Today, on the birthday of the mighty mythic monkey king, Hanuman, I want to talk to you, dear reader, about monkeys. Namely, I want to tell you two things.
2. And, as such, they should be recognized as their amazing, diverse selves and not confused with apes. Monkeys and apes are totally different. It's almost like confusing hippos and hedge pigs.
You think I am overly sensitive to the confusion? Googleimagesearch "monkey" and notice that orangs, chimps, and gorillas are not monkeys. Nor is Kevin: he has not tail, for starters.
I leave you with this wonderful story. Hanuman's buddy Lakshaman is gravely injured as the result of an unfortunate mishap. Hanuman flies to the Himalayas to get an herb that will heal the wounds. My understanding, from MC Yogi, is that he can't decide which herb to bring back so he takes the whole mountain. In this version, I'm not sure why he brings the whole mountain since he seems to have found the herb. Maybe it's about bringing enough? Anyway: super cool mountain-moving trick.
I love monkeys so much, I will even forgive Hanuman introducing non-native species to the area.
Last week, Hip Hop Wear, the clothing wholesaler downstairs from my office, was closed by the fuzz for "sale of trademark counterfiet merchandise." I imagine this means they were busted selling suits by Fobo, jackets by Rockawere, and Winged Victory of Samothrace sneakers.
This is not terribly sad for me; I was not emotionally invested in Hip Hop Wear, and I am sure another wholesaler will take the space soon enough. Maybe one of those wig sellers which could be super fun. (Who wants in on a wholesale wig order?)
Really, it just made me Remember. Back in the twentieth century, I came back from a trip to Alaska to find that both drug-front bodegas downstairs from my Avenue B home had been closed by the Man. Again, this wasn't sad. It was surprising and the harbinger of things to come in the East Village, including $22 entrées and The Boxcar Lounge.
Of course, I don't really miss the East Village hipsters in my current hood, although we have plenty of our own brand of fashion divas who collect in gurgling pools on the side walks.
But, I do miss sitting at the bar in the Lakeside Lounge next to Sam Rockwell while doing my laundry and realizing, not counting his giant hair, we are about the same height. Even though he clearly has significantly better dance moves.
And that of course, reminds me of how much I love Crispin Glover. Yes, he is creepy and seems to have crazy head ALL THE TIME. But that nose is so amazing. I wish I had written this love song for Crispin Glover's jaw bones.
On this day, 99 years ago, tragedy struck New York. And on this day, today, once again, we remember thanks to some anonymous but very familiar-looking, chalking.
It strikes me as very important and weighty to remember the events that took place and the lives lost.
Those lives remind of us a New York now gone. These names and their ages and addresses, give us a snapshot both into a particular labor heritage we share as New Yorkers, and into an ethnic history now rapidly being erased by Lower East Side bars and NYU undergraduate class rooms.
And it reminds us how lucky we readers of this blog are to have fire escapes and unlocked doors and posters reminding us of our NEW YORK BREASTFEEDING rights.
Thanks, anonymous chalkers, for not letting us forget where we came from, of what's important, and how to make nice capital G's.
I'll be working on a dance for the 100th anniversary next year. Stay tuned.
Nick has been busy working on a project to help preserve the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. Since I have been to Alaska and like animals, I offered to help by contributing my exemplary dance skills and keen semiological talents to an interpretive dance to the presentation he was working on.
At this point, there are two main movements to the dance: "migratory birds" and "baby moose waking up in the spring." I just developed a new "snowshoe hare in snow" move, but I need to make sure that they live in the area which my dance is representing. More to come.
Every year, like clockwork, spring arrives. Blooms, short pants, and reading outside on park benches. And then, oddly, Woody starts getting wheezy, and then I start feeling cloudy and having a slight runny nose. And I'm so confused by the weird symptoms. What could it be? Why am I so tired? Why am I even more forgetful and easily distracted than usual?
And, then, every year, I realize it is allergy season. And then, I restart my relationship with my friend Zyrtek and everything gradually returns to normal.
