Hello Levi.

Money, pardon the expression, is like manure. It's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow.

--Mrs. Dolly Levi

Say what you want about Levi Johnson but he's taking a pickle (the one he's gotten himself into) and turning it to profit. Mrs. Palin ought to be darn'd proud of her almost son-in-law. He is exhibiting (or soon will be) the sort of enterprising spirit that has turned America into the free market paradise it is today. Levi is taking his most precious resource, selling it to the highest bidder, and they are packaging it, marking it up, and selling it off. If Playgirl doesn't double its sales when Levi's issue comes out, well, then I'll be jiggered. Why people want to buy this product is irrelevant. What is important is to recognize that in one fell stroke Levi is doing more to boost the economy than all the manure spreading Mrs. Palin could manage in a lifetime. Now, if Levi was really to take advantage of some matchmaking kismit, he'd get together with Kate Gosselin. He's just the sort of teen spirit she needs to revitalize that franchise--give it the pseudo-political edge that's so popular with the Yanks these days. Think about it: he's a single dad, she's a single mom and I'd say it's much more than a hunch. They're both so damn fertile. If they can't encourage young things to grow, who can?

The September Issue

In many parts of the world it's already October, and by the time my four readers get to this post, October will most surely have engulfed the entire globe. I was rather thinking that by now I would have managed to see The September Issue, so imagine my surprise this week when I couldn't find it playing anywhere in my vicinity. It appears that in the city, a term I use loosely, where I currently reside they've cancelled September, or at least postponed it until it comes out on DVD. No great loss really, but I'll take any excuse to mope a bit, and so I was until a wonderful thing happened. A parcel arrived. In the post. And as I think I've said before, there's nothing better than a parcel. It wasn't a package in brown paper, or wrapped up with string, but receiving a lovingly packaged care pack is my favourite, and here's why: it's impressive. It denotes care, attention, and effort. And parcels are fun. There's a reason why Jack comes in a box. (Steady on.) Other great things that have come in boxes: there's cake, of course; books are always good; hand made gourmet marshmallows; clever ceramic mugs; a rabbit (I didn't see that one coming, or going); and a Martini once, in a little silver shaker with a lemon twist, and an arrow on the outside pointing "this side up". (You have to know the right courier.) No diamonds yet, but I'm not in desperate need of a best friend.

I love a package because it's crossed time and space. And usually you're the only one who's got one. People don't get packages every day. Well, maybe Anna Wintour. And that's why it's so impressive. If you're not Anna Wintour and you don't live on her block then probably you're the only one to get one today. The day my parcel arrived there was no one home so the postman, in lieu of ringing twice, left one of those little slips inviting you to come on by and pick up your own damn parcel. Well, as it turns out I'm v. busy in my little city that doesn't merit proper film distribution (I may as well be camping in Russia) so I did the most Wintourian thing I could think of; I sent one of the BA students to fetch it. This accomplished two things: it alerted those around me that I was expecting a parcel (Hey, I'm not beyond sending myself large bouquets with notes that read, "Please say yes. Love Jonathan." Thank you, Ms. Ephron.), and it heightened the inherent Christmas-y anticipation. I know, how bourgeois to anticipate anything. But anticipate we did, my people and I.

After walking around the department once or twice with the parcel (marked "perishable") under my arm, sauntering past accounting, lurking around the photocopier, borrowing post it notes, I was sure everyone had been subtly alerted to 'the presence.'

I then proceeded to put the parcel on my desk and read an article. I didn't want to appear too eager. After all it's not like I don't receive impressive perishable parcels every day, is it? Or isn't it? Well, there it was, impressive, and perishable, sitting on my desk while I, with my back turned, studiously highlighted upside down words. "Hmmm? What? Oh yes, uhm, does anyone have a paper knife? No? Well maybe I'll just wait till I get home. What? Your scissors? A nail file? Well, I suppose, I may as well get this big bulky thing out of the way." And so came the magic moment of reveal. And my parcel didn't disappoint. Chocolate, baby. Artisanal Chocolates from a little outfit called Christopher Elbow. Delectable. And the inside of this parcel was more impressive than the outside.

Suck it, brown paper packages, now it's all about silver Mylar cooler lining with ice packs. You could have shipped a kidney in this set up. But instead, it was nine tender lovings of sugary, cocoa-y goodness; that I immediately did not share with any of my hard won audience. "What? Is that my iPhone buzzing to the tune of The Impossible Dream? V. important meeting, must fly . . . " Artisanal Chocolates wait for no one, not even October.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

"I don't do anything. But you're darling to ask."

