2015: The Year In Review

I'm not going to mince words here folks: 2015 was the worst year of my life. Not by a little bit, but by leaps and bounds. You all know the reason why this is the case so I'm not really going to say anything more about that. I want to focus on the year ahead, which I am hoping will be one filled with the joy that has been sorely lacking in the latter half of 2015. There are so many new things on the horizon as I leave "the year that can eat shit and die in a fire" behind that it is hard to even keep them all straight. Moving to a new city and starting a new job are going to be challenging, but nothing I haven't done before. Plus I am 10 years older, hopefully wiser, and definitely several inches bigger around and many pounds heavier than I was the last time I did this. That's an important factor because the larger fat reserves should come in handy if I somehow end up unable to feed myself. This upcoming move also doesn't feel so daunting as when I moved to New York back in 2005. At least I know a lot of people in Pittsburgh and have been there more than a couple of times! Leaving NYC behind is not going to be easy, but it's a change whose time has come. Also,  it's not like I'm moving to the other side of the world, and NY is still going to be right where I left it.

So that's about all I have to say in summing up this year. I normally don't really get into the symbolism of the change over to a new year but this year I am happy to say goodbye to this bag of diseased assholes we've been calling the year 2015. It can't be 2016 soon enough!

Arthur Avenue Wanderings, Day 1

As you may know, for the last couple of years I've worked at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx. St. Barnabas is sits on the edge of the Belmont section of the Bronx, near one end of Arthur Avenue. Arthur Avenue is pretty famous for being the heart of the "Little Italy" of the Bronx, and unlike its Manhattan counterpart it is actually still a proper neighborhood and not a strip of bad, overpriced restaurants and souvenir shops. After working spitting distance from this little gem for 2 plus years it seemed like it was finally time to really start formally exploring and thought I would share my impressions and some pictures with you, my wonderful readers. 

I decided to start my exploration with the Arthur Avenue Market, an indoor market dating back to the LaGuardia administration. I had wandered in there before but didn't really spend a lot of time so this was an opportunity to go a little more in depth. When you walk in the first thing you see is a cigar maker. It's pretty cool to watch them hand rolling cigars from these big piles of loose tobacco. There are actually several cigar shops in the neighborhood. I need to explore a little more about the history of this but I suspect it comes from the influx of Dominican immigrants into the Bronx. Speaking of other immigrant groups, in addition to the many Italian shops in the neighborhood, a number of Albanian shops have opened up. You have to love that about New York!

Next up is the flower shop which also sells plants and lots of vegetable seeds as well. Delving further into the market there's a produce vendor and a shop that sells lots of prepared Italian foods. The really fun part starts with the butcher shop. They have a pretty standard selection of steaks, chops, and poultry, but they also have an amazing selection of sausages as well as a number of items I've not seen anywhere else. The beef feet were particularly interesting as I had never seen beef feet that weren't still attached to the cow. 

Wandering further  you come to Mike's Deli, which sells a great selection of salami, prosciutto, mortadella, and other cold cuts as well as cheese, prepared dishes, and sandwiches. Speaking of sandwiches I had the Hillary Clinton, Which was salami, smoked mozzarella, dried tomatoes, and peppers. It was excellent and one of these days I'm going to have to go back and try some of the others. 

Across from the deli is an olive and pickle vendor and all the way in the back is an excellent pizza place that specializes in Sicilian pies, which is a little unusual in New York. I recent went to a meeting where they had ordered lunch for us from this place and it was excellent pizza. Probably not L and B level (I have to finally try that place next time I'm out in Gravesend, Brooklyn) but really good! On the way out there's also a pastry shop. It looked good, but there's about 8000 places vying for the best cannoli crown and I already managed to find a favorite on a previous pastry expedition. I'm planning on dedicating a later post to the joys of cannoli so stay tuned. Goodnight for now.

 

Did I have something for this?

It's early, it's dark, and I am not going to work today. I have been up since 5:15am finding out what all my insomniac friends on Facebook have been up to and calculating whether I REALLY need to pee (answer? yes.). Whilst engaged in this activity I came across a bit of information that made me smile for a number of reasons. I used to watch Project Runway with Meredith pretty religiously. I started watching it with her when we first started dating. I remember sitting on her bed in her old apartment in Harlem, watching Proj Run (as she liked to call it) on her tiny 13 inch TV. We hadn't watched it regularly for a couple of years, but I would like to think that wherever Merboo is currently residing she would be happy with the outcome of the most recent season.

Turns out last night a woman of color, who is herself fat (I use this term simply as a descriptor, FYI - I'm fat too), won the whole kit and caboodle with a plus sized collection. This is not the most earth shattering bit of news ever, but it made me happy because I know it would have made Meredith happy. She would have been yelling at the TV and high fiving me like most people would during the final moments of a Super Bowl their favorite team was winning. I think this is only fitting to share given that we are having a memorial service in her honor tomorrow. 

