Red Admirable

Annie Blacker house, Greene & Greene Architectural Records and Papers Collection

If I weren’t convinced that everything I know is already known well by anyone I’d ever want to impress, I’d use Hemingway’s six word novel as a pick-up line. (I’m embarrassed now to even write it, so certain I am that you all have committed it to memory and started either rolling your eyes or nodding maternally). Deep breath, Emmita! Our romance isn’t dead yet:

For sale, baby shoes, never worn.

Entry hall stairway of the David B. Gamble House

Now that I’ve done some brief internet research, I’m starting to doubt Hemingway ever wrote those words at all, or that they haven’t been irreparably bastardized (one example here–infuriating!) by generations of creative writing teachers who thought “artist” was spelled with one rim of their Clark Kent glasses and “quirky” with the other.

Gamble house from the northwest

I ran into my very own creative writing teacher this evening, in the first meeting of my second-to-last Columbia class ever. Her name is Phyllis (as though there were ever any doubt), and if that author photo bears any resemblance to the once-original, she used to be really, really hot. She’s aged, and, I’d guess, gotten more acerbic. At the very least, she seems to have wantonly embraced the professor as muse complex, common to literary men and women who find themselves at the heads of seminar tables before they’ve stopped being able to fill out an oxford. It didn’t take much actual intimacy before I realized I didn’t really need to bed any of those people again.

Rosewood chair, designed by Charles Greene

And yet: I want to write really well for her. I kept being blinded by the glare from the overhead light reflecting on her glasses and so I never knew if she was looking at me intensely or vacantly, and I was never sure for how long I should maintain my end of the eye contact, so my face in seminar was a flickering affair full of eyelash.

These were my six-word memoirs, in this order:

What do you really think, Mom?

I haven’t learned to mop, yet.

Still frequently falling up the stairs.

Mariah Carey_Fantasy

She gave each class member individual prompts for next class, which I cannot attend because I will be at Clio’s Sail-a-bration in my boss’s stead. Max is graciously serving as my date for the Parents’ Association fund raiser. When my boss told us to wear “jeans, something casual,” I told Max that, in British English, “jeans” means “seersucker.” His response:

I will be wearing my finest pair of Dungareed short pants! T’would a sandalled shoe be appropriate?

Commenced, of course, a rapid-fire email discourse on the virtues (him) versus the criminality (me) of cargo shorts. It did not culminate until the email copied below, which I wrote in character, did not even send and which languishes as a draft because it is just way too completely ridiculous:

“I hate to do this, because you have a lot of cargo in your trunk, but I just think I have too much cargo from my childhood.”

Anyway, Phyllis assigned me the prompt: “I knew I was in trouble when…”

Seriously. That’s my assignment. It think it means that I am inane and boring. Phyllis had heard me speak an hour earlier as we went around the table introducing ourselves. I’d finished my brief monologue, conveniently forgetting the suggestion that we note what we’d “bring to a desert island,” and she waited a moment and said “Well. You certainly have a checkered past.”

Mariah Carey_Always Be My Baby

Do I? I am going to finish my “in trouble” prompt with an explanation of a certain halting, alternately uneasy and impassioned and frequently drug-fueled affair; this may be the point at which I actually know I’m in trouble, of course, but I actually think she’ll like it.

Charles J. Willet house

[Buy Phyllis here and here, and buy Mariah everywhere, including here.]

[All images are from the Greene & Greene Architectural Records and Papers Collection, housed in the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at Columbia. Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene were born in Ohio in 1868 and 1870, respectively. They studied architecture at MIT and moved West, where their work emblematized the Arts & Crafts movement. My parents live in an Arts & Crafts home in New Jersey and I think it's beautiful; all of the above examples were built in Southern California. One of them, Maddy, is in Ojai!]

Ruthie sent me an e-card under her alias The Real Mii; I’ve been enraptured by her emails of late, especially after my party a few weeks ago when we stayed up really late at Abe and Jocelyn’s house playing Wii. I bought new glasses recently but haven’t had the frames put in yet (I loathe having my pupils dilated and loathed the idea of biking home from 23rd and A with my pupils dilated even more); Ruthie was in fabulous form at the party and decided to wear the glasses herself, frames be dammed.

