Monthly Archives: March 2012

Mar14

Love and Barneys

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I’m grateful for my unresponsive landlord, who has left me without light in my apartment for the past few days.  My bedroom lights blew out, my ceilings are high, and I am short.  I dress myself in the dark.  Caste out of my cave on the first spring-like day, I wander to the West Village to run some errands.  On my way to Chelsea Market from 13th Street and 7th Ave, I see Will Ferrell jog down 13th Street in a t-shirt.  In my head, I see myself running after him in my black trench coat and peep toe flats.  I play it cool.  I am amused because earlier that morning, I saw Will on the Today Show while sipping coffee in my pajamas.

At Chelsea Market, my brain comes alive as my salmon salad from Friedman’s Lunch swims inside my blood.  After lunch, I buy black cherry balsamic vinegar, and I walk up to the High Line to greet the sunshine.  When I overheat, I move to the shade and pull out my library book about nonviolent communications.  Two stylish women who look like they’re in their 50s sit at a table next to me.  They have shopping bags.  They chat. They sit quietly.  As Marshall Rosenberg leads me through how to listen to people empathically, the women kiss on the lips.  I watch as they stroll towards the stairs on 16th Street, holding hands. 

My iPhone battery is dying, so I cross the street to charge my phone at Starbucks.  The kissers walk into Starbucks a few minutes later.  I feel excited to see them again – just like Will Ferrell – twice in one day.  I want to talk to them.  I pack my bag and walk towards the door, stopping at their table.  I introduce myself.  I barely have to explain myself.  The chatty woman tells me that her name is Gail, and her girlfriend – let’s call her Gloria.  Gail moves her shopping bags from a seat and I join them at their little round table.  I tell them that I saw them on the High Line earlier, and ask what they were doing there.

Gail, on the left, lives in the neighborhood, and says it was a nice day to walk on the High Line. 

I ask if they’re a couple, and Gail tells me they’ve been a couple on and off for twenty years – more recently on for two years.  I ask how they met, and Gail tells me that twenty years ago Gail was promoting parties for women at different clubs.  One night in the middle of winter, she went to a friend’s party in Tribeca, which she mentions, was not the Tribeca of today.  There was a snow storm that night – a blizzard.  Gloria also came to that Tribeca party.  The following week, Gloria came to a party that Gail threw. 

I ask Gail what Gloria was wearing.  I think that is a quintessential question for people in love for so many years.  At the moment you recognize the person you will love, do you see the shade of her eyes or the shape of her dress?

Gail didn’t remember exactly what Gloria was wearing, but she did know what she was wearing: vintage black ski pants, a jacket with a lot of zippers, and a scarf.  They laugh.

Gail says, “I don’t know what she was wearing.  Gloria always had an amazing sense of style.  Her hair was red then. Maybe those were her Gigli days.”

Romeo Gigli is a designer.  I had to google that.  I ask Gail what they did together when they first started dating. 

“I was working as a hotel manager and I’d get off work at 3 o’clock and she would come by at 3 o’clock.  We would go to the old Barneys a lot.  Gloria was a favorite there.  Everyone knew Gloria at the old Barneys.  She was a stylist, a wardrobe stylist.  The old Barneys was the best.  Barneys and Charivari.  She had a country house and we’d go there.  We’d do what everyone does.  We went out to dinner.”

I ask them how old they were 20 years ago.  Gail is going to be 57, and Gloria is going to be 65.  That would make them 36 and 45 when they met.  Gail came out in San Francisco in 1974, when she was 19.  I asked Gail if she joined the Harvey Milk happenings.

“I was in high school from ‘71 to ‘73, and that’s when Roe v. Wade came around.  Abortion rights, gay rights, black civil rights.  I graduated in ‘73 and then moved to San Francisco.  At that time some of the gay boys who I met working in a coffeehouse were going to the Castro to protest Anita Bryant at Harvey Milk’s camera shop.  This is before he was in office.  Anita Bryant wanted to fire teachers for being gay.  My nephew is graduating high school and his principle is an out lesbian – that’s how much things have changed.”

Gail tells me that if I had approached Gloria and asked her for an interview, she would have said no.  Gail told me she would never say no, but Gloria would, because she’s so shy.

I ask them if they balance each other out, with Gail being more outgoing and Gloria being more reserved.  Gail laughs, and tells me that Gloria is not shy around her.  Gail says, “We’re best friends.  Twenty years later we’re best friends.  I love everything about her.  We broke up for a few years and I had another relationship.  I realized that I just missed how compatible we were.  So, I said let’s talk and work this out.  She was seeing somebody else for about a year, and I was seeing someone for about two and a half years.  I realized I wasn’t emotionally available because I still had feelings for Gloria. There was still something there.”

