a virgo's guide to the universe

On a rare Saturday off from my big, fat advertising job, I took the subway from Brooklyn to Manhattan to meet my friend Claudia for a movie.

The weather that was gorgeous and sunny and at least warm-ish when I got on at Park Slope was New-York-awful by the time I emerged from my stop on the Upper West Side.

Desperate for warmth and a half-hour early to meet my friend, I ducked into a nearby shop. Tucked away behind the expensive jackets and coats and sweaters was one sad bin of five-dollar items: damaged or ugly schmatte no one wanted at any price, and a cotton jersey sash that was…passable. (Well, passable as a scarf, anyway; I still can’t imagine who’d want a big lump of cotton jersey tied around her waist.)

I figured that at five bucks, even a cheapskate like me could consider it a disposable item. I bought it, wrapped it around my neck, and wore it out of the store—and, then, much to my surprise, pretty much everywhere else for the next 25 years. The skinny stripes in boring, improbable colors (white, tan, taupe) ended up complementing almost everything I owned. The fabric grew softer with each wearing, and softer still with each laundering—it was delicious around my neck. When the blanket stitching wore out, I tucked in the ends. When the material itself gave way, it became my House Scarf.

Last week, the tag finally fell off in the wash. It had hung by a thread for days, much like the dragonfly on my little wish bracelet. When I found it, I chucked it into the God box, just like the dragonfly. I’m not sure what I’m hoping for this time: to slow down the alarmingly fast passage of time? To turn up a new scarf?

Or, most likely, an enduring awareness of the value to be found now and then in very small things.

xxx
c

This is Day 15 of a 21-day series. For more scoop on the who/what/why, go here.

Posted in: The Personal Ones

The building I’ve lived in for the past 13 years—a double-eternity-plus-one in itinerant Los Angeles—was built in the late 1950s.

Undoubtedly, something grand was razed to make this possible. Equally likely, the neighbors on the block, most of whom lived in substantial structures dating back to the 1920s, found it an abomination. The exterior is boxy and awkward, and the materials—most of them gypsum-cheap even then—have not aged well.

But when I stepped inside, the first thing I saw was all of the light in L.A.. It poured from both sides into every room, kitchen included, warm and golden and delicious. Rare, period, but especially rare for modestly-priced rental apartments, even in sunny Southern California.

The second thing I saw was the tile on the backsplash and countertops of that bright, bright kitchen: petal-pink, mostly, studded with the occasional ornamental dingbat tile. The look was straight out of Barbie’s Mid-Century Dream House, which is to say it was both ridiculous and perfect. That cinched it. I followed the apartment manager back downstairs to her apartment, where I signed the lease and turned over my deposit on the spot.

It may seem silly that kitchen tiles formed a main criterion in my selection of a home; then again, who hasn’t fallen in love over the small gesture? I have dated people for years based on something similarly microscopic.

When the apartments in the building turn over now, the management tears out the old cooktops and double sinks, replacing them with enormous, stainless-steel ranges and dishwashers. The tiles go, too; these days, most people seem to want granite countertops.

Which are probably more sanitary and definitely sturdier, but which will, for me, always lack a certain je ne sais tiny.

xxx
c

This is Day 14 of a 21-day series. For more scoop on the who/what/why, go here.

Posted in: The Personal Ones

I took a silkscreening class in college with an instructor who regularly railed against various indignities: the complacency of his lazy, American students (he was a Polish émigré); the Communists (ditto); the weather (Ithaca being quite possibly the only place worse than Poland as far as this went).

He had particular disdain for what he considered the craptastically low design standards of American art-supply producers. He’d snatch up some egregious example—a sketchbook, a layout pad—and launch into an impromptu diatribe on horsey type and lowest-common-denominator layout.

As much as his outbursts frightened me, I began to notice that he was right: the colors, the photos, and pretty much everything else about most American paper products except the paper itself  just…sucked. And we lived with this affront day after day—we, who were supposed to be surrounding ourselves with great, inspiring examples to help shape our fledgling art consciousness.

Last fall, while attending a retreat that left me with even more time than usual to avoid doing my work, I was seized with the hideousness of the cheap spiral notebook I’d bought to journal in. I don’t like to get too fancy with my tools; it’s too easy to obsess about them rather than focus on the work. Still, the hideous green of the cover and clunky faces of the text were an affront. I grabbed a Sharpie and scribbled out an improvised manifesto, not stopping until I’d covered every inch of the cover. If it wasn’t beautiful, it was at least mine.

Since then, I’ve hacked every cover of every notebook I’ve bought. I draw, I inscribe, I doodle, around, under, and right on top of their design elements. I take all of two minutes to do it. Quickly, with whatever words or thoughts pop into my head in the moment.

It by no means turns them into the most beautiful of notebooks. But it turns them absolutely into my notebooks.

xxx
c

This is Day 12 of a 21-day series. For more scoop on the who/what/why, go here.

Posted in: The Personal Ones

My collection of Things Familial has shrunk considerably over the years, mostly via a serious of small and deliberate contractions.

Fortunately, the most treasured artifacts lend themselves to repurposing. When they don’t, I try to find other ways of keeping them meaningful and relevant.

