I hadn't realized that Ravel died so late. Somehow I kept lumping him into the 1900's in my mind, when in fact he died in 1937. The result was that this particular music had a lot of very modern sounding jazz bits in it, which was fascinating. Please don't ask me what the hell the ballet was about, because I couldn't possibly tell you. Excellent dancing, of course...just not my style.
The second ballet was a mourning piece called, logically enough, In Memory Of. It was fairly depressing, what with a dying girl and mourning dances. It must come before Robbins choreographed Les Noces, which has somewhat the same theme, but which I love...I haven't bothered to look up the dates. Again, not to my taste. And it was done to Alban Berg's music, and I can't even begin to tell you how much I hate Alban Berg. He got involved with Schoenberg at some point or another, and it shows. Strange flatnesses and atonalities creep in, and I hate them. (Yes, I love Tchaikovsky...so sue me.)
Ah, but the third ballet! It was utterly charming and absolutely hysterically funny. In my youth (that would be, oh, 1876 or so), there used to be band concerts in the park, not rock bands but little funny oom-pah groups or string quartets and things, and that was what the ballet was about. A gentleman came out, sat down at the piano onstage, looked at the its keyboard, and took out his hankerchief to dust the keys, at which point a large puff of dust appeared. It went from there. People wandered on with chairs to watch the concert...a very henpecked man with a virago of a wife, a group of rather raucous young men in search of pretty ladies, the pretty ladies, and a girl in love with the pianist who sat right at the upstage end of the piano to lean on it and moon at him, and was so fascinated that she didn't move a muscle when someone removed the chair she was sitting on. (I can do that trick, but it's HELL on your thigh muscles.) The poor henpecked man kept trying to follow the pretty girls, and his wife bopped him on the head with her purse for his pains...it was just charming and funny and lovely. And music by Chopin, which was a great relief after that damn Berg stuff.
Then last Friday I went to a dress rehearsal of the new Christopher Wheeldon ballet, DGV: Danse a Grand Vitesse. I could NOT make heads or tails of this thing. Wheeldon is supposed to be the new Great Hope of choreography, but frankly... The music was by someone called Nyman (I think), and was interesting. People came on and off and did all sorts of lifts and things, and various people writhed in the background, and I found the whole thing somewhat depressing.
But what the hell...I really can't spend the rest of my life confining my ballet going to Swan Lake, now can I? One must broaden one's horizons. Even though I should love to see Swan Lake at the moment...it's at least comprehensible. And it has pretty tutus.
You may or may not have gathered that I am a ballet nut. I had great plans to be a ballerina, and took ballet for years, and would, in fact, have made a terrific ballerina except for one tiny little problem...I am without a doubt the most untalented dancer in the world. How on earth I managed in all the years I did musical comedy is beyond me...up to and including actually dancing in Sweet Charity. Yeah, a Bob Fosse show. In that instance, I announced to the choreographer that I was a singer who moved (preferably behind a large piece of scenery) and he said, "Don't be silly! By the end of this season, you'll dance!" At the end of the season, he said, "You know, you were right. You can't dance." Duh. I knew that. Another choreographer, fascinated by my complete lack of dancing talent, once told me excitedly, "I've got it! You can't count to eight!" I can count to eight, you know...just not when I'm trying to dance. I start to forget the steps somewhere around six. Ah, well...there's always Shakespeare. THAT, I can do.
And tomorrow night I'm going to see a friend's band playing. What I should be doing is hanging pictures (they're all still leaning against the bedroom bookshelves) and generally getting this place together properly. But I want to go out and play, so there.
And tonight I watched the third Narnia movie (so I'm a nerd...so what?) in complete comfort in my big chair with my Diet Coke and my ashtray. I love it here!
Love, Wendy
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Home From A Party
I've just come home from a lovely housewarming party given by two young friends of mine and am delightfully full of food and good conversation and (duh) beer. You will understand how much I love this pair by the fact that they live in the far reaches of Brooklyn...requiring a bus, a subway, and another bus.