--a Tom Wolfe character?, in one of his books?

Recently, on the Paris metro, I was reading over a friend's shoulder a portion of The Sweet Life in Paris, by David Lebovitz, surrealistically enough, while on the way to have a drink w. David Lebovitz, so really it was by way of cramming. I thought I should at least have read some of his book. The portion that my caught my eye was a bit about how in France it is considered rude when meeting someone for the first time, to ask, "what do you do?" Inquiring about someone's profession is thought to be too closely akin to asking, "so, how much do you make?" Instead, Europeans are apt to ask, "where are you from?" as a form of ice breaker.

I'd noticed this before. I was askance that my Greek cousin didn't know what his best friend's parents did for a living. Yesterday, watching the Vicar of Dibley, one of the characters commented on how rude it was to bring up the subject of profession too soon. Europeans simply do not talk about work. Now, I'm torn. On the one hand I find this fantastically refreshing 'coz I don't care what you do, talking about your work is going to be (ultimately) a) bloody boring for you, b) bloody boring for your companion, or c) bloody both, in which case the conversation is going to be dead before it gets off the ground. If you've got nothing better to talk about other than work you might want to consider reading a paper or becoming Governor of Alaska, or something diverting like that. On the other hand, "where are you from" is rarely as interesting in North America as it might potentially be in Europe.

What does one do is best brought up when you are talking about someone who isn't present. The other day I inquired after the profession of an absent acquaintance-in-common and was told that she was a lawyer but had been off work for a year due to a horrible car accident that had left her etc. etc. Now, good thing said acquaintance wasn't there because whenever I'm in a room with a lawyer, I always pretend I'm not in a room with a lawyer. (Thank you Mr. Thurber.) But, and, also, had I merely inquired from whence she hailed I would have been rewarded with a curt, "Connecticut," and no mention of comas or anything like that, and been left to my own devises. Sometimes you just need to know.

On Tuesday afternoon I walked into a production meeting and met a young woman in a full-on gingham dress reaching from the top of her throat to her ankles and covering her elbows. Her feet were shod in little black booties and her straw-blond hair was pulled into a disciplined bun. The moment I turned to see her I wanted to say, "Are you Amish?" and that's how I missed most of what was said during the rest of the meeting because I had to keep my teeth clamped shut while this unfortunate phrase tried valiantly to smash it's way out of my mouth. (She's not. She was on a break from the historical museum where she works. Honestly, a gingham dress arouses more suspicion in me than a sequinned thong. It's so kinky.)

Speaking of religion, or maybe speaking of kinky, I was stopped on the soon to be overrun by fresh students but currently deserted campus where I sometimes study, by a young Korean man-boy who wanted to ask a question. O.K., it's a lazy Sunday afternoon and I'm gayme. I thought it was going to be one of those ESL deals where they've been sent on a series of tasks and are encouraged to talk to strangers in an effort to improve their English. (A questionable pedagogical practice, I've always thought. Ask any fairy tale character in a red hoodie, lost in the woods.) But no, or nay, as it were. He's a theology student. And here were his questions:

What's your name?

What are you studying?

Do you believe in God?

What's your religion?

Do you know about the Heavenly Mother?

Would you like me to give you a lecture about it to save your soul?

And here are my answers:

Nicky D.

Theatre.

Urhm, yes?

Well . . . Orthodox, y'know, Greek.

Y' mean, like, the Virgin?

Look, darling, I'm a grad student. I'd rather go to hell than sit through another lecture.

Then he wanted to know if there was a better time that we could meet and discuss it, and I had to just fess up and say that I'm verrrrrry busy. Now I'm afraid that he might be one of the students in the Oral Communication class I'm teaching and I'll have to refrain from making dick jokes in class. Bother.

So, sometimes, yes, you can ask the wrong, and too many questions. Or maybe it's just about asking questions that are too easy. Personally I'm going to challenge myself to not care what people "do". And to start caring about who they might be. I know, I'm just asking for a load of sincerity, but what Can you do?

On a Sunday? Always.