Numero 6_Da Piccolissimi Pezzi (with Bonnie “Prince” Billy)

Ruthie hadn’t been to Abe and Jos’s before so she had to make a Mii. I remember it being extremely short even though Ruthie isn’t, particularly; the next day she sent me this email:

i was thinking this morning about how funny it was that the mii i created in wii had enormous glasses. you know, just like the real mii.

The Real MII! Amazing.

I’ve been cooking a lot recently, also doing some graduating; I hope these things are more the real mii than some of my other recent activities, which in retrospect mainly involved staying up past dawn and rambling about my parents. That’s what blogs are for, not tail ends of parties.

Numero 6_Quel Giorno Cosa Avevo?

I made cheese:

and a rhubarb compote. Chris and I have fantasies of chronicling other culinary efforts on thesethingstakethyme.com, or at least I have those fantasies and he has the rights to that domain name. I am reviewing my recent photographs in an effort to write something interesting and I’ve discovered certain patterns, like how much I love wearing glasses and how much I love other people who wear them, too.

Download your own Numero 6 here, and then help my neck find a way to get nuzzled by that lead guitarist’s moustache. The band’s website is in Italian, I’ve been squinting at it for a few minutes trying to figure out where you can buy the EP, but it seems essentially hopeless. Berlusconi hates the free market.

I have been away for a very long time! When I wasn’t attending the party of the century, I was writing a thesis. I picked up the bound copies on Saturday and rubbed my face all over them in the print store I loved them so much. I will write about the thesis, the fun parts, and I will also shortly return to posting images of my stunning friends our debonair hedonism and the gorgeous soundtrack thereto.

Fleet Foxes_Ragged Wood

We were all coming back East after Christmas and there was a woman on the plane who my sister Hannah hated but I couldn’t remember why. The woman was sitting right in front of us and in front of her was a family swarming with children

Hannah I said they have children literally coming out of their ears. I think there are five.

Hannah told me there were four. The family-of six-had only purchased five seats for its four very small and two normal to large sized members. They took up the three seats to the left of the aisle and two of the seats to the right. The sixth seat in the row was occupied by the male traveling companion of the woman Hannah hated.

Judith! he said a few times you can come sit up here!

Yes, said the mother of the beautiful and brimming family, the children are so small we will only need four of these seats.

Fleet Foxes_Drops in the River

Each time this exchange occurred Judith declined the offer. Judith along with the rest of us behind the family spent a good part of the flight making faces at the blond baby sitting his mother’s lap.

He looks like Steve Martin, she told the baby’s mother.

What. The woman grew tense.

There’s just something about him the sparkle in his eyes.

I thought Judith was right and I thought that it was funny so I repeated the conversation to Hannah. Hannah didn’t pay attention to the substance of my story because it is admittedly weird to say that a baby looks like Steve Martin but she did pay attention when I told her I’d learned Judith’s name.

Jewess? she hissed.

I wasn’t sure what Hannah had said but I thought it was something that didn’t bear repeating.

Judith! I repeated into Hannah’s shoulder.

Hannah was laughing very hard and I really didn’t want Judith to know what she was laughing about.

Judith! I grunted to the air behind me.

Hannah finally got it.

Do you know what I thought you were saying?!

I didn’t want to tell her what I thought she’d thought I was saying so I made some hemming noises and laughed too. I hoped to confuse her into explaining.

A character in the Bible? In the New Testament? Hannah was thrilled by our misunderstanding so she made her mouth very big around each syllable.

Judas? Oh. I felt hugely relieved.

Later when I was making the quick decision to leave my family to their cab at Newark Airport I asked Judith’s traveling companion how much the express bus to midtown cost.

Well he whined I think it’s like fourteen dollars but you know it’s cheaper than a cab.

Totally. I said even though my only compunction was about whether I should get into the cab my parents were paying for or not.

On the bus ride back to Manhattan Judith and her man friend were sitting two rows behind me. I heard every word he was saying most of the time that word was intolerable.

It’s the waiting that is just intolerable!

This traffic! It’s intolerable!

His daughter Sarah called him she was outside of his apartment in Chelsea with a lot of luggage and no key.

Sarah! I’m not even in the tunnel yet the driver is intolerable! Vita-Dent isn’t open?

He wanted Sarah to get into the apartment by knocking on the door of the dentist’s office on the first floor of his building. It was seven thirty on a holiday Saturday the idea that a dentist would be working was ridiculous.

Just stay calm Judith kept telling him you should stay at my house.

I can’t! He was outraged. My daughter is here!