However, the conversation, at one point, turned to Orthodox Jewry. (The male side of this pair is Jewish.) And we began talking about a very upsetting trend.
I am disturbed as HELL, as half a Jew, about what seems to be happening, not only in Israel, where an 8 year girl was recently spat upon and hounded for her perceived "immodest dress," (an 8 YEAR OLD) but here in New York, where women in highly Orthodox neighborhoods are told that they must sit in the back of the bus...which brings us almost inevitably to Rosa Parks, and also told that they must walk on the other side of the street from men, and on and on and on. There was a very good op-ed piece in today's paper about this.
What I find fascinating about it is that I'm a half-breed Catholic/Jew, raised in both religions, and this sounds exactly like what I was taught in Catholic school. When I hit puberty, I began to grow a bosom (it happens) and mine was pretty impressive. Still is, although it needs a LOT more shoring up than it used to. I was told to wear ever larger uniform blouses, and try to find a flattening bra, because my breasts were giving boys "bad thoughts." If I wore patent leather shoes...well, we all know that one. We were also taught to wear a horrible thing...a Playtex rubber girdle. The idea was that since we could barely get the thing on, no boy could get it off. This was undeniably true...you try dealing with sweaty rubber in August in Chicago. It took you 20 minutes to get the damn thing off. And my all time favorite was the nun who told us that if we had to sit on a boy's lap, we should put a telephone book down first. Personally, I ALWAYS carry a telephone book in my purse...don't you?
However, in either religion, do you see the point here? It's ALL OUR FAULT. By our mere existence as women, we bring this upon ourselves. Men are completely innocent. In today's article (I'm sorry, I've forgotten which paper) there was a story about a wig store in an Orthodox neighbor which was forced to close, because the ultra-Orthodox announced that the faceless wigheads modeling wigs in the window were an incitement to...BAD THOUGHTS.
Dear sweet GOD. We are being dragged right back into the old bad days. When I was abused by my first husband, I had to run barefoot in the snow (yeah, I know it sounds like an 18th century novel, but it's true and it happened to me), I got the cops to come with me to get my things out of the apartment, and the cops said (this was 1968), when I told them about my broken nose and permanent scars..."What did you do to him, lady?" Well, of course. By my very existence, I was the cause of being violently raped and beaten.
And all the conversation about how men are led by their penises and should therefore be given some sort of pass? What is that? Surely it can't be right that we walk innocently down the street, NOT dressed like streetwalkers, NOT hunting for a man, NOT doing a goddamn thing except trying to get home from work or a party...and goddamnit, if we are attacked, we are STILL greeted with "What did you do to him, lady?"
How on EARTH is this still going on?
Love, Wendy
However, the conversation, at one point, turned to Orthodox Jewry. (The male side of this pair is Jewish.) And we began talking about a very upsetting trend.
I am disturbed as HELL, as half a Jew, about what seems to be happening, not only in Israel, where an 8 year girl was recently spat upon and hounded for her perceived "immodest dress," (an 8 YEAR OLD) but here in New York, where women in highly Orthodox neighborhoods are told that they must sit in the back of the bus...which brings us almost inevitably to Rosa Parks, and also told that they must walk on the other side of the street from men, and on and on and on. There was a very good op-ed piece in today's paper about this.
What I find fascinating about it is that I'm a half-breed Catholic/Jew, raised in both religions, and this sounds exactly like what I was taught in Catholic school. When I hit puberty, I began to grow a bosom (it happens) and mine was pretty impressive. Still is, although it needs a LOT more shoring up than it used to. I was told to wear ever larger uniform blouses, and try to find a flattening bra, because my breasts were giving boys "bad thoughts." If I wore patent leather shoes...well, we all know that one. We were also taught to wear a horrible thing...a Playtex rubber girdle. The idea was that since we could barely get the thing on, no boy could get it off. This was undeniably true...you try dealing with sweaty rubber in August in Chicago. It took you 20 minutes to get the damn thing off. And my all time favorite was the nun who told us that if we had to sit on a boy's lap, we should put a telephone book down first. Personally, I ALWAYS carry a telephone book in my purse...don't you?