Which is how my grandparents ended up hanging over the toilet.

On a purely practical level, they perfectly hide the wreckage left over from a fit of overly hasty remodeling, aka “renters’ pique”. Also, according to feng shui, my bathroom falls squarely in the “helpful people & travel” bagua, where reminders of fine folk and wonderful destinations are both auspicious types of things to display.

Most importantly, the light is good in my bathroom. It spends a lot of time there—almost as much as I do.

It would likely grieve Gram and Gramps to know that their beloved granddaughter is more often there out of necessity than she is vanity. On the other hand, together is together.

xxx
c

This is Day 11 of a 21-day series. For more scoop on the who/what/why, go here.

Posted in: The Personal Ones

While they taste fine as-is, ten minutes in a warm oven transforms raw pine nuts into something sublime.

Unfortunately, anything more renders them useless. And the line between “fantastic” and “useless” is quite a fine one, easily missed and just as easily cursed.

But when I take care, I’m rewarded with two things:

A reminder that turning one’s full attention to something can be rewarding.

And really delicious salad.

This is Day 10 of a 21-day series. For more scoop on the who/what/why, go here.

Posted in: The Personal Ones

My grandparents had a love of tiny things: figurines, jewelry, grandchildren.

There was a menagerie I especially treasured, artfully fashioned of bronze and iron and brass, collected in the course of their worldly travels, in those days before you could go online and order anything from anywhere, instantly. We would look at each animal one by one, and once I could be trusted not to pop them in my mouth, I was allowed to hold them.

My very favorite tiny object was not an animal, however, but a small, genie-in-a-bottle-shaped curio that unscrewed into pieces: at the top, a whistle; in the center, a salt shaker; at the bottom, a miniscule compartment that would hold exactly one, very small pill—Poison!, my gramps would whisper, gleefully, for spies! And at the very, very bottom, an insignia, which the owner could use to stamp his initials in sealing wax. (Which is also how I learned about sealing wax.)

It is small enough not to matter, so I stay alert to ways that ensure it will. I have moved it from city to city, from nook to nook, like my own game of Traveling Garden Gnome. Recently, I was delighted to discover that it fit exactly perfectly between the second “L” and first “E” of a wood rendering of my first name that has also been in my possession a long, long time, and that I cannot bring myself to release just yet. So they sit nestled together now, making each other newly relevant and interesting, earning their keep in my life for a while longer.

But only a while. Because as all things passed down to me from other people and times and places are there to remind me, no thing is forever.

xxx
c

This is Day 9 of a 21-day series. For more scoop on the who/what/why, go here.

Posted in: The Personal Ones

Early tomorrow morning, I will leave on my sixth trip to the ninth city I’ve been to so far this year, and my 11th trip since this madcap schedule began last fall.

I’ve learned a lot in my travels—much of it about myself, which is one of the chief benefits of removing yourself from your regular-usual surroundings, but also, quite a bit about traveling in the early part of the 21st century.

One of the chief discoveries is that on the road, small things can have an outsized impact: a pair of slippers for the hotel room; a pair of waterproof shoes for everywhere else. A beanie, to ward off chills. A pound or two in laptop weight—or any weight.

It took me 31 nights in strange rooms to figure out that almost anything is endurable when you have a warm cup of tea first thing in the morning, and another right before bed. My last morning on the road, after I’d trudged out into some very cold weather to grab my cuppa, it occurred to me that I was probably not the only person in the world whom this had occurred to.

A few quick searches later, I was the proud owner of a brand new Electric Pleasure Device. Kidding. It’s an immersion heater: stick it in a cup of water, plug it in, and presto! Instant-ish hot water.

Although really, from my perspective? They could just as truthfully called it “Electric Pleasure Device.”

xxx
c

This is Day 8 of a 21-day series. For more scoop on the who/what/why, go here.

Posted in: The Personal Ones

Speaking of eggs, for almost 10 years now, since my Crohn’s onset led me to the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, my love for the humble egg has been ardent and, you’ll pardon the pun, unbroken: most every morning I enjoy two of them, almost always scrambled, almost always folded over some kind of cheese and fashioned into something omelet-ish.

Obviously, yesterday’s masterpiece would have been difficult to pull off with either of the main players in an omelet. So why this great (small) change? Because in my travels this winter, I visited an old friend who is rather healthier-minded than I; he made us each a couple of four-minute eggs for breakfast, and—surprise!—they were delightful.*

I have made certain adjustments, as I am wont to do: the addition of a curved dish which shows off the egg to better advantage; the subtraction of one of the eggs. (A lady of a certain age has, as nature well knows, little need of multiple eggs.) But it is almost a perfect breakfast for me now—so much so that I wonder how long I might have been forcing the old one out of habit, out of speed, out of willfulness.

It never ceases to amaze me, the valuable data to be mined in these small spaces, so easily overlooked.

xxx
c

*Which, now that I think of it, some other dear friends who hosted me in Portland a few years back also made for me, and which I loved back then, as well. I guess it takes me a while to wake up to things. No pun intended.

This is Day 7 of a 21-day series. For more scoop on the who/what/why, go here.

Posted in: The Personal Ones