In This Fairytale

I found that on Google Images somewhere, enlarged it, and put it on the cover page of the fairytale I wrote for Joe. It was an image I felt he might like, one that would speak to him. It was 2010, the year our daughter was born and we moved in together. I called it, “The Incredibly True and Rigorous Adventures of Spirit and Flesh”- Spirit Jones and Flesh Robinson being the names of the two protagonists. Other characters included matchmaker Chance Ramirez, neighbors Chaos, Discordia, Furious Pain the singer, and Precious Heart the newborn. It was well written for someone who doesn't really write fantasy/fairytales. It was tongue-in-cheek, with inside-jokes or references, and a degree of corniness but I got my point across. I was aiming for cleverness, for larger-than-life-ness, trying to convey my sincerity, vulnerability, but still being witty or “cute", appealing to his mind, imagination, whimsy, and heart. It was important to me that he liked it, the only person it was meant for. He did. He liked the other one I wrote shortly afterwards which was more erotic in nature, this being the image I found and chose for the cover

We were strained romantically though. Trust was waning, "walls" were up, doubt, jealousy, inadequacy pervaded….

As I get older I keep accumulating more and more years that feel like "only yesterday", more and more moments frozen in time until it's just all one big "yesterday". 2010 has a certain look and feel to it for me. It's the year I lived with Joe in the three floor walk-up on 52nd Street, the overhead 7 train a block away. It was a nice little apartment with its railroad layout, clean, white walls that he didn't want to contaminate with too many pictures or frames because who knew how long we’d be there for and then we'd have to re-plaster them... I remember the morning vlogs I made of myself and the kids almost daily and would email to him while he was at work. The children shows and songs that played over and over again, me not reporting to work after I’d been so used to doing that and how weird that felt sometimes. The growing urgency inside propelling me to find a nearby therapist that accepted my insurance so that I can get counseling. Again.
Joe and I seem to get along better when we’re not a couple and sometimes it has tricked us into thinking, “Wouldn't it be nice if we got back together? We'll do it differently this time!" At times we felt as destined as Chai Wallah and Latika- "it is written" and all that good stuff...

I remember looking into his eyes in the Long Island backyard of his aunt's house in ’08 while Alex played between us thinking, what are we doing, how did it end up like this, we’re supposed to be the ones together, I was supposed to have his child! Why am I always making such wrong decisions in love?! 

The text he sent me in '09 pleading for us to try to work it out (again) because with me is "where (he) belongs".  It broke my heart enough to end it with my boyfriend at the time and fumble back to him.  Again.
"I don't know Joe, maybe we should just let time tell" I offered, meaning let's let "nature", (such a ubiquitous thing), take its course.
"Why don't we tell?" he counter-offered, meaning, instead of having time and randomness dictate things for us.
That was the line that did it for me. Just like back when we first started going out, we were on the phone, and I brought up the concept of letting nature take its course when it came to bigger, grander things like stem cell research, his passion for genetic engineering, immortalizing mortality, things like that. Things up his alley and so not up mine.
"This is me letting 'nature' takes its course." His natural interest to alter, challenge, and probe. Well. I couldn't argue with that. It was very much like him, part of his appeal to someone like me I guess, who is more go-with-the-flow. Here was someone wanting to take the reigns in Life.
He once compared us to a sailor and a mermaid- no matter how into each other we are, we really don't fit or cannot be in the other's world for too long. 

Reflecting on that, later on in the week I drew this:

He liked it. I like it too. 

Writing about him and me is a  challenge. There are years and years of backstory, layers of emotions and 'who did what to whom', plus as I mentioned before in the previous blog, he's a private person. But I needed to write something it seems, and what I get from the analogy he calmly came up with rather recently is that yes, we are not exactly made for each other. He's not gonna pull an Allen Bauer living under the sea with Madison like at the end of Splash, I'm not Princess Ariel ready to trade in my voice for some legs like in The Little Mermaid and that, I guess, is that.
We're on good, decent terms now, co-parenting best we can in our separate homes. Life falls into place and we adjust. We move on with other partners, we try to make it work and last. We grow up and out. We put any loving positive energy we ever held for each other into our little girl and forge ahead. Word.