However, in either religion, do you see the point here? It's ALL OUR FAULT. By our mere existence as women, we bring this upon ourselves. Men are completely innocent. In today's article (I'm sorry, I've forgotten which paper) there was a story about a wig store in an Orthodox neighbor which was forced to close, because the ultra-Orthodox announced that the faceless wigheads modeling wigs in the window were an incitement to...BAD THOUGHTS.
Dear sweet GOD. We are being dragged right back into the old bad days. When I was abused by my first husband, I had to run barefoot in the snow (yeah, I know it sounds like an 18th century novel, but it's true and it happened to me), I got the cops to come with me to get my things out of the apartment, and the cops said (this was 1968), when I told them about my broken nose and permanent scars..."What did you do to him, lady?" Well, of course. By my very existence, I was the cause of being violently raped and beaten.
And all the conversation about how men are led by their penises and should therefore be given some sort of pass? What is that? Surely it can't be right that we walk innocently down the street, NOT dressed like streetwalkers, NOT hunting for a man, NOT doing a goddamn thing except trying to get home from work or a party...and goddamnit, if we are attacked, we are STILL greeted with "What did you do to him, lady?"
How on EARTH is this still going on?
Love, Wendy
Monday, January 9, 2012
A Rise In Spirits
I have just made myself feel enormously better by setting up my computer wi-fi ALL BY MYSELF. You have to understand that while I can work computers, I have absolutely no talent for what other people consider extremely mundane tasks...such as sending a link. I spent quite a bit of time thinking how nice it would be if I could send a friend of mine the nice picture of my cats that I took with my phone...like months...before I accidentally pressed a button and got a list of things to do that included "email photo." So you can understand that I now feel totally invincible, and not only that, I can get rid of the damn card table that the computer is sitting on (because that's where its cord reaches) and put the computer on the dining table, where it belongs. Then I can get the damn card table out of the middle of the living room and go on with organizing this joint.
Yay, me!
Love, Wendy
Yay, me!
Love, Wendy
Ghosts of Apartments Past
Oh, I can't stand it. That damn Chelsea apartment is STILL following me around causing trouble.
Tuesday of Christmas week I went over and did all the cleanup from the move...getting rid of trash, sweeping floors, cleaning the icebox, washing the floors. Now it seems that I didn't do enough for them.
Now, as we all know, I'm a total neophyte when it comes to apartments in this particular century. I've only had four since I moved back to NY in 1972, and two of those were in the same building. Now, when I left the second one in that building in the '70s, I just told them I was leaving and left. Nobody said a word to me. When I left the third apartment, they were trying to get us out because they were going to renovate and turn the thing into a coop building, so nobody cared about the apartment (which was a good thing, since it was really old and shabby). In both cases, I hasten to add, I left the apartment just as I left the Chelsea apartment...clean, swept, etc. Then we bought the house, and when we sold that, they were going to gut renovate the thing, and anyway they had us bring the cleaning and fumigation people in.
So I have absolutely no experience of leaving an apaartment which seems to be under new rules. The lease I had tells me that normal wear and tear is fine. Dan (son of the owner), tells me that the stove is covered in grease and they probably have to buy a new stove (they should buy a new stove because that one is crap, but it hasn't got anything to do with grease and anyway I cleaned it) and that I should have taken all the picture hangers out of the walls and spackled and painted. Done WHAT? Since when is the outgoing tenant intended to repaint the apartment? This would make sense to me if I had painted a wall black or something like that, but surely hanging pictures is "normal wear and tear," isn't it? And according to Dan, there were marks on walls. Well, yes...if you put furniture against walls, it may well leave a mark. Again, surely this is normal wear and tear?