Well said Judith she should stay too. You don’t have a key either how will you get in?

This issue was never resolved.

Tonight is my one night with my daughter and I’m missing dinner with her she’s waiting for me outside!

Well apparently not Judith said helpfully apparently she has other plans.

She did. Sarah was worried her father would be so late as to mess up the rest of her evening visiting New York friends. He found this intolerable.

Judith was getting off the bus at Bryant Park and her man friend was getting off first at Port Authority.

Well he said after the bus had stopped on Forty-first and Ninth I’m sorry babe.

Babe? I thought.

I’m sorry I’m so tense it’s my only night with Sarah.

Judith told him she understood.

And thank you babe thank you for taking me along on your trip and for being so understanding.

They kissed on the cheek. He got of the bus and I glared at him and then I glared extra hard after his wallet jabbed me in the shoulder. He paused near the door of the bus.

Happy New Year.

Happy New Year Judith said back.

I wanted to say Judy you can do better but I didn’t because everyone on the bus already knew Judy could do better and that was probably enough.

Later I call Hannah.

Judas was on my bus! Why did you hate her again?

Hannah is still angry but then she laughs.

I hated her because she picked her nose!

I remember Hannah saying this on the plane and I once again refrain from mentioning that I too sometimes pick my nose.

She kept annoying the baby when he and I were trying to play peek-a-boo! And her man friend he smelt he smelt so bad.

A grown up? Smelt? I acknowledge that grown-ups should have had enough time to learn how to manage their body odors. Hannah is not done.

Well and they were making out in the aisle of the airplane right next to you when you were sleeping and the flight attendant couldn’t get around them to give someone their drink!

They were making out? I ask.

What? Hannah asks. What’s wrong?

Fleet Foxes_Oliver James

Lipstik_There Is Only One Thing.mp3

Then you get the guy in the fat guy truck–

There was no need to finish. The line erupted in laughter. The man who’d announced that we “got the guy” was waiting for his package at the Maspeth UPS Customer Center, and he was really fat. Since he didn’t work for UPS, I guess it didn’t matter. He was a doorman.

A concierge.

Oh.

Lipstik_Yer So Bad.mp3

Thirty two years I’ve been on the job. I keep my mouth shut, nobody bothers me. I’m my own boss.

Whoops, he’s his own boss. A landlord, not a doorman at all.

I biked to Maspeth this morning to pick up the new router for 211 Montrose. If I hadn’t already demanded our wireless network’s coronation as Chairman Meow, I might have felt less invested. But Chairman Meow is the greatest name I’ve thought of, ever, so I set my alarm for 8am and after frogging around with the Francis Francis espresso machine, I left the house and rode east.

I’m considering leaving New York for law school in the fall; since I started taking that idea seriously, I’ve been paying more attention to the city. I drove Young Max from Gowanus to Williamsburg on Sunday, and as we passed under the J/M/Z tracks a train was stopped at the Marcy (Marcy, son) station. All the doors were open, and I could see through the cars to the cold morning sky on the other side.

The train looked so fragile and aged, there, like something from French Connection. That’s kind of what Maspeth is like, the buildings and the streets like parking lots.

In the tiny waiting alcove, I stood next to a breezy Filipina whose driver came in at one point to check on her.

We are still waiting! she told him, laughing. Once the fat guy had made his fat guy joke, a strong sense of solidarity and first person plural pronouns prevailed. The Filipina was very flirty. I hope I am not… she thought about it… thwarting your morning plans!

The driver was very serious and, I noticed, kind of emaciated. It is my afternoon plans that I am worried about, he said, with no apparent sense of irony. A different woman leaned against the wall and sighed. She was reading a paperback called Desperate Hoodwives. I read over her shoulder:

…a joke, really, since the worst of the worst lived in Bentley Manor.

I stopped reading over her shoulder.

Everyone who worked at the Customer Center had an earring in one ear, so they all looked like my dentist. When was that cool for guys? It’s like a permanent sneer, just mixed with hairspray. The guy who waited on me had gold glitter all over his face, too. It was hilarious. I didn’t have the courage to take a picture of him from the front, though, so you will have to trust me:

[Buy Lipstik's new EP, There Is Only One Thing, here. We have been listening to it all morning. The album is the perfect Maspeth antidote, and since "Maspeth" is such a universal reference it is fine with us if Lipstik uses that quote promotionally.  Love, Red Admirable.]