phases

unfortunately i've been to a few funerals this year. i'm hoping the latest was the last of it for a bit, but we'll just have to see what the future has in store. what amazes me about funerals for people who pass in their old age is how possible it is to know so much of someone for almost 25 years of their life, but not really know anything about them. two of my grandparents have died this year. i knew a fair amount about my grandfather's past as an ad man - probably most because it became my chosen profession and that my mom's side likes to tell stories. we used to spend a week or two every summer with him and my grandmother when i was little, and there he would tell me little bits of his past life. since i started working in media, we would exchange stories of how things have changed since his day in the industry. to me, it always seemed like he was talking of a different person. in my life he was a retiree who loved his faith, and spent a decade as a crossing guard at the local elementary school. he volunteered with knights of columbus, and read at least a book a week. it wasn't until his funeral that i was able to connect his two lives together. the one of the man in minneapolis who worked at the local TV station to the crossing guard. then it came into focus how tiny the frame of time my 24 years on the planet has been compared to the 80+ years he had here. the same is true of my grandmother - my dad's mom.

grandma baird was a consummate hostess in my existence. she had a giant pool with a diving board in her backyard where i would show off my moves from the swim team and lounge on pink pool furniture while blowing out my birthday candles. she spent the winters of my childhood at her house in ft. myers, and her time was spent volunteering for various charitable organizations. up until i started in the working world, she was the only person on the planet who called me jennifer without me correcting her. grandma drove around town in a white cadillac with a maroon felt top. she owned a mobile phone in the mid-80's - back when you had to drive from cell to cell to have reception. in the past year, i had forgotten much about her hospitality. the trips to florida. the cadillac. she still wore her mink coat when i took her to chemo, and would only let me see her with her wig on, but her illness started to cloud her memory of who she had been, and mine as well. and i realized at her funeral that my memory of her didn't even begin to touch the surface of who she was as a person. i found out she was a pinup model for a magazine given to troops about to ship out for war. i saw photos of her and her husband having lavish nights out in costume. her as a socialite. her with her siblings. it made me realize how much your adulthood can be compartmentalized into different phases. and how easily it is to be part of someone's life for only a phase.

as a child i found it fascinating that adults would reference 'my oldest friend' or buddies 'from high school' and didn't understand the distinction of the titles. in elementary school your friends are selected for you by the class roster or bus schedule. that's not to say its any different once adulthood has begun when making friends - the easiest places to find are usually still through parties (but this time there's booze) or where you live - but keeping them is an entirely different obstacle. once everyone's old enough to vote, there's effort involved. i came to realize a few years ago that also means that you can be selective about your friends. adulthood equates to having choices and one of those includes spending the free time you have with those you truly value. that doesn't mean i have the opportunity to hang out with everyone i want to, or that just because i hang out with someone sporadically is a sign that i don't like them. it just means that there were friends i had in specific phases of my life that were meant to be friends for only that phase. i'm not belittling our friendship or the meaning behind it - just that friends sometimes grow out of each other. there may come a time sometime the road where we rekindle a friendship, but i don't need facebook to tell me i should reconnect with someone.

where are they now?

 i know for a fact that eric carle of "very hungry caterpillar" fame is still popular among the masses, but i came to the awful realization a few weekends ago that any young woman growing up in the 21st century will no longer have her tween exploits include the babysitters club (or as it's known bsc to true fans). 

i was at a barnes & noble with a friend when we started talking children's books. though we grew up on different coasts, both of our formative years were shaped by ann m. martin's tales of the girls from stoneybrook, ct; it is the defining literature of our youths. so on this not so long ago saturday afternoon, we decided to scour the shelves to find the books. we were curious as to the number of books now in the series, plus we couldn't quite remember the author's name. ( i kept thinking it was ann b. davis - but soon realized that was the actress who played alice on 'the brady bunch'.) five minutes into a fruitless search we were forced to enlist the help of a barnes and noble employee. she woefully informed us that bsc is no longer in print, but the chain does carry comic versions of the first few books of the series. not only were the books out of print, but masterpieces like "kristy's great idea" and "the truth about stacey" are now reduced to graphic novels. BLASPHEMY. 