 I ask if they live together and have a country house together.

 “The country house is gone.  Gloria and I lived together for 10 years and now we don’t live together.  Eventually we’ll live together again, but it’s just not that big of an issue right now.  When we broke up Gloria bought an apartment, and then my apartment went co-op and I bought it.” 

I ask Gail what they love to do in the city.

“Walk on the High Line.  Walk around. We go to the movies all the time.  We walk around the neighborhood.  Bed Bath & Beyond is fun with Gloria.  Everything is great with her.  Whatever it is, it’s always good.”

I ask what they are doing tonight.

“We’re going out with a couple that Gloria fixed up – her second successful fix up in the past couple of years.  She’s very good at it.  The first one is lasting four years and counting, and this one looks like it might have legs.  They’ve been going out for a few months.  It’s very funny how they ended up together.  They went on a few dates fifteen years ago, and then they got distracted by other people. Fifteen years later, they both became available, and now they’re on fire.”

My bracelet falls off, and Gail catches it.  “Is this something that fell off you?” she asks.

Yes, my bracelet – I made it.

“Oh my god.  It’s your bracelet, it’s great.  But you almost lost it.  That’s not great.”

I tell her it’s ok – it’s just brass.  I ask her if she likes my S hook.

“It’s really good.  Totally,” Gail says.

Gloria tells me she loves my blouse.  I love my blouse, too. 

Gloria and I chat while Gail gets up from the table.  She is easy to talk to.  She tells me she likes the idea of my writing project, and says that in New York, there is a sense of isolation even though we’re all over each.  We’re on the train and nobody’s looking at each other.  There are millions of stories in New York.  We’re all just trying to navigate life.

This talking to strangers thing is my attempt to unearth some of the stories that live quietly inside this city.  I also want to live inside Mister Roger’s neighborhood, and I imagine myself waving to Gail and Gloria while walking down Greenwich Ave. on my way to Village Natural with my friends, who also smile and wave at Gail and Gloria.

Gail returns to the table.  They are getting ready to leave.  I tell them they’re both gorgeous, and I thank them.  They walk out the door and I follow behind after I throw out some napkins and my coffee cup.  I see them walking down 15th Street ahead of me, holding hands again.  I’m glad they put on their ski pants in that blizzard. 

 At some point, I lose them, then I nearly collide into Susan Sarandon as she walks out a big black door.  I hear her admiring a woman’s puppy.  I love Susan Sarandon, not only because she created Spin in Gramercy for Yoshi, but also because she gave a kickass Oscar speech in 1993 that affected me and my 7th grade relationships.

We are all navigating life, famous or not famous.  We jog.  We sit in the sunshine.  We love puppies.  We fall in love.  We wear dresses and scarves and bracelets.  We tell our stories.

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Mar2

Cops In My Apartment

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In the morning I get a call from my landlord. He asks if I have seen my neighbor lately. My neighbor? As much as I would love to live in a building in which the neighbors drink tea together on the fire escape, use each other’s q-tips, and ruminate about our lovers, I do not live in such a building. The first time I actually spoke to any neighbor in the three years since I’ve been in this building was on the day before Hurricane Irene blew through. I wanted my neighbor, the 20ish year old nasal aspiring Broadway singer with a doormat that has words such as – “Merci,”, “No Regrets,” “OMG,” and a neon pink peace symbol – to know me in case I got scared. I might have needed her to comfort me and feed me canned tuna packed in olive oil.

An ex in college could recite the Robert Frost poem, “The Mending Wall”. The poem has a line, “Good fences make good neighbors.” That line makes cry. I think that good neighbors make good neighbors. I come from a family where it’s normal to show up in each other’s driveways on the way to pick up a jar of pickles or a little cousin. We sat on each other’s porches, gave impromptu foot rubs, and fed each other prunes and Muenster cheese. We examined our days together.

When the police knocked on my door in the afternoon, like a good citizen, I answered. I learned that my neighbor’s mother was concerned about my neighbor, and had called 911. I had a gargantuan pot of soup on the stove with another hour and a half left to simmer, and books spread all over my apartment. I was getting ready for a meeting. From my hallway, the cops ask me questions. Have I seen my neighbor lately? [I have not.] Have I seen anything unusual? [No.] Have I heard anything unusual? [No.] Could they come inside my apartment to break into my neighbor’s window from my fire escape? [Um, yeah.]

Two tall cops – a man and a woman – step inside my studio. They wear powerful looking raincoats. I’ll call the man Raul, and I’ll call