Precious Heart.

All Adrift (sometimes)

It's actually a beautiful Saturday morning here in New York, contrast to recent hurricanes Irma and Maria. I've been trying to keep up with the updates and want to do my share of sharing online. Garriga-López sisters Adriana Maria and Claudia Sofia are good, reliable, and invested sources if you will, who both post and write a lot info. concerning Puerto Rico and the politics surrounding (and entrenched in) it. Claudia was one of my Hunter college professors in 2006. In one recent facebook post, she writes: 

"Here is a compilation of organizations where your contributions will immediately impact communities in need in Puerto Rico after hurricane Maria."
https://medium.com/@themis.ariana/help-pr-now-93df5004e86c

I’m here at work because I was asked to come in this weekend to help out with the training workshop. For some reason I thought "helping out" meant moving boxes, tables, and chairs, so I showed up in a T-shirt, blue jeans and sneakers. Instead, they asked me to cover the front.

That's my smile that says, "I know. I'm too casual for you right now. My bad. But... Welcome!" 


I've had a window of time to write this morning, much as I struggle with making this essay challenge I took on this year a habit and navigating privacy issues on various levels. 

I was thinking about earlier this month (I actually began writing this in September) when I crossed the Times Square subway ramp on my way to a baby shower.  As I was crossing it, a memory popped up. It was when I was walking with my son's father eleven years ago one night after we had just kissed for the first time. He kind of blurted out baffled, "I don’t know about you, but I am full of emotions right now!” as in, what are we going to do now, shit's getting real, apparently!  And I in my confident, romantic, pretentious, cinematic dialogue kind of state said back, “Me too, but what is life without emotions?” which he couldn't deny and said, “That’s true! You’re right about that”. Such unadulterated, elated happiness drifted within me.

I've had that kind of romantic feeling a few times in my life- all the Hope, this out of body kind of happiness. How many times exactly, I don't know right now. But I'm leaning toward 3 right now because of this: 

I could go on about how I always thought Sonny driving backwards like that looked so bizarre and yet so fitting with the story/his character, but right now I'm just reflecting on what he's telling Calogero.
I'm sure there have been more than 3 "great ones" in my life. But the 3 great "happy in love" feelings that come up right away are the aforementioned, and two more. 

The second one I'm remembering happened first and it's the failed romance that's probably working out somewhere else in a parallel universe, because we almost "made it", we almost had it all- and as that damn Adele song "Rolling in the Deep" blasted in the car one afternoon, we sat there listening to it in silence, a couple who was pretty much over but still living together. She kept belting the "We could've had it alllll" chorus and it just reverberated, amplifying a sentiment we've been thinking and feeling so many times.

My initial super happy feeling shot through me when he and I "first" met on a camping trip in 1997. I say "first" because we've known each other before from high school back in ‘91, we just didn’t talk or hang out together much. My joy translated into a feeling where I lost my appetite. We rode in the same car, talking and joking for hours. When we all stopped at a diner halfway through our road trip, I sat there and felt like I didn't need any of this food. Not because it wasn't good or that I was trying to watch my weight or anything, it was because I already felt so “full” in my stomach- of butterflies, excitement, stimulation. 

He and I have been in and out of each other’s lives for a couple decades now. He likes his privacy so I try not to write about him. But as anyone who knows me in ‘real life’ knows his omnipresence in my adulthood and vice versa. Anytime I mention him here (or anyone for that matter), I really try to swing the focus back on myself, the one who is okaying the content of all these public writings.