Why, oh, why am I so surprised every single year? Is it because I am so excited for the spring that I refuse to associate it with allergies?
I'm on a bench in Fort Tryon Park. In college, Jimmy and I came here
once and found our T.A.'s making out on a blanket. I also came here
once, a couple years later, with Kevin and we ate fried chicken. Back
in thise days, it seemed horribly far away and exotic.
Now that I live uptown, I come here all the time. I was here just a
short time ago with Nick, Matthew and Shelley after dim sum, and now
it's my favorite place to read detective novels and soak up spring.
When you oversleep because of sick cat in the night and then the trains are even more difficult than usual and you miss the start of your yoga class by a half hour, this is something you can do instead.
Woody was pretty sick last night with asthma. We had multiple attacks and inhaler dosings, followed by some puking from upset tummy. This morning, he seemed tired (shocking! a sleepy cat!) and just wanted to lie in the sun. Pickles had other plans for him.
Maybe because he was so tired, or still a little under the weather, Woody just tolerated his baby brother's snuggles.
He wasn't thrilled, and the purring was all one-curly-sided. But, it's progress, right? They're both awake this time.
Yesterday after yoga and over a plate of green and creamy huevos rancheros, Diana described the experience of finding a hat that she hadn't realized she had lost in a train station. She turned and lo! There was something that she loved and nearly lost forever, returning to her. The experience was, as Diana described it, wholly unheimliche, like seeing a part of you separated from yourself.
Diana found the hand of fate in the story, that fate was punishing her for having been careless and making bad decisions by giving her this near-loss experience. I don't think that's how it works really, but I'm glad fate was lenient and only issued a warning rather than a full time out. And, I was glad Diana happened to look the right way, or else her head would have been cold.
On the long, long (long, long) A ride home, I was thinking about finding things you didn't know you had lost and the importance of being alert to whatever crosses your path when my new bestie, Joe Pug, described a different encounter: of having faith in finding what is missing and the relief of recognizing when you do find it. "Before we met, I knew we'd meet," Joe sang.
And, I was glad for everything that has happened to me up to that moment. I was glad for working at MTI to meet Hillary who introduced me to Jeff who gave me the gifts of CRD and Amy Bee, and I was glad for liking the Pixies so that I would have something to talk about with Kevin so that down the road I could meet Diana, and I was glad for Jimmy's lousy roommate in 3rd Avenue North so that he moved into the Brittany and years and years later we could take a bus to a mall in Madisonwisconsin where I would live and meet Nick.
I certainly didn't know I was going to meet any of the people who are so special to me, but I certainly hoped it on some level. People are like a box of pieces from an infinite number of different puzzles. We never fit together quite perfectly, but some fit together really well and the patterns we form are abstract and complicated and beautiful and something quite different from what we were on our own.
And that made me think of this song.
And somewhere in the middle lies the truth. You might not even know that you want to find what you're missing, but sometimes you get exactly what you need if you're looking in the right direction.
Who has patiently and persistently journeyed down the puff path long enough to rock pony tails?
This head.
And who decided that instead of practical rain boots she would wear her red plastic mary janes, originally bought for easy washing after tending to great and lesser apes and lemurs?
So, I have a weird problem inside the eyelid part sort of way in the corner of my right eye. And the doctor said it looked like a stye and gave me some eye drops. But it's gotten more painful and the eye drops made it swell way up and the lower eyelid was sort of folded down when I woke up this morning. Gross.
And right now it hurts like crazy, but it doesn't look that weird from the outside. But I think it looks all red and gross inside, but when I look in the mirror my glasses block my view of that fleshy innard eye skin part. And without the glasses, I can't see well enough to even tell I have an eye.
So, I thought I would take a picture.
It didn't work. When he gets back from his business lunch, maybe my coworker will help me? There was no discussion of forcing your colleagues to look at your eyeballs in my harassment training.
I love cows, especially the fuzzy ones. Once when I was visiting the nature center across from my parents' old house, I was licked by a cow. And it was so magical and special that it made me cry. God bless, cows.
