A wink and a nod and a dash back out the door.

I wore crummy clothes this weekend, as my plans revolved around different opportunities to be dirty. Regardless of this, the scantily toothed man at the Upstate yard sale still appraised my group and I and said, “You know what you all remind me of? The show FRIENDS.” 

Perspective is all about juxtaposition, I suppose.

—

Here are some words of advice from the great Alan Moore. I’m re-googling him after being pleasantly surprised by the Watchmen movie.

—

I finished building the window this weekend with the help of my ‘Friends’.

Over pizza night Paul grabbed my shoulder like an old tennis ball and said, “You did good. The window came out great.” 

The Mystery Of The Lady Who Obviously Stole Our Stuff.

I’m writing to you from the warm confines of a sleepy, Monday stupor. By the accounts of those more aware than me at the moment, it’s a very nice day out – but to me it’s currently all white noise. 

So.

After twenty and change years of living in New York City, Faryl and I finally experienced a rite of passage.

We were burglarized.

What’s funny about this…. well… there is plenty funny about this, so, do take your tragedy hat off. What is funny about this is that it happened 70 miles from the big, rough city, in the small, quaint hamlet where our farm lives.

Let’s take this back a step:

Faryl and I bought a small farm last year. It was a ‘jump and the net will appear’ kind of move, and we love it. There are three barns on the land. One of these barns, we are working on turning into a house, but this is a crazy, involved process that involves talking to people with hammers and other people with forms. So in the interim, we’ve allowed ourselves to be charmed by another structure on the land.

It was originally a horse barn (I guess!? There were horse shoes and horse smells in it.) When we first saw it, I hoped it could be a cross between Thoreau’s cabin, Neil Gaiman’s writing Gazebo, and Chris Stevens’ Airstream from Northern Exposure.

+

+

=

After a few months of ripping up asphalt and hammering nails, we ended up with something closer to a Summer camp bunk house. It is just peachy.

Last week, as a surprise to me, Faryl and Analise built the bunkbeds we had bought from Ikea. Faryl arranged our sleeping bags on them so that when I came back the following weekend I would be extra excited to sleep there.

Saturday came, and we opened up the doors to the bunkhouse.

“Shit.” Faryl said.

Everything was there, undisturbed. Electronics, coffee maker, tools were fine. 

Missing: 3 Sleeping bags. 1 Box of tissues. 1. Package of Paper Towels.

So… Hmmm…. List of suspects is quite narrow seeing as we have a neighbor… here… let me see if I have a picture.

She is older, deaf, mute, and tragically steal-y. She has walked into our place before while we were there and gathered up various implements of crazy to take back to her lair. Once Faryl, clutching a shovel and doing a chihuahua shake, attempted to explain to her that it was our  stuff, and to please not take it.

At first we had thought this latest act of nappery had been some local kids causing mischief. I did it. I understand. A few hours into our day though, Log Lady came cruising by in her mini van, CASING THE JOINT. When she saw us she sped away. Also: Who steals paper towels? = Nuts.

So… yes… this is all very small potatoes. We can replace the sleeping bags. No one was injured, we were just slightly violated. Mostly I’m sad that we had to put locks on our utopian cabin. But, as I like to say when people complain, “These are good problems to have.”

—

New York Magazine’s Cheap Burger List. Not actually that cheap, but very enticing. 

—

Talk soon. I know I’ve been a lazy blogger. Mostly, I’ve been so focused on one thing for the past few weeks that I feel in danger of repeating myself. “Oh, farms are so charming. Nailing pieces of wood together is hard. BLAH BLAH BLAH”. But I will be back and bloggy. I love writing to you and it makes me feel great that you enjoy it. 

—

As I wrote this, Faryl had already finished her firey version of the story. Here it is.

Hi Hi Hi

Hi. Sorry!

Still with you, in very good spirits, just distracted by good weather and hammering things. Will talk to you shortly, promise.

 

- Cool Summer Dude Nick

 

Cuts.

I know, I know… Let us not speak of the author’s lack of communication.

—

One of my internet tangents (“mash ups I may have missed”) led me to this. I’ve been stuck on it for a few days now:

—

So I’ve been getting a lot of cuts on my hands.

Not in the “I’m a self hating teenage girl” way either! These cuts have been the result of the dangerous and exciting world of physical labor.

Up at the farm, a blur of shovels and pry bars have been surrounding me on a regular basis. I started up a weed whacker on the first try. Last week, a bug startled Faryl, so I squeezed it against the wall with my thumb.

“That was  a very ‘country’ move.” She said.

At the moment, what I have to show for all this is an array of red, scabby lines up my arms and hands. They vary in thickness and length – but they all serve to remind me that I am not taking it easy.

…and that I’m not being careful.