After first meeting my now-husband in person on the plane ride back from Santiago to New York two years ago, I felt the warm, welcoming feeling of a sustained yes- like yes I could jump into this and commit, and I was excited to start forming our lives together- from the intangible, ethereal airwaves of facebook, Skype, and WhatsApp to real, physical everyday day in-day out living.

I'm tempted to shift the name of my blog from the idea of the reader catching my aimless, vagabond drift to focus on this new chapter in my life- being married AND actually living it out- as opposed to being technically married at 19 and not really living together (occasional sleepovers and hanging out in each other’s apartments shortly before he left the country doesn’t count much), and living with  'baby daddy' Joe for a few years in my mid 30's but us never tying the knot. I'm not in drift-mode so much these days- this blog title is starting to feel a little inaccurate.

But I feel that despite my new stabilities- job, home, kids, marriage, insurance, pet fish that's still alive- you never when you're gonna lose it all, as hurricanes and earthquakes so clearly point out ... so I guess the "Catch My Drift" title remains. At least for this year's writing challenge I've taken on.

I Was Trained For This

“Saludo!” my husband called out to the two furniture store owners on Queens Boulevard as we walked in, employing his usual greeting, assuming they were fellow Latinos. Something told me that they might not be- and even if they were, I thought it would still be a good idea to let him know that he shouldn’t always assume this.

I asked them where they were from. They smiled, laughed and said that they were from whatever country we were from.

“You’re from the Dominican Republic?” one of them asked my husband. “Ah, so are we!”

After a few more kidding jabs like that, we eventually found out that they were from Morocco. Unless they were joking about that too, though I doubt it. Just next store is another little furniture place where the owner is Puerto Rican and speaks a good amount of Spanish, though I don’t think it’s his first language. His assistant is a Peruvian and Japanese woman who is more fluent in Spanish than English. A few stores down is a T-Mobile where the Colombian-American salesperson did his pitches in Spanish to us, switching from English to Spanish with ease. Seated next to him was his Bangladeshi sales associate who said he doesn’t really speak Bengali too much. This is the kind of diversity I’ve been raised on my entire life. This is some of what my husband is baffled by with his first time here and I have to remind myself that not everyone grows up like this.

He is baffled in a positive way; it’s kind of ‘cool’ for him at this point. I understand how he feels. It strikes me as cool from time to time too when I step back and really think about it. Especially if I’m coming back from somewhere that’s more mono cultural/racial/ethnic etc. In fact, if an area wasn’t diverse, I would feel a void, as if I were being cheated out of something. In general, I like to feel as though I’m going through my day in a microcosm of the world if possible.

It reminds me of the 1999 John Rocker quote that had outraged everyone. 
He was ragging more on the class of people it seems, not so much their ethnicities here, but he wasn't a big fan of that either so I'm bringing them both up in the same vein here. Living a couple stops away from the 7, and living in a neighborhood for 5 years where the 7 was the main train I relied on, I can easily picture what he was trying to paint. I can picture an outsider like him; a hot-tempered, arrogant 6’4”, 225 pounder, trying to squeeze into the train, the one nicknamed “the sardine 7” and “International Express”. 

I’ve never followed Rocker’s career, never knew what he looked or sounded like, I even forgot his name up until now as I Googled some catchphrases like, “it’s depressing”, 7 train rant, and baseball player. Apparently there used to be a website up called rockersucks.com where people were able to spit back their disgust and outrage.

I gotta say though, sometimes riding the train is depressing. Sometimes that experience can be disorientating, scary, and the usual fear of the unknown kicks in. Sometimes it’s not even the unknown but real, concrete factors. When I was about 17, I was felt up by a fellow passenger one crowded morning. I felt his fingers ride up my skirt. I turned around and saw a tall, white guy in flannel with a wild-eyed maniacal grin, staring off into space. People get lost, robbed, beat up, stabbed, and sometimes killed in trains and stations- just like in life!  And sometimes all this beautiful diversity downright clashes- I know, I get it. . But sometimes it’s harmonious and can feel uplifting. Sometimes lives get saved, amazing acts of ‘good samaritan’ kindness occur, and jam sessions too- hundreds of them can be found on YouTube. And sometimes it feels like no big deal, something that you’re not even reflecting on because you’re already immersed in your book, iPhone, thoughts of “what’s that smell?” or hoping that the local didn’t all of a sudden decide to go express or take a completely different route altogether.