So now they're going after my security deposit, and I'm just furious...not to mention frightened for no reason whatsoever. It's just that Dan and his mother Maria frighten me anyway, because of the whole eviction thing and all (I was never comfortable in that apartment because I always thought they were going to burst in the door wanting to inspect it). I mean, there's no reason for me to be frightened of them...other than taking my money, they can't do a damn thing to me...but they're such a creepy pair.
I'm going to spit tacks for a while.
Growl.
Love, Wendy
Tuesday of Christmas week I went over and did all the cleanup from the move...getting rid of trash, sweeping floors, cleaning the icebox, washing the floors. Now it seems that I didn't do enough for them.
Now, as we all know, I'm a total neophyte when it comes to apartments in this particular century. I've only had four since I moved back to NY in 1972, and two of those were in the same building. Now, when I left the second one in that building in the '70s, I just told them I was leaving and left. Nobody said a word to me. When I left the third apartment, they were trying to get us out because they were going to renovate and turn the thing into a coop building, so nobody cared about the apartment (which was a good thing, since it was really old and shabby). In both cases, I hasten to add, I left the apartment just as I left the Chelsea apartment...clean, swept, etc. Then we bought the house, and when we sold that, they were going to gut renovate the thing, and anyway they had us bring the cleaning and fumigation people in.
So I have absolutely no experience of leaving an apaartment which seems to be under new rules. The lease I had tells me that normal wear and tear is fine. Dan (son of the owner), tells me that the stove is covered in grease and they probably have to buy a new stove (they should buy a new stove because that one is crap, but it hasn't got anything to do with grease and anyway I cleaned it) and that I should have taken all the picture hangers out of the walls and spackled and painted. Done WHAT? Since when is the outgoing tenant intended to repaint the apartment? This would make sense to me if I had painted a wall black or something like that, but surely hanging pictures is "normal wear and tear," isn't it? And according to Dan, there were marks on walls. Well, yes...if you put furniture against walls, it may well leave a mark. Again, surely this is normal wear and tear?
So now they're going after my security deposit, and I'm just furious...not to mention frightened for no reason whatsoever. It's just that Dan and his mother Maria frighten me anyway, because of the whole eviction thing and all (I was never comfortable in that apartment because I always thought they were going to burst in the door wanting to inspect it). I mean, there's no reason for me to be frightened of them...other than taking my money, they can't do a damn thing to me...but they're such a creepy pair.
I'm going to spit tacks for a while.
Growl.
Love, Wendy
Friday, December 30, 2011
Happy Almost New Year!
So here I am...still in a fairly comprehensive mess, but that's because I haven't cleaned up from Christmas yet.
This apartment is so great...everybody loves it and is congratulating me for getting out of Chelsea. You walk into the front door and the kitchen is on your right. Oh, this glorious kitchen! It has an icemaker in the refrigerator, a dishwasher tht actually works, and a ton of storage space...and it doesn't get covered in grease and the stove doesn't get unbearably hot when you cook on it. Plus the floors are level! (I made some very odd-looking fried eggs in Chelsea because they kept slithering to the edge of the pan because the stove wasn't level.) Then the living room has a big picture window out to the street and tons of light during the day.
My bedroom has plenty of room, with a good sized closet and another of those picture windows, the bathroom has tons of storage, and right outside the bathroom there's a sort of half walk-in closet and a linen closet. This is wonderful!
The neighborhood is slightly sketchy, but gentrification is moving toward me at a great rate. There are housing projects all around, but also lots of luxury apartments...you can tell, because while my corner deli (open all night!) has a lot of cheap beer, they also carry premium brands and black olive tapenade. The supermarket closest to me is pretty terrible, but perfectly fine for everything except meat...but there's a good one four blocks away which I went to explore today which has everything else I need. I also have a gourmet store two blocks away and a Duane Reade one block away. And if I want specialty stuff...you know, an actual butcher and an actual fish store and like that...Essex Market is about nine minutes away by bus.