Fag Hag. I know it's a term Margaret Cho has taken back like the night but it doesn't sit well with me. I've never thought of any of my girlfriends in that way. Something about it implies that a woman might enjoy my company strictly, or largely, because of my sexual orientation. It makes me think that any fag will do. I'm prepared for men to enjoy my company on those terms but women fall under a whole 'nother catagory. 

I think of the pantheon of smart, beautiful women I count as my friends and how, for periods of time, we fall into roles that give off something of a marital tone. This reminds me of a term I recently came across in my research for a biography of George Bernard Shaw.  (I can't remember which book this comes from but I copied it down: "In The Millionairess (1934), Epifania defines 'Sunday husband' as 'a gentleman with whom I discuss subjects that are beyond my husband's mental grasp, which is extremely limited'; and in Buoyant Billions (1947), Tom Buoyant explains: 'My wife needed some romance in her life when I ceased to be romantic to her and became only her matter-of-fact husband. To keep her in good humour and health I had to invite and entertain a succession of interesting young men to keep her supplied with that I call Sunday husbands.'" And so the other day when someone compared my girlfriend to a fag hag, I made a correction, "Oh no, she's my Sunday Wife." 

Now, I myself don't have a matter-of-fact husband from whom I need distraction but you've got to have someone with whom you can discuss your dates. And as much as I'd like to discuss Tuesday's date with Wednesday's date that never really goes over well. Many of the Sunday Wives, however, do have their own husbands. Regardless of the level of romance between them the fact remains that there are certain things that you can't, won't, or shouldn't discuss with your husband, either to avoid his divorcing you or your boring him to death. I'm v. fond of most of these other husbands but that doesn't keep the conversation from turning to the polite whenever they enter the room. Lately, in a mad effort to be egalitarian, I've ceased censoring my comments in front of the husbands and I modulate my conversation based on their eyes' level of glossiness. But even then, it's a bit of a show. 

The crux of the Sunday Spouse relationship is that you're a little bit on vacation and your relaxed behaviour reflects this. The romantic relationship, on the other hand, is work, often happy work that is rewarded, but work nevertheless. The Sunday Spouse ought never to feel like work. The Sunday Spouse is a holiday and even though one wouldn't want to be on holiday forever (you think you do but you don't, trust me), we still all need a break, and maybe a touch of sun. 

(Image: Detail from A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat)

Post Script: If you're not familiar w. the plays and writings of GBD then you might want to consider some summer reading. His plays are actually as wonderful to read as they are to watch.

George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950)

Bernard (he loathed the name George) Shaw was a vegetarian. He was an ardent non-smoker. “Self-appointed iconoclast and gadfly, Shaw devoted his life to exhorting the world to overhaul its old ideas about love and sex, romance and sentimentality, marriage and divorce, prostitution and venereal disease, asceticism and adultery, obscenity and censorship, birth control and sexual education” (Pharand 1). In short, either Shaw was a man with values far ahead of his time or we, in the 21st Century are lagging far behind our own. He left school at the age of 14 to work for a land agent. At 20 he moved from Dublin to London and for nearly ten years sequestered himself in the Reading Room of the British Museum and read everything he could. Believing that sex and marriage were not mutually exclusive, he was happily (and wealthily) married to Charlotte FrancesPayne-Townsend from 1898 to her death in 1943. Their marriage excluded sex. The author of five unpublished novels, his career as a writer began as a critic of art, music and theatre. He loved music, especially Mozart and Wagner. On stage he was a proponent of the work of Ibsen, whose complex characters were an anti-dote to the two-dimensional heroes and villains of the popular melodramas . His views were strong and outspoken, and he loved to promulgate them in pamphlets, polemics and hundreds of letters. In 1884 he co-founded the Fabian Society and overcame a vocal stammer by training himself to become a powerful public speaker on the soapboxes of Hyde Park’s Speaker’s Corner. The social reforms promoted by the Fabians and Shaw’s Feminist ideals informed all his future work. Having honed his teeth as a speaker and a writer, he wrote his first play, Widower’s Houses in 1891. It was not well received. Nor were the eleven plays that followed. The 1905 production of Man and Superman marks the beginning of Shaw’s legendary career as a successful playwright. His anti-war stance became legendary, and shortly before the outbreak of the second word war, in 1939, he wrote to his biographer in characteristic satirical style: “What a comfort to know that if we kill 20 millions or so of one another, we’ll none of us be missed.” Dedicated to reform to his last days, he was pruning a tree in his garden when he fell from his ladder. He died a few days later. He was 94.