I see Rocker’s point in a very objective, disassociating way. At the same time I sense his hatred distorting and clouding up his thinking.  Also, I wasn’t surprised to learn that he was known for having anger issues, often walking out of his sensitivity training courses, was charged with taking steroids, spat on a toll booth machine in anger (dude, it’s a machine…) etc.

So far my husband is fascinated with New York’s diversity that‘s devoid of this kind of hate and aggravation. I wonder if that might change with time here. I am hoping that at worst, just the ‘novelty’ of it wears off, not that he hones hateful prejudices.

Former relief pitcher Mike Remlinger pointed out how baseball can humble you: 

"The thing is," he said, "baseball is a game of humility. You can be on top one minute, as low as possible the next. When you're young, you don't realize it. But sooner or later you learn--we all do. Be humble." - from Jeff Pearlman's Sports Illustrated article, Dec 27, 1999

I think riding the train here has the potential to do that too. It can fuel you with more and more resentment, inspire you, or trip up and whittle down your ego every now and then, causing you to “have a seat” as they say, even though seats on the train aren’t always available. In that case you'd have to grab onto something else- just don't grab up on anyone you don't know/without their consent.

Old Gang-stars

Some things I considered writing about next:

• Ira Glass, his This American Life podcast, and/or when he was interviewed in Julian Fleisher’s Naked American Songbook
• Confused Matthew in YouTube
• Lilly Singh
• Abbi Jacobson’s A Piece of Work podcast for MoMA
• Social anxiety, or anxiety for social events

But I guess I’m gonna have to hold the phone on all of that because it’s August now and here that means TCM's "Summer Under the Stars"

Dad, Christine, and I have done this kind of contest for years where we’d make a list of 31 stars, guessing who they would feature on which day. Whoever guessed the most right would win, guessing the same person on the “right” day would give you an extra point. Some get linked together, like if you put down Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers automatically follows, and vice versa. Chris opted out last year, so it looks as though it’s just Dad and me this year.

Today’s star (8/4) is Claire Trevor, someone neither of us had put down but whom we like just the same. She won an Oscar for playing Gaye Dawn in “Key Largo” but I can't stand the part in the movie where she’s coerced to sing for the promise of a drink and doesn't get to have it because Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson) changes his mind and goes back on his word. But I’ll always watch her as Francey (Oscar nominated) in “Dead End” where at least there she kind of, sort of defends herself, defeated and tragic as her character is, probably even more so than in “Key Largo”. They played “Dead End” this morning at 6:00. Unfortunately, I had a hard time sleeping last night so I didn’t wake up until 7:00.

But that’s ok. I have the dvd.

And eventually, even though they're “dad's movies”, I made a point to own 3 essential 1930’s gangster films on dvd. My top 3 are:

1. Dead End

2. The Petrified Forest

3. Angels With Dirty Faces

That's not a ranking. I can't decide which one is #1, they all float together in equal worth for me.

They all happen to feature the iconic, one-of-a-kind Humphrey Bogart, but only by chance. I know Bogart is “it” and “the man”, I see that, but I’m not exactly his biggest fan- my dad might be. Casablanca, The African Queen, The Big Sleep, The Harder They Fall, To Have and Have Not... all big Bogie films, but those don’t really “do it” for me.

BUT I cannot front with him in Dead End.

Something about the way he plays ‘Baby Face’ Martin- his bravado, delusions, and how he deals with his losses, that I “just can't” with. And by “just can't” I mean I could watch over and over.