—

Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of radio. The Dales have an old stereo in their kitchen, the speakers are boomy and beat up and make everything sound like it’s being beamed from the past. Last week I decided the Commodores were a really great new group.

—

It makes perfect sense to me that in attempting to build a writer’s nook for Faryl and I that my level of writing output has decreased dramatically. I think this either serves to prove that things can never be ideal, and the finest pens rarely produce the greatest stories, or that a creative person needs time to recharge, and it’s clever to use that time and energy to help out ‘future prolific you’.

(“And the winner of the 2009 Run-on Sentence Award Goes To….”)

—

Alright. I have  a full day ahead of me of bugging hardware store guys. (“Is this what I need? Is this a good plan? Will this fall down and crush my loved ones?”) Off to work!

Put down the coffee and slowly back away from the thinking about things.

I think I have a little cold!

I don’t get sick very often – but all of my life whenever I do come down with something, I always have the sensation: I just want to go home.

As one gets older, though, “home” changes, and not just where it is, but what it is. Maybe you had to move from Kansas to San Antonio to be a better archaeologist or whatever, but home to you wasn’t in either place, home  was some cheap perfume your mother used to wear, or a cheeseburger, or Back To The Future.

So, I suppose with this in consideration, I’ve tried to cultivate situations in my life that are conducive to feeling at home. Good friends, good food, fun times are all on the list.

Also on the list is an actual, literal home!

We’ve been going up to the farm almost every weekend – sorting things out, and getting ready for the renovation of the barn we’re turning into a house.

But the last few weeks another project has been the object of my obsession.

This is a small barn on the property. We think it was used for pigs or chickens and perhaps later for hiding bodies. It is awesomely promising to me. Faryl and I decided it would be a good writing space/guest house that we could renovate ourselves as a way to learn about construction.

So in planning this, I’ve been had to ask myself, “What makes a home?”. For weeks now whenever I find myself relaxed in a space I’ll say to myself, “What do I like about this? What is necessesary for this experience?”

I’ve written little lists in my notebook that include bullet points like: “TABLE” and “BOOKS” and “FRIDGE?”.

The whole thing has been not only exciting to me because I get to daydream about us building a cabin, something we’ve always wanted, but because I get to underline how simple happiness can be. Modern comforts are wonderful, and certainly my laptop will have a place at the farm, but it’s nice to be reminded how simple “home” really is.

—

Pretty Unstoppable:

—

One thing I like about digital cameras (and my life) is that if you use them to take pictures of all the places you go over the course of a few weeks, when you look back at them it’s like you’re teleporting from one memorable memory to another.

Like a party at the Metropolitan Opera, where it turned out the coffee is not that good (Boo-hoo-hoo).

Up to the country, where Paul is in the midst of giving me more bad ideas. (He would later, in his sleep, in the rain, in the pitch black of night, fix a leaky roof.)

… To a mythical bird perched in a magical place.

A pile of landscaping supplies I was convinced not to steal.

…and another that seemed promising…

Picture this as a postcard.

Hi!

This has been taking up my imagination this week. It excites me to no end. More on things shortly, including the day I dressed fancy only to be mistaken for homeless.

“wish you were her!”

N

A Healthy Mix Of Appreciation and Introspection.

Do you know this one?

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook the other day – and upon hearing it I all at once remembered how simple life used to be. 

Listening to Pavement at Milan’s house in 1997, one of the Day School kids going on about how he saw them in concert, “to sound that apart, you really have to be together!”.

Life goals involved someone finally recognizing the brilliance of your band. A head of long hair flopped at your shoulders as you ate at the outdoor cafe. 

I wouldn’t trade my life as it is now for anything. But the very nature of nostalgia makes you ask questions: Are you remembering only the positive experiences? Would you act differently given the same circumstances now? Were these less complex times for the world, or for me?

…. Brighten the Corners is a very good album, either way.

—

So Faryl’s birthmother demanded we visit in Minnesota.

We obliged!

Mary Grace has somewhere between 4 and 12 children living with her. Here is one of the rare moments in our three day trip that one of them sat still long enough to be photographed. 

While traveling, many fun and magical things may happen. Like:

and:

(I’m afraid of birds.)

but in my opinion, nothing beat the trip to a charming little place called The Coffee Cup for a Sunday brunch. On the drive there, rumbles were heard from the back of the 22 passenger van we drove in expressing displeasure and confusion on why we would be visiting a greasy spoon, but I’m fairly certain the sound of my smiling drowned it all out.

Thanks for the good times, amigos!

About those windows…

Milan’s dad is a bad influence.

A few weeks ago, I was eating a lovely meal with him in his meticulously rustic dining room:

Faryl says, “Oh, I really like these doors you have, Paul.“

“Yeah,” He said as a five syllable word, as he often does when he’s about to tell a story, “They were closing a restaurant on Broadway in 1981, so I went in there and asked if I could have them and they said ‘yes’”.