He got my face shape totally right, and I did henna my hair on Gigi Pooja. And I do like lady purses, especially ones from outlets, and tacos are a staple of my diet. And I wear glasses, and the body shape is almost dead on. But I don't have bunny slippers or a gray tabby, and my eyes are so not blue. I do have these shoes where the rubber outsoles are supposed to come off and you just have the indoor slipper shoe (two shoes for the price of one).
But I never do that. Slipper inaccuracy aside, is it wrong that I'd rather think this is a better avatar? Maybe if you squint?
She has bangs, and the right color eyes, and I love wearing scarves.
Remember when I was young and felt all different kinds of ways about stuff and would lie in the top bunk of my fifteenth floor dorm room during the summer and listen to this song and have emotions?
I do. There was nothing in the world that I ever wanted more.
It's a pretty miraculous sunny, mild, fresh spring day here, today. I know it's early March, and there could be another snowstorm next week just to remind us that winter still reigns. But, today is today, and it is good.
Even in the office.
You know what else is good? You, dear reader. Spring warms my heart and reminds me to love you all the more.
Smooch. Even if you came here to spy on my friend.
Please allow me to get my Math Geek on today? The square root of -1 is all over the news today. No, seriously: i has not one but two of the most-emailed pieces from the New York Times today.
“complex dynamics,” a vibrant blend of chaos theory, complex analysis and fractal geometry
...wherein computer models of complex equations with multiple solutions result in fractals.
And then, if that's not enough to make your math brain cells spin for one day, there's also this article about how everyone's favorite fantasy novel Alice in Wonderland is, among other things, parodying the early world of algebra.
Remember when I learned that I should listen to everything CRD says very very closely because he speaks infinite volumes of wisdom... at least pertaining to DANGER?
Meet Roger.
Roger arrived yesterday in a tube along with a poster about NEW YORK BREASTFEEDING that I had to try to hang on the office wall near the fax machine. (It's hard to hang stuff on the wall when you are not tall.) He came with a letter of introduction. It says...
Hello!
I am your new friend Roger. Roger for "roger that, CRD; this pan is hot!" Please use me as a cute reminder that your pan handle is hot. As a baby potholder, I can't stand up to hard core use, but I hope to someday grown into a whale of a hot pad.
Glub, glub,
Roger
I used Roger last night, seen above helping to steam edamame during Awesome Club. Roger's chances of survival to adult potholderhood were put in jeopardy last night when he met Zach the kitty potholder.
But things came out okay, including the edamame, and I no longer have to pay any attention to CRD.
It seemed to go with the butterfly. And I totally want a laser hat and matching gloves. I wish I had made that video. I kind of do, often alone in my living room.
I am currently obsessed with cardamom. If you took my How Well Do You Know ALH? Facequiz, you probably learned that I could eat Indian cuisine eternally without fatigue. No doubt that's because of the breadth of the spices and offerings, but it's also because I love cardamom so much.
You can add it, along with some salt and cayenne pepper, to yogurt with cucumbers and tomatoes and get a really simple raita. You can add it to black tea with some cinnamon, ginger and cloves and get chai. And it's one of the most important ingredients in my favorite spice blend, garam masala. That's not to be confused with the film, Garam Masala, which one would be a fool to watch on Hulu just because it was named after one's favorite spice blend since one would be very disappointed that there is actually nothing about spices in the entire movie.
Also, cardamom makes an earthy, first-chakra-grounding essential oil, which in turn makes a nice perfume (especially when mixed with a little vetiver in a base oil), that is said to have a warming effect and "reminds of life's true abundance when we feel deprived of opportunity or generosity." I think that means its zesty and rich.
Cardamom should not be confused with coriander, another awesome plant to be recognized another week. Coriander is what we here in the Americas called cilantro (often with loathing since there seems to be some kind of weird cilantro backlash), but it also comes as a nice dried spice which is just as versatile as coriander.
But not as zesty.
If one did happen to watch a film named after one's favorite spice blend, this would be the big dance number that references the spice blend. If.
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