I've been having a bit of a rough week with this event happening. Trying to coordinate with family and friends flying in from far flung corners of the country, trying to coordinate with the church and the priest, and trying to get my apartment presentable since my parents are going to be staying with me have all been a bit much. Sleep has been in short supply and my coffee consumption has been off the damn charts. All that being said I am also looking forward to seeing a lot of people I haven't seen in months or even years. I'm also excited to be meeting a lot of people for the first time (ok I'm never super pumped about being around large numbers of strangers, but this is a special occasion) who were important to Meredith.

I'm also really thinking of this weekend as something of a transition point. I feel like I might be able to move on from the mourning phase of this experience after tomorrow. The grieving, the internal process, will go on for however long it's going to and I'm OK with that. The external part though, the holding on to things and fretting over them? I think I'm ready for that to be over. I'm ready to really start living a life that isn't consumed with this experience anymore. It will be a part of me, and she will be a part of me forever but I would like to think there's more to life than worrying about what to do with a bunch of "stuff" no matter how important the person who that stuff belonged to is. I've got a decade of memories that are more precious than any of that. 

Sorry this wasn't particularly funny, but I wanted to get it out. My next project, on the suggestion of a rather smart cookie, will be to chronicle my attempts to (finally!) start exploring the fascinating Italian enclave in The Bronx near where I work. That should be fun!

Also, because you deserve something for reading about my boring old thoughts and feelings and not barfing, here is a joke about poop and drugs:

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream, At My Desk, Face Down In a Puddle of My Own Drool

Being tired is a normal experience for most of us. We live in a world where work, social, and family responsibilities often add up to more hours than are even available in a day and so we cut out sleep when we can. We'll stay up a couple of extra hours to get a project done or just watch something on TV because up until that point we've been going non-stop. That is the tired that I know and have come to accept. Today I am not feeling that kind of tired. Today is the kind of tired that caffeine doesn't touch and that you can't shake off with a quick stroll around the block. This is tired that hangs on you and pins you to whatever surface you happen to be against.

I am not commonly an insomniac. In fact I'm usually very much the opposite which makes the reason for this exhaustion all the more puzzling. I'm really not used to waking up at 3am. Staying up until 3am happens occasionally, but starting out sleeping and then waking up that early is not something I'm in the habit of doing. To those of you among my friends, family, and acquaintances who routinely have to endure this sort of involuntary neuropsychological fuckery, I applaud you for not murdering anyone (that I know of). I write this mostly as a warning and a request for help. If you hear me snoring from behind my office door or see me nodding off in a meeting, nudge me. It's embarrassing enough already that there's no need to be concerned with my dignity. I lost that a long time ago. After all, there is important stuff to wear myself out doing, and I should probably be awake for it.

Also, to anyone that I might end up murdering today, I'm sorry. I am normally not a violent sociopath. Really, ask any of my friends or family. I am normally a sweet, funny, teddy bear of a human being. It's not you it's me, or more accurately the sleep deprivation. I promise it won't happen again as long as I get some motherfucking shuteye tonight.

Home Is Where the Fart Is

Having spent the day cleaning and organizing, which can be kind of a depressing task these days, I decided I would try and lighten my mood by writing a little something. The title came to me while I was out walking Nacho. Many of my best ideas happen when I am walking the dog. I don't know if this is one of them, but here goes nothing...

If you have known me for any length of time, you probably know that my digestive system is the source of a lot of amusement and frustration on my part. I've always had kind of a touchy gut and things got really interesting after studying abroad in Russia the summer between my junior and senior years of college. My intestines have never been the same since that bout of weapons grade food poisoning. Seriously, given how many people in my class got sick with that stuff I think the hotel may have confused the regular eggs with a misplaced stash of old Soviet bioweapons. The point of all of this is simply to point out that if poop and fart jokes are not your cup of tea then perhaps we aren't going to get along. My life is basically one big fart joke after all.

This brings me back to the title. Home is truly where the fart is, or at least home is where I can fart freely and not be judged for it. I hope this little blurb has not offended you. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom.

We Made a Music

Ok it's been a while since I posted anything here. That's how this works though, right? I start out with a concerted effort to post regularly all of my insightful observations and witty remarks and then I go weeks without writing a damn thing. See, I'm getting the hang of this! Anyway a lot has happened since the last post so I've been having a time of it trying to decide what exactly to write about. There's flowing water on Mars, but as a Dr. Who fan I know that you should stay the fuck away from that stuff! Dripping space zombies? No thank you! So how about music then? Specifically music created, at least in part, by yours truly.