as an homage to the hundreds of regular books in the series, not to mention the tens of super series that took up an entire bookshelf in my bedroom, i have taken the time to formulate a special "where are they now?" tribute to my favorite girls from connecticut - think 'now and then' without crazy pete:

CLAUDIA - graduated from a local community college with an associates degree in art history. she now sells her watercolors on the streets of downtown stanford for $10 a piece. though now in her mid-30's, she still hides food in her room, causing constant roach infestations in her townhouse. 

MARY ANNE- continued to date her boyfriend, logan, throughout high school. the couple went off to college together at UCONN. in their sophomore year, mary anne became pregnant; logan immediately dropped out of school to afford his impending duties as the breadwinner of the family. shortly after the announcement of the pregnancy, the pair was married in a shotgun wedding at mary anne's dad and dawn's mom's barn. logan now attends law school at night while managing a local cinnabon during the day. still concerned with upholding her role as a proper wife, mary anne is a homemaker and mother to their brood, which now includes four children (aged 6 months - 6).

DAWN - attended berkeley after a 2 year spiritual journey to "find herself" in montana after high school. she now runs a vegan scone shop in sonoma, ca with her life partner, thomas. as a side venture, she also co-owns a chain of montessori pre-schools in northern california - the first to offer courses on ancient mayan dialects for children under five.

JESSI - continued to pursue her dreams of becoming a ballerina until an unfortunate stumble on the sidewalk forced a career-ending injury to her knee. this was a catalyst to a five-year tailspin characterized by heroin addiction and a seesawing weight problem.

STACEY - moved to NYC for college. during her first semester it was revealed that "the truth about stacey" was not only her diabetes, but also her lesbianism. she and her partner julia live in brooklyn with their adopted daughter zoe. stacey is the editor of an international fashion magazine. 

MALLORY - spent the last 10 years of her life still in the shadow of her 10 brothers and sisters as well as kristy and her "great idea". she continues to run the bsc out of the duplex she shares with her husband (and former favorite babysitting charge) jackie rodowsky, and now outsources her babysitters from stoneybrook middle school. she moonlights as a romance novelist - her latest book "the fire below" - cracked the connecticut public library 25-most read for the month of july.

KRISTY - had her "kit-kits" - cardboard boxes filled with magic markers, stickers, and imaginary toys - patented while she was still in high school. she lived a lavish life, selling 5 million boxes in the first year, until toys 'r us sued her for breach of contract. it turns out her "idea" was actually a rip off of the store's "kid activity set". the parties settled out of court, but the disgruntled kristy never quite got over the dispute. now known to most as ms. thomas, kristy teaches economics at a small boarding school in maine, while still scheming for her next "great idea".

pieces of the puzzle

admittedly i'm a big nerd. i love learning, reading meandering biographies, and subscribe to pbs' "frontline" podcasts. that being said, it shouldn't be too big of a surprise that i like puzzles. i can't think of too many things nerdier than taking time out of a weekend to dive into a 2,000 piece representation of "where's waldo" rather than be at the bar. 

this certainly stems back from a childhood filled with summers on my grandparents porch. i suppose it's pretty cliche to spend a week with your grandparents in wisconsin mastering 1000 piece puzzles of hot air balloons while sipping lemonade, but growing up in wisconsin has an inherent set of cliches. we didn't exactly have cows in my backyard, but that doesn't mean i was clueless as to where to find them. 

if i'm being judged on this one, it's fine by me. i like crossword puzzles and DVR jeopardy too. 