And then when he finally gets to see Francey again…

I saw this film when I was a child- along with my My Little Pony, Rainbow Brite, Care Bears, Small Wonder, Punky Brewster kind of world, this was also included for whatever reason. I remember developing a little crush on the Dead End kids in general, and their bravado.

The Petrified Forest

I saw this when I was probably a teenager one night in my living room, looking to tune into something romantic, black and white, and sophisticated. So here was Bette Davis and Leslie Howard, being romantic, black and white, and talking all sophisticated to each other. Well, it’s mostly Leslie Howard doing that. Bette Davis tells him, "You know? You talk like a darned fool” as she starts to fall for him.  For me this is Leslie Howard’s movie way more than Bogart’s. Look at how he as Alan Squire, sticks out like a sore thumb yet holds his own here, his gravitas.

And then he comes at us with this later in the evening- while still being a hostage

Any woman's worth everything that any man has to give.

Anguish, ecstasy, faith, jealousy, love, hatred, life or death.

Don't you see that's the whole excuse for our existence?

It's what makes the whole thing possible and tolerable.

He’s another one I “just can’t” with. And by “just can’t”, I mean...

Angels with Dirty Faces

I don't remember when I first saw this, but it took me a few times to really like and appreciate it. Again, it's not so much Bogie's film as it is Cagney's and a little bit of the Dead End kids. Here's where they meet.

Not to give anything away, but Cagney really keeps you guessing at how his character really and truly feels in the end, which makes this film so special to me.  

My honorable mention here would be “City For Conquest” (another dvd I made a point to own) which is mainly due to Ann Sheridan’s and James Cagney’s awesome chemistry together which is also present in AWDF but more so here

I never thought I'd feel the need to devise a list like this, but I have. And it’s as much a part of me as my life outside or apart from watching, critiquing, and/or getting lost in films.

Even though we can look up their “summer under the stars” lineup online, we don’t. One year one of our cousins played with us and did that, determining the winner way before the month was over. As enthusiastic as he was about it all, that took some of the fun away for us. We won’t know who's going to win until the end of the month. We won’t even win a prize. It’s just something that we like to do in August. *************************************** 7/31/18 This popped up in my memory feed on facebook this morning, as well as other statuses from other years where I mention the contest. This is the one my sister posted in 2015 including a list of our guesses from the chart she made. If you'll notice it says 167 comments, the most pertaining to our contest, I'm sure!

"Bad Neighborhood"

I used to have a pink alarm clock radio with red digital numbers that woke me up for high school at around 6:00 am. One morning the Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ song “Under the Bridge” woke me up, and it was the first time I heard it because it had just come out that year. It’s very different from their other song I knew, the frenetic, amped-up “Give it Away”. “Under the Bridge” is slower and melancholic in style, with sentimental lyrics. It struck me as so sad that I couldn’t bear it at first- even before learning that it was about the lead singer’s heroin addiction. Waking up to that chorus, the way he bends the notes when he croons,

“And I don't ever wanna feeeel/ like I did that day...”

I shot out of bed, groggily shut the alarm and started my day, getting ready for school, thinking ughh what kind of world is this that such sad music can exist? On my way to the train station I continued the thought: Between that song and Nirvana’s "Nevermind" album ... seriously... what kind of world is this?

 

And now I have to be a teenager in it…   

It didn’t stop me from buying RHCP’s “Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik” and the “Nevermind” cassette tapes and regularly playing them. I remember once reading maybe in Spin magazine, Grohl or Novoselic joking that, "Kurt's lyrics are basically like, 'I hate myself/I hate life/someone give me a gun so I can kill myself'”. I could be recalling wrong, but I remember reading something like that. Too bad I can't find it now.

Some believe he was murdered. I believe (the official verdict) that he committed suicide. Whichever it was, his death indisputably occurred in April of ‘94 when he was 27. I was almost 17 at the time. The April before that (‘93), I was admitted in Holliswood from April to May for my suicide attempt, right before my 16th birthday in June. It's not as though I really looked up to Cobain, but hearing the news in the kitchen that day was a blow that hit hard. And I saw his impact, parts of the memorial, and how he reached so many.