(Pharand, Michel W. "Introduction: Dionysian Shaw." Shaw: The Annual of Bernard ShawStudies 24 (2004): 1-10.)

"I wish I knew how to quit you."

I'm not a quitter. But I do sometimes fade away, like old soldiers who never die. I'm lucky enough, however, to have dear friends who shake me up by making reasonable demands:

There's been a waiter in your soup since March 7th.

I've been waiting 4 months for a blog update.

I like to think this absentmindedness is one of my cuter characteristics, like a version of Doris Day (an old soldier if ever there was one) who's unknowingly drunk some water with sleeping powder in it and can't quite stay awake. And Paul Lynde, or some other Hollywood proto-homosexual keeps having to slap her conscious. "Huh, wha . . . ? ? Oh, Peter, it's you." But as cute as this may be, especially at dinner parties, or the opening of Parliament, my cute days are currently and happily waning. I'd much rather be a quitter. Nobody likes wishy-washy past the age of, well, ever. And the only way you can even slightly get away with wishy-washy is said Cute Factor (CF). After a certain age (oh I dunno, three?) being definitive shows a strength of character that is desirable in a pre-school candidate. Quitting is definitive (unless you're making a Palinesque manoeuver), and I don't think we ought to be so ready to put it down. 

Quitting is a choice. You're either in or you're out and sometimes when you're out life gets a whole lot more interesting. While discussing my relationship one morning my shrink told me there was ambiguity in my life. "What are you getting from it? Is it feeding you in some way?" (I love shrink talk. They manage to sound utterly aloof and at the same time concerned. If your shrink doesn't sound like this quit him immediately.) The word ambiguity was like a huge light bulb going on. And off, and on, and off, with me rocking in the corner in the fetal position. Leaving the shrink's office, I proceeded to luncheon w. my boyfriend and we broke it off. It had been a long time coming, but one of us was wishy and the other was washy, which originally made us the perfect couple. It wasn't easy, but a good break up (for realsies, not the kind where you're still sleeping together) is definitive. Now he's in a loving relationship with a beautiful man, and I'm, well, currently I'm renovating my bathroom, but there's no doubt about it. And once Elizabeth Gilbert really let go of her ex-husband she managed to write a best-selling novel. Did I mention I'm renovating my bathroom? 

Yesterday, at the rather large arts organization where I occasionally go in to organize the art that, like life, can get messy, word came down that the artistic director had quit. Not knowing the circumstances I immediately rushed to his office to congratulate him. That's when it occurred to me that my first impression of quitting is that it's a step in the right direction. Every time I hear about someone quitting I think of what a relief it must be to them. The one time I quit a nine-to-five job (the only time I ever had a nine-to-five job) I gave my two weeks notice and what had previously been a soul sucking drudge became a sweet daily adventure. I floated through the office popping paper in inboxes, I mailed cheery emails, I soothed irate customers, and I did it all without breaking a sweat, on my own time, and with the most benevolent nods to my harried co workers. Knowing I wasn't going to be tied to that job for the rest of my life certainly had something to do with it. I had been there nine months already and as a baby wasn't forthcoming I felt it was really time to go. Why can't we always behave like nothing is forever? 'Coz, y'know, it's not. (Barring diamonds which you might get to keep if you quit at the right time.) I used to lament the passing of things, things like flowers, time, cheese, relationships. But not so much anymore. There's always something new coming down the pike, and if not something new then something old and familiar, and having quit it once we now know better how it is to be dispatched. 

Doctor, there's a waiter in my soup.

The last time I flirted with a waiter, I ended up going home with the food runner. I have an eating disorder. Food makes me flirty. (So do first snows, spring days, and Vicks VapoRub.) My flirtation style is buckshot. Buckshot flirtation is dangerous because it's aimless. Here's how it works. I see someone I like, and I flirt. But instead of solely flirting with that one person I just, well, Flirt. With everyone in the immediate vicinity. I flirt with the hostess, the bus boy, the people sitting next to me, the table, the chairs, people walking by in the street, I send buckets of champagne to strangers, I send messages to the kitchen staff . . . It's random and unfocused. I've seen people with great laser flirtation. They lock on to the target and nothing else exists. I just spin like a Catherine wheel. The results are either collateral damage--someone else takes the fall, or I end up in the bathroom, throwing up and holding my own hair (there's nothing worse than the hang over from unfettered flirting). 