Amazing.

The man has built a home out of the the discarded beauty of the Upper West Side. It was inspirational to hear about.

I could do that…

This is the “Little Barn”:

It is the smallest, oldest, and most beat up barn on the farm. It also has tremendous views of rolling hills and a lake, or at least it would, if it had some big windows instead of a leaned over 1800’s wall.

Let’s cut to this past Wednesday. I’m late to work. I’ve had too much coffee, which compounds the anxiety I’m feeling from having just finished a stress filled book. Shuffling down Crosby Street, I hear a bang. 

I look up, and realize I’m in the middle of a demolition site. A building is being renovated, and standing in front of me, like a two proud army cadets, are a pair of old, industrial windows.

This is my chance.

I look to the foreman (I guess? He had  a hardhat.) and give him a timid little nod.

“Yeah that’s gah-bich. Y’gehead an take that.”

I don’t hesitate. I pick up the first window, which stands six feet tall, and hobble the rest of the way to work. I return minutes later for the second, equally large, but somehow much heavier window. Through a set of circumstances too complicated to explain,  a Rockette comes along and helps me carry it the rest of the way. (They are very strong.)

I call Milan. We load the windows into a friends car, and two days later we are on the road.

Then Milan ate this burger:

(The concessions guy at the movie theater upstate said a burger with fried mozzarella on it would be really good. He was wrong.)

 The weekend was a ton of fun. Faryl, through an eleventh hour (actually it was 3 am, does that mean third hour?) act was able to drive up with Milan and my sister from another mister, Joanna.

Then we saw a turtle!

The day concluded with a trip to Tony’s Newburgh Lunch, or as I now like to refer to it, my favorite place that exists anywhere ever.

I had passed by Tony’s for years going up to Milan’s place, and always said, “Well there’s a charming sign.”. I had not anticipated that the inside would be, I dare say, everything I’ve been looking for in a coffee shop. I wish I were there now. It was a wonderful, folksy time warp. We asked them if they would cater the wedding. I think they thought I was joking. 

I was not.

If you are ever down a’ Newburgh way, do stop in to Tony’s. Worth it.

We finished the weekend by loading the windows into a barn. The four of us looked around at all the possibilities and discussed all there was to be done.

I looked at the windows as they took up the better part of a small room in the barn. For now, they were junk, but soon, they’d be a piece of our lives. 

But until then, Milan’s dad is a bad influence.

The Impossibility Of Chauncey

Hello.

Sorry about the lack of communication this week – I think I’ve been feeling more read-y-book-y than write-y-blogg-y. As the late Joe Strummer used to say, “No input, no output.”. (Of course, he was saying that as an excuse to go out on a meth bender, but still…)

Moving forward:

—

Faryl and I very much want a dog. Perhaps one named Chauncey that looks something like this:

Or maybe a bigger dog with, ‘a lot of heart.’. Here’s the tricky bit though – within the time we’ve been living in our building, they’ve “ADOPTED” a no dogs policy. What a heartbreaker. We’ve considered sneaking a dog in and saying it’s really really old and we got it before they changed the rules and, ‘oh well’. This seems impractical and potentially traumatic though.

Then an idea came to me. I was reading a book this week (“Stop bragging!”) called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.  At a certain point in the story the parents buy their son a dog. The mom’s apartment is too small for the dog but that’s okay because the father has a big house and everyone can play with the dog when they go over there. ‘That sounds like a great solution!’, I thought.

Then I realized that Faryl and I aren’t separated and really enjoy each other’s company and even if we spend one night apart we have to send each other texts all night saying stuff like “MAMA!” and “DOO-deeeeeee”.

So…

No dog for now.

—

I had an incident the other day involving the following elements:

1. Being late for work.

2. Garbage

3. Library Books

4. Heavy lifting

5. Being covered in filth

6. The Rockettes

7. Guilt

8. Job Security

9. A road trip

All these things are still in a pot on my stove cooking, so remind me to tell you how the stew comes out.

—

The box in the lobby (at the end of the night.)

We found some toys the other night.

A box had been left in the lobby, filled to the brim with the discarded youth of a boy ready for a new kind of adventure. Fueled by wine and nostalgia, we dove into it and found the right charm for each of us. 

Little Milan got a slingshot. Little Alena got a calender. Little Alison and Little Sarah got special lazer guns. Little Mary got a small pine tree. Little Faryl got a fast yellow car. And little Nick got a special robot arm that grabs things.

We took this picture on the corner and went our separate ways, to trains and cabs and sidewalks that took us to beds that rested us for jobs that paid our bills that made our lives more comfortable so we could do it all some more.

I’m glad we found our toys. I hope the little boy who threw them out gets to find a box of toys when he’s ready.