Transportation is admittedly a bit of a problem on weekends. The M21 bus, which is the crosstown bus, doesn't run on weekends, and the M9 (that's the one to Essex Market) has a truncated schedule. However, I can always go over to Avenue D and catch the 14D, which hooks up with all kinds of transport, so that's reasonably OK.
My cable is hooked up, and it's somewhat cheaper (FiOS rather than Time Warner), so I can sit here in perfect peace and watch TV with my trusty ashtray.
I did have a few bad moments when the super (Jimmy...a lovely guy and a friend of friends) came by soon after I'd moved in to tell me someone kept smelling smoke, but he caulked a couple of things, and I use my air purifier, and that's the last I heard of that...and Jimmy kept reassuring me that this is NOT a non-smoking building.
We had a lovely Christmas, even though it nearly killed me. The week before Christmas I had to do all my shopping in one day (which I do NOT recommend...either the amount of shopping or the timing), and then Sarah, bless her, got all the stuff for the nieces and nephews...but I still had to wrap it all and mail it out Express Mail. But it all got done. Then we had our traditional Lobster Fest on Christmas Eve, and our proper Christmas night meal, and our friend Henry brought the tree over on Christmas Eve so we could trim it between lobsters. Unfortunately, Moon Unit has discovered the tree and thinks it's the best fun ever, so I have to keep an eye on her...she likes to knock the ornaments off and bat them around the floor, which is not particularly good for either the ornaments or the cat.
Meanwhile I put my mother-in-law in a taxi on December 26th to get her back to Penn Station, and then came back and SLEPT for about three hours. Then I got one full day off before I had to go to my ambulance chasing lawyer pal for Wednesday and Thursday. Today I went to the good grocery store (I lead such an exciting life).
Tomorrow night I'm either going to my pal Jiggers' place or to the Bistro for New Year's Eve, looking absolutely gorgeous...Sarah bought me these amazing red velvet pants for Christmas which I just love. I'm going to wear them with a black turtleneck, ropes of pearls and black heels. Get me...
Oh, and did I mention that there's a post office around the corner and a library across the street? Talk about convenient...
Now to eat dinner, and I think I'll find something to watch on TV. Hoo boy...this is GREAT!
Have a wonderful New Year, everybody!
Love, Wendy
This apartment is so great...everybody loves it and is congratulating me for getting out of Chelsea. You walk into the front door and the kitchen is on your right. Oh, this glorious kitchen! It has an icemaker in the refrigerator, a dishwasher tht actually works, and a ton of storage space...and it doesn't get covered in grease and the stove doesn't get unbearably hot when you cook on it. Plus the floors are level! (I made some very odd-looking fried eggs in Chelsea because they kept slithering to the edge of the pan because the stove wasn't level.) Then the living room has a big picture window out to the street and tons of light during the day.
My bedroom has plenty of room, with a good sized closet and another of those picture windows, the bathroom has tons of storage, and right outside the bathroom there's a sort of half walk-in closet and a linen closet. This is wonderful!
The neighborhood is slightly sketchy, but gentrification is moving toward me at a great rate. There are housing projects all around, but also lots of luxury apartments...you can tell, because while my corner deli (open all night!) has a lot of cheap beer, they also carry premium brands and black olive tapenade. The supermarket closest to me is pretty terrible, but perfectly fine for everything except meat...but there's a good one four blocks away which I went to explore today which has everything else I need. I also have a gourmet store two blocks away and a Duane Reade one block away. And if I want specialty stuff...you know, an actual butcher and an actual fish store and like that...Essex Market is about nine minutes away by bus.