But practice makes perfect. A couple of weeks ago I was dining with friends and something told me it was time to put my freshly honed skills to work. It wasn't my braised lamb shank telling me so. There was a twinkle in our server's eye. Was it for me or was he giving excellent service and I've just forgotten what that feels like? If the sex trade is the world's oldest profession, then acting and serving are close behind. They are body trades. To excel in any of them you have to acknowledge that you are there to be used, to be 'of use' to the other. And to survive in any of them you should know how much of yourself you are prepared to give. 

You can tell a lot about a man by the way he serves you dinner. It's not often you have the opportunity to watch somebody for two hours while they're at work (well, really more than that if you count last week when I went back for a little risotto and a Saturday night stalking). With doctors and lawyers and bankers (yes, yes, "oh my") it's easy to be unsure. Those types of professions are set up to hide a myriad of sins. (Poor bankers, the green curtain's been pulled aside and everyone can see your smoke and mirrors now.) But a server, amateur or professional, can't hide much in the course of his or her duty. And this guy's a pro. 

So here I am, the afternoon before the morning after (and I only say that because I'm meeting him for a drink after he finishes his shift tonight and by the time we're done it'll be morning in any case). I'm trying to recall the last time I went on a date with someone I didn't meet online, hadn't seen photos of their cat, their vacation home, their high school grad, all before ever laying eyes on them in the flesh. All I really know is: 1. cute as the dickens; 2. can work his way deftly around two toney sittings a night; 3. firm handshake. This old fashioned approach to dating has got me a little giddy. Largely because I'm learning to be straight forward and sidestep the pussyfooting. It's hard being a man. Especially if you've been training your whole life to be a boy. 

A New York Minute

Ever feel like you're playing fast and loose with your sanity?

--Mary Jo Shively

There's a stack of New Yorkers in my bathroom that grows with every passing week. Whenever I look at them I'm reminded of time passing and all the creative, delicious things that I may or may not be doing. At least wine bottles get recycled, but there's always that little snippet in a magazine to which you might want to refer back. So they sit, and grow. And refer back I do. They feed me, and inspire me, and depress me. They remind me that my world is bigger than, well bigger. It's a big world, after all. It pretends to be small but I think that's just a blind. It's big, and bold, and time is whizzing around it like a cold wind. Would we stop time if we could? Mmmmmaybe, just for a bit. 

It would stop us from doing silly things. Things like spending Valentine's Day on the dog end of a pile of coeds. Of course, it was just incidentally Valentine's Day. I didn't really think of it till the next morning. Well, the next afternoon. And all the rest of the week. What could it mean? Probably nothing. And yet . . . It probably means I should be dating people my own age. Like the doctor who sat on his Blackberry while we were saying goodnight (that's a euphemism)  in his car and speed dialed his mother, whose voice was subsequently amplified through the Bluetooth speaker system. At first I thought it was his car talking. Lemme tell you, this is one way to stop time. Or at least your heart. Not that my heart was really in it. Doctors aren't really everything your mother cracked them up to be. 

Damn, this was going to be a blog about time and it's just turned out to be about people I shouldn't be kissing. Here's something from The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda, just to round things off: 

What is the distance in round meters
between the sun and the oranges?

Who wakes up the sun when it falls asleep
on it's burning bed?

Does the earth sing like a cricket
in the music of the heavens?

Is it true that sadness is thick
and melancholy thin?

Kind of makes you want to put Pablo in a burlap sack and drown him in the river, don't it? Never mind. Probably lost in translation. There will be no drowning today, not of dear old Pablo, unless it's in your sorrows.

O.k., final volley. (I know, I'm playing against myself here, but give me a little break.) Here's my favourite thing from my recent trips to New Yorker: a photo layout of people who'd attended the 2009 Innaugural Balls.  One of the photos is of "Jeremy Leffler, an analyst from Indianapolis, and Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Alejandro Aleman, from Washington, D.C." That's what the caption says. But the photo speaks at least another 984 words. They look normal, and spiffy, and in love, and full of hope. They're going to live in my bathroom for a while. Hope has a tendency to rub off. And it's timeless. 

(Hand made erotic "Be Mine" Hearts courtesy of the x-Beast. Best Valentine's gift ever. Except for that trip to Jakarta. But that was really a form of reimbursement.)