proof of purchase

so we're now in a "paperless" world. or at least are aspiring to be one. i signed up for paperless statements for my monthly bank assessments, but somehow they still end up coming to me in an envelope the first week of every month. the best part of it has to be the page insert that is always in the envelope encouraging me to do paperless statements. i've signed up 3x on the website, yet it still without fail comes to my apartment. computerized billing is a little big brother for some so i can understand the hesitation of doing all banking online - and having all records of your life on there. if the government hijacks your identity a la sandra bullock in the net you're completely screwed. most of us aren't smart enough how to blackmail the government to give our identities back the way sandy did; i know i'd be screwed and probably working as a hawker who hands out menus on the corner of 42nd street in the morning. 

in the recycling movement, i still cannot grasp the point of giving customers receipts for everything. some stores around my office promise they'll give you $5 off of your meal if you're not given a receipt. unless it's a business expense, why do you need one? and if you really want one, why not just ask for one? it doesn't make sense that the whole world gets them. i guarantee 85% of the people who are given receipts - if not more - throw them out at their first chance. the only proof i need of buying that ice cream sandwich is looking down at my swollen stomach. i carry that around with me all day. i don't need a carbon copy as well. 

when i grow up

i saw 'sisterhood of the traveling pants 2' over the weekend. as a 24 year old, i should probably keep such things to myself but i'm really not ashamed. i know a lot about boy bands and crappy tv - this is not an indiscretion that i'm concerned will tarnish my reputation. the movie was ridiculous in it's simplicity, but i realized that's what i like about those type of movies. 

i was of the belief until a few years ago that there were rules you followed as an adult. i wasn't dense enough to think that adults were always right, but i really thought that as you grew older maturity was just one of those things that was granted to you by the gods. like a diploma that you earn just by having a birthday. the older i get, the more i realize that experience doesn't necessarily bring maturity. you can easily go through years without taking anything in.  this is probably the one of the reasons adults always look so fondly at the times when they had no responsibility. there is no expectation of maturity - or any sense of failure when you don't have it. plus it's a hell of a lot easier to take things in when you don't have to remember 1000 things at once. 

what i love about movies like "sisterhood" is that everyone's complicated stories can be wrapped up in 2 hours. and a pair of ugly pants can solidify friendships for life. i've always been a sucker for sappy movies. the way that life's problems can be wrapped up into a monologue at the end of the movie. you don't have to think back to what you should (er - shouldn't) have said in an argument - things are said and done and everyone lives happily ever after. coping over a major life event is complete in one meaningful montage with the characters pensively drooping over their furniture. they stare off at the distance or glance down at their phone while acoustic music weighs down the sequence. the characters seem to always find clarity in the way rarely seen in most adults. they admit when they're wrong, learn from their mistakes, and somehow have the funds to travel around the world on a whim. 

in real life, maturity is tricky to master in your teens; even trickier once it becomes intangible in adulthood. when i was a kid, i was considered mature because i did my homework without being asked to. i got points because i knew how to handle my alcohol and didn't get busted for underage drinking. i guess finishing my work on time and not making an ass of myself at happy hour are considered mature adult things to do now that i hold a job, but the line gets awfully blurry once you surpass 18. 

in real life adulthood, friendships can easily become overcomplicated. at least the ones that are based on the farce that everything can be solved in an acoustic montage. once mix tapes and trips to taco bell are replaced with jobs and happy hours, it's easy to tell who are the friends who you'll chat with beyond a facebook wall conversation. who you'll call when shit hits the fan. you don't need to see them every day, but they're the ones who will go with you to see embarrassing chick flicks (see above film referenced) and tell you when you're being ridiculous. 

i've take on plenty of responsibility in my life, but i am always looking to try to learn a better way of doing things. if i were to make this into a food analogy, i used to think i'd always be of the thought that sandwiches always taste better when someone else makes them for you. eventually i'll grow out of it and want to make my own, but at the moment i have a complex when it comes to sandwich making. no matter how many grilled cheeses or pb&j's i make, i always feel subpar to the adults who made them for me when i was little. no matter how many times i've watched someone else slice the bread or spread the jam, i don't have it down pat yet. there's always someone who can prove that it tastes better when it's cut diagonally rather than in squares. there will come a day when i think my own sandwiches are just as good as theirs, but to do that i'll have to remember that there are no rules for the perfect pb&j. 