Transportation is admittedly a bit of a problem on weekends. The M21 bus, which is the crosstown bus, doesn't run on weekends, and the M9 (that's the one to Essex Market) has a truncated schedule. However, I can always go over to Avenue D and catch the 14D, which hooks up with all kinds of transport, so that's reasonably OK.
My cable is hooked up, and it's somewhat cheaper (FiOS rather than Time Warner), so I can sit here in perfect peace and watch TV with my trusty ashtray.
I did have a few bad moments when the super (Jimmy...a lovely guy and a friend of friends) came by soon after I'd moved in to tell me someone kept smelling smoke, but he caulked a couple of things, and I use my air purifier, and that's the last I heard of that...and Jimmy kept reassuring me that this is NOT a non-smoking building.
We had a lovely Christmas, even though it nearly killed me. The week before Christmas I had to do all my shopping in one day (which I do NOT recommend...either the amount of shopping or the timing), and then Sarah, bless her, got all the stuff for the nieces and nephews...but I still had to wrap it all and mail it out Express Mail. But it all got done. Then we had our traditional Lobster Fest on Christmas Eve, and our proper Christmas night meal, and our friend Henry brought the tree over on Christmas Eve so we could trim it between lobsters. Unfortunately, Moon Unit has discovered the tree and thinks it's the best fun ever, so I have to keep an eye on her...she likes to knock the ornaments off and bat them around the floor, which is not particularly good for either the ornaments or the cat.
Meanwhile I put my mother-in-law in a taxi on December 26th to get her back to Penn Station, and then came back and SLEPT for about three hours. Then I got one full day off before I had to go to my ambulance chasing lawyer pal for Wednesday and Thursday. Today I went to the good grocery store (I lead such an exciting life).
Tomorrow night I'm either going to my pal Jiggers' place or to the Bistro for New Year's Eve, looking absolutely gorgeous...Sarah bought me these amazing red velvet pants for Christmas which I just love. I'm going to wear them with a black turtleneck, ropes of pearls and black heels. Get me...
Oh, and did I mention that there's a post office around the corner and a library across the street? Talk about convenient...
Now to eat dinner, and I think I'll find something to watch on TV. Hoo boy...this is GREAT!
Have a wonderful New Year, everybody!
Love, Wendy
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
YAHOO!
I'm sitting here in front of my very own computer, with my very own ashtray in my very own living room. Hog heaven!
As you can imagine, what with not being totally unpacked (totally? try mostly) and my mother-in-law arriving Friday and people for dinner Saturday and getting the nieces' and nephews' gifts into priority mail, I'm a complete banana.
Let me get through the holidays, darlings, and I'll give you the full rundown!
Meanwhile, merry and happy whatever you celebrate and I'll give you a full rundown next week.
Love, Wendy (exhaling happily)
As you can imagine, what with not being totally unpacked (totally? try mostly) and my mother-in-law arriving Friday and people for dinner Saturday and getting the nieces' and nephews' gifts into priority mail, I'm a complete banana.
Let me get through the holidays, darlings, and I'll give you the full rundown!
Meanwhile, merry and happy whatever you celebrate and I'll give you a full rundown next week.
Love, Wendy (exhaling happily)
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Last Night in Chelsea!
Oh, my God. I have packed ALL the artwork, ALL the books, and borrowed a cat carrier from Sarah. All I have to do now is the kitchen and bathroom. And the movers are coming at 9 am tomorrow. I swear, I flat out refuse to move again...EVER.
Let's hope the cats like catnip...I got a catnip toy to help persuade them into the carrier. I'm not looking forward to that one.
Look for me in a week, gang...I can't get my cable and computer hooked up until the 15th, damn it.
Moving twice in two years is not to be recommended.
Love, Wendy
Let's hope the cats like catnip...I got a catnip toy to help persuade them into the carrier. I'm not looking forward to that one.
Look for me in a week, gang...I can't get my cable and computer hooked up until the 15th, damn it.
Moving twice in two years is not to be recommended.
Love, Wendy
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