“I'm not a perfect peersooon...” Hoobastank lead singer Doug Robb sings in 2003’s ”The Reason”

“...my eyes are way too far apart” Joe continues in the same key/melody cracking me up.

“I try so hard/ to be Fred Durst/ but in the end it doesn’t even matter” cracking me up again, parodying poor Chester Bennington in his song “In the End”. I'm sure I made fun of his name at one point too, something no one named Tennille should even think of doing. How we joked about all that and more without emotionally investing, yukking it up in my Brooklyn living room. Probably laying on the floor propped up against the bottom of the couch since sometimes it was more comfortable than sitting on the actual couch. My little sister laughing along, shaking her head. Not even preferring Fred Durst over Chester (at all), just joking around like that because we could.

In the early 2000’s I was more into singers like Alicia Keys, Shakira, Marisa Monte, and Norah Jones- her “Come Away With Me” album boring my downstairs neighbor Dawn to tears when I played the first song for her once…

“Well… she ‘didn’t know why’, I guess!” she politely remarked as she dismissed this lulling singer and her debut single, “Don’t Know Why”. I was also listening to (or revisiting more thoroughly) "The Clash" and Elvis Costello. I wasn’t really up on the post-grunge, nu-metal scene- passively liking some songs here and there, but…

But wow, Chester was so different than Durst! And for the record, I’ve always liked “In the End”. I love the piano in the beginning (and the end). It resonates deeper now that he’s gone. The video makes me tear up now.

Of course I think about my own attempt years ago. 
-The “selfish” label many give those who attempt/commit suicide,
-The Holliswood nurse shaming me when she found out why I was being admitted, saying how dare I put my mother through this pain
-My pen pal at the time calling it “stupid”, I’m sure in an attempt to emphasize value upon my life but I couldn’t help but feel as if she were lumping it with all stupid stunts that people pull, "America's Funniest Video" things like under/overestimating a leap, or aggressive sledding from the show "Jackass". 
-How Natalie, an old friend, confided in me about a rough patch in her life but how she nixed the option of suicide since it was “a coward’s way out”
-and so many people agreeing with that, especially online where one can make cowardly statements freely.

I'm not sure if it's exactly cowardice that's at play here. There is a degree of fear and terror, but I wouldn't be quick to call it cowardice.

I also don’t think trying to commit suicide is such a selfish act even though it may seem like it is. Speaking for myself here, sometimes you're so convinced that everyone would in fact be better off without you, it’s almost as if you’re trying to do them a favor. 

"This place right here (Chester pointing to his head) this skull between my ears, that is a bad neighborhood. I am... I should not be there alone. I can't be there by myself...It's insane, it's crazy in here, it's a bad place for me to be by myself." he explains almost jokingly, as the interviewer kind of laughs in response, asking for clarification. 

I think of all this and I learn just how much he meant to so many people, mainly my sister's generation. One of my co-workers said that he grew up on "Linkin Park", that it saw him through his high school years and that those songs basically saved him. He was looking forward to the recently cancelled Blinkin Park concert later this week.  Another co-worker (both in their early 30’s) said that her husband was a huge "Linkin Park" fan and that her first gift to him was their CD, “back when people still gave each other CDs”.  
I’ve been crying because he was only one year older than me, grappling with depression like me, and a child abuse survivor, trying to get past all that.

I think of Ned Vizzini, whom my cousin Vincent actually knew. We're planning to meet up soon and see  "It’s Kind of a Funny Story”, a film inspired from his book of the same name.

I'm gonna end this with two videos I saw last week. This singer, Anthony Vincent always blows me away with his versatility and talent:



And as you might already know, practically anything NYC related moves me- this memorial is no exception. Rest in Peace & Power, Chester