the land of enchantment

did you know new mexico is the land of enchantment? and maine is the pine tree state? this is all information that has been locked inside of my brain for years but did not make it to the forefront until my road trip last week. 

i flew from jfk to lax, then drove to wisconsin from la. over 30 hours in the car but it felt shorter than most drives i took to college in minneapolis from madison. i was with my best friend, who besides always being up for a good time has the ingredients for a perfect road trip partner: an off-key singing voice to match my own, a knowledge of crappy 90's pop songs, and a history with me that dates back to high school. our friendship was formed over our love for food - we co-chaired the food for the national honors society's annual blood drive. in our adult road-tripping years, this means we share an excitement for spotting wendy's in new mexico - or even better - a culver's in southern wisconsin. culver's is a modern marvel in the art of fast food. when i was a swim coach, we loved culver's so much that we coaches dressed as culver's drive-thru workers as one of our costumes that we wore for our big swim meet. fast food, however, was not the highlight of my trip. 

we skipped out on the vegas route and opted for the southern route. tess' '89 buick century was only questionably up for the challenge of high altitude driving, plus we feared a backlash when the two of us would choose going to bed at 11pm after watching a movie on HBO rather than hitting the slot machines or doing body shots at pure. instead we selected what tess dubbed "vision quest". this mystical journey through the southwest took us through arizona, new mexico, texas, oklahoma, missouri, kansas, iowa, and finally the southern part of wisconsin. 

day 1, hour 7 or 8. we're moseying through arizona. i use the verb moseying because her car's speedometer only goes to 85 and we were traveling on a route with a 75 mph speed limit. apparently speedometers in '89 weren't particularly accurate. somewhere along I-40 i found myself being pulled over by officer plumb of the arizona highway patrol for going 86 mph. on one hand, i'd say it's a scientific miracle that defied the limits of physics. on the other, we should have probably been concerned that the mphs that the car projects aren't its real speeds. whatever the case, i ended up on the side of the road in arizona, explaining to the officer why i was a ny driver but only had a (valid) wisco license. (my ny license was in my wallet when it was lost/stolen a month or so back and i haven't replaced it). while laying out the situation to him, i had a flashback to the scene in 'super troopers' where the kids think they're safe, right before the squad car backs up a few thousand feet to bust the kids. tess would have to come bail me out of the only jail cell in the county - and our road trip would be delayed for a few days while tess washed dishes to scrounge up enough dollars to bail me out of the slammer. this of course was far more dramatic than what actually happened. the cop didn't even care about my license situation; he just had me walk to his squad car to tell him my correct information to fill out on my warning sheet. (which incidentally will soon be posted on my fridge). 

but this story isn't about my brush with the law. or my vast knowledge of state nicknames (virginia is the old dominion state). it's about how much i really love driving places. with gas prices the way they are, it's just not practical to drive everywhere. nor do i really have the time to hop in a car for 24 hours every time i want to go visit my family. (plus i don't even have a car to hop into). but every day i get on the subway - f train all the way to work unless i mix it up and take the 6 so i don't have to walk the mile from bryant park if it's cold out. i spend the weekends in my backyard, or in another borough. i have a few trees in my backyard and prospect park has pretty sweet greenery but i should really get out more - outside of the little bubble i've made for myself in the empire state. 