I've been involved in the making of music for the biggest part of my life. I started singing in choirs as a kid and eventually got the bug to start playing guitar in my teens. I was not a particular disciplined student of the instrument, mostly learning chords and playing Beatles and Bob Dylan songs and noodling around a little. I did eventually get to the point where I could play pretty well but it took WAYYYYYY longer than it should have. Then I spent years just playing for my own amusement. Not really writing songs or anything, but just banging around on the instrument and making noises that pleased me. In fact I never really thought I would write songs at all. I'm pretty self conscious about my writing especially where it involves having to actually get up in front of people and perform. I don't mind public speaking, in fact I like it, but to sing lyrics I wrote seemed like the most embarrassing thing on earth. Up until last year I had only written one song that ever got performed in public and it is no longer part of my repertoire. Since then I have written or co-written several songs. So now my friend, song writing buddy, and band-mate and I have produced between the two of us a bunch of recordings which have now been released out into the world of the internet. It's exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure to think about that many people potential hearing this stuff. I know I'm talking about maybe a couple hundred people here, not millions, but still. I've never had more than maybe 12 people show up at a gig before! Of course there is still the problem of how to play this stuff live. Sorry Black Keys but 2 dudes do not a band make. So we are looking for somebody or bodies to help us! Finding musicians on the internet is worse than internet dating, let me tell you.

And so, we made a music. Hope you listen. Hope you like it, or at least politely and discreetly dislike it. If you hate it, I don't really need to know. Ok people, that's all I have for tonight. If you haven't heard the music in question, this is where it lives...

https://www.facebook.com/TheUnquietedMinds
https://soundcloud.com/unquietedmindsnyc

Kentucky Meat Shower

      Ok so the title may seem a bit strange. Telling you that it's the title of a song on the album I'm listening too probably doesn't make it less weird. I chose it because I have been thinking a lot about Kentucky lately and it seemed appropriate. When I tell people where I grew up they are often incredulous. It usual starts with something like "But you don't have an accent!" and I usually just shrug and laugh and acknowledge the curiousness of this fact and move on. That has gotten me thinking though, and we all know what happens next...

     Kentucky has been in the news a lot lately, or at least one weird woman from Kentucky has been, and people in my life here in New York have obviously made the connection that I am from Kentucky. I get asked about how I feel about it and I give the predictable but entirely honest embarrassed head shake or face palm. I have to say though that it is a strange experience to be the expert witness on this topic. I know New York is a city of transplants, but I feel like an oddity even though I know I really shouldn't. I've kind of felt like an outsider my whole life though. A big part of the reason why is exactly because I don't sound like I'm from Kentucky (whatever that is supposed to sound like). The other side of that though is why I don't sound like I'm from Kentucky. I guess on some level I wanted to be an outsider and didn't want to be a part of that world entirely. Maybe that's why I didn't let it fully sink in. I had to keep myself separate somehow and language was a good place to start. It wasn't a decision on my part, it just kind of happened that way, but I think it must mean something. I'm a shrink after all, this is just how we think. Of course I usually just tell people it's because my parents are from Ohio...

      This brings me back to the strange little woman in the weird dress who has been stirring up so much controversy in Rowan County. I don't understand her. I know a lot of people both in and out of Kentucky don't, but a lot of people are also genuinely supportive of her. They are supportive of the bizarre idea that one person's religious beliefs trump the rights of literally everyone around her, at least when they share those beliefs. She is the center of the universe and we are supposed to bow to her will. Since when is that what American values are about? Since when is that what Christian values are about? I feel like the world I grew up in those small towns in the Bluegrass State has gone mad. I know a lot of people probably believed the way Kim Davis believes but people were also kind and sensible. They let people live and minded their own business. Apparently I missed something.

     In general it seems like the world is a very different place now, a more bitter and intolerant place. There's no room for being weird or complex unless it's to fulfill some sort of stereotype. We have to be all one thing or another. We have to be what's expected of us and can't really be three dimensional. Kim Davis has become a caricature because that's what she thinks she has to be in order to be true to her beliefs, and we're all going along for the ride. We have to be the cold, cynical liberals chastising her or the right wing talking heads making fools of ourselves defending her. There's no nuance, no empathy, and no compassion. There isn't any from her or for her. So with that being said, I don't agree with her, and am going to laugh at her, but I am also going to feel some compassion for her. I am also going to embrace where I'm from, where I am, and where I'm going. I'm going to laugh at myself but also have compassion for myself. Kim and I are from the same little corner of the world after all, and there's room enough for both of us.

      One last thing: do your damn job or resign. There are gay people in Kentucky and they can get married. Deal with it or you're going to find yourself on the losing end of a Kentucky Meat Shower (whatever the hell that is).