i really should thank my parents for all of the road trips as a child. besides being able to claim visiting 47 of the 50 states (washington, oregon, and alaska are the only ones i've not been to) i have a great patience in the car staring off into space and listening to music. tvs in cars are a modern convenience that i'll never understand. i get the idea to keep your toddler content in the back seat. but i'm old school - i hate the idea that all these kids are growing up having to be entertained 24-7  by dora or hannah rather than having to play the license plate game. my childhood involved trips to florida twice a year. my grandma had a winter home down in ft. myers and she insisted that her caddie was with her for the duration. we'd drive the car down to florida right after the new year, then go get it sometime around april fools. thus my childhood seasons were divided into four parts: pool opening, pool closing (aka the school year), drive down to florida, drive back to wisconsin. somehow with all of this time in the car, i get carsick when reading. i'd probably be a much more intelligent person if i could have spent all that time in the car reading sarte. instead i excel at scattergories and catch phrase - probably a product of the quick thinking games i learned on the road. 

as i sit here in brooklyn, i can't help but think that i should do a better job of traveling more. i'm far too poor to go abroad on a regular basis, but i really should take some strides to do some more serious roadtripping. we hit two big cities on our whole trip - albuquerque and dubuque. most of the time all you could see was rock formations and open space. and it was perfect. tess joked that i was pumped when we hit dubuque because i was missing the skyscrapers. honestly, i get in such a groove here sometimes that i forget that i'm surrounded by giant buildings. it's just a bunch of metal that blocks the sun. when i leave and come back though i'm happy to see them.  i love the open road but i'd end up with more than one run-in with officer plumb if i were left to such vast stretches. plus i much prefer a night out at a nice restaurant over wendy's spicy chicken. those sandwiches are amazing but i they need to stay a special treat for the good of my cholesterol. and anyone who may need to see me in a swimsuit. 

**addendum to previous post

key food is the name of this establishment. not "key foods" as would be grammatically correct. i know my irritation with this oversight is a telltale sign that i'm white, as per "stuff white people like" but it's annoying. i'm getting multiple foods to eat - not just one. 

15 items or less

tonight i went to the grocery store here in brooklyn. i'm not talking about a bodega. this was a full-fledged grocery store with aisles, a deli, and even a parking lot. it's one of those places that's right by my apartment that i always forget about. i rarely "cook" for myself beyond steaming some veggies and cooking a piece of meat on occasion. most nights i stick to a bowl of raisin bran and lactaid (gotta love the my gallbladder-free, lactose intolerant system) so i don't really bother going beyond the deli around the corner. 

the cats in all of the bodegas in the area frighten me, but i figure there can't really be any cat hair in my sealed corrugated cardboard (biodegradable i'm sure) carton of lactaid. i should note that i just finished reading "freakonomics". i say this only because i really think they should do a study on "why do bodega owners always have cats in their stores?" cats can be smelly, shed, and really don't guard the place from any robbers. i can't imagine they keep better company with these guys than all of their buddies that are constantly visiting them throughout the day. i'm not sure if it's advantageous economically, but i do wonder about any causality or correlations it may have in sales. but i digress...

this grocery store i hit up tonight had ample supply for me to stock up for the bbq i'm having this weekend. i had brought my NYer cart - an item of shame for me but shockingly handy when shopping in the neighborhood for bulky items. so i charged through the store, filling up an entire cart full of foodstuffs. when i got to the checkout there were 2 lanes open: no's 1 & 5. 

numero cinco had a line of 4 people while lane 1 had none. completely empty. had been since i entered the store - probably around 10 minutes. without looking up, i entered lane 1, ready to empty my cart on cue. in a former life i was a grocery bagger. i held the job through my junior year of high school, and not to brag, but my skills in packing groceries are unrivaled by most of my skills outside of the office beyond facebooking and recreationally drinking. 

immediately the bagger stares at my cart and mumbles, "mifteenitemserless". sadly i've lived here long enough to translate that to its true meaning "15 items or less". 

fine. i get it. i had too many items. that's not what killed me about the situation. it was the five employees all standing near checkout staring at all the people in line as they waited. and how the express worker didn't offer to take any of the other 4 people waiting in line (who all had 17 items at max) to her line. and that out of the 15 lines of possible checkouts, only 2 (really 1) were open. if you have the gargantuan grocery store and ample customers, flaunt your services a little. show a little pride. 

while i'm on it, i should also note an important feature of the parking lot. to dissuade anyone from stealing any carts, all entrances/exits to the store are surrounded by a fence only large enough for a person to fit through. this means that anyone who has parked a car in the parking lot must leave the cart in this little holding pen and carry the bags to the car instead of rolling it to its spot. for me this evening, i had to position my cart in such a way where it tilted under the bars. i then had to put my hands through the fence to grab it on the other side without it tipping over. i achieved this feat with no droppage of my cargo, but it was a close call. my wavy lays were almost lost to the sidewalk of prospect ave. and immediately i was thrown from my grocery fantasy back into the world of bodega cats. the moment of serenity was fleeting, but as long as i'm not paying for gas i can't really complain. if i'm honest about it, this will probably be my only trip to the grocery store in the next 2 months. i can fool most of the world into my "maturity" through big words and early bedtimes, but my messenger bags and cereal for dinner will always get me in the end. 

say cheese

i have an aversion to being spontaneous in photos. i'm fine when i'm directed to smile or freeze and strike a pose, but something evil takes over when people capture me in a "moment". half the time my eyes roll up in my head, the other half i look "like i'm about to die" as one friend put it lovingly this weekend. 8.1 megapixels somehow captures every awkward physicality i possess into one frozen frame. it's sort of a miracle of modern technology. like canon added a feature on their cameras that refuses to capture me in my natural habitat. or so i hope. i can live with this unfortunate curse in photography, but do i really look like that in real life? is my mouth often open awkwardly? do i gain double chins with a quick tilt of the head? are my eyes constantly red and irritated and my forehead crinkled? this is what happens when you work in advertising. you can be concerned with this over saving people's lives. thank god no one's cameras are yet in HD. i'm fascinated by looking at all the celeb's imperfections while watching awards shows in HD. i'm just not ready for that reality with myself. 

journey to the center of the earth

recently i played in a touch football game in roosevelt island. if you're not familiar with this magical place, do not feel bad. it's a tiny sliver of a land mass located just east of manhattan - between the big island and queens. it's best known for an incident some years back, when the tram that runs between roosevelt and manhattan left a handful of passengers swaying over the east river. i have been there exactly two times in my life - both times to play football - and i can't really see any reason for traveling to the destination if you don't live there. from what i can gather, it's an alternate universe for those who want to live near the UES, but can't deal with the rent. it's quiet and unassuming, and a complete bitch to get to when the trains are not running properly. i was able to find my way to the island after some tricky subway maneuvering, but once there i had NO clue as to how to get to the field. i had brought with me a zoomed out googlemaps print-out with the field name highlighted, but it lacked any street names. apparently roosevelt island is akin to the town in 'twin peaks'. none of the employees at the duane reade next to the subway knew any of the streets on the island. i had wrongly assumed that the islanders all knew the places of their community. i also wrongly assumed that the folks working at the subway station knew the area. (turns out they all live in brooklyn.) lucky for me, the subway folks knew north from south (i didn't) and were able to point me in the general direction of the field. by luck i ran into another guy from my team who was over 45 minutes late for officiating the game prior to ours. of course 2/3 of our team had the same issue that i did and we started the match two people short. fast forward to the post-game report. i was able to wander my way back to bizarro duane reade and eventually back to my home borough. i'm not quite sure which borough roosevelt technically belongs to, but i doubt i will be returning to it often enough for it to be something i need for my repertoire. i want to be the type of new yorker who freely travels between borough borders, but i'm not sure i can be so altruistic. besides the tram, i'm not sold on this roosevelt. teddy's fine in my book, as is fdr. this island however, is in the same realm as daytona beach. it's just not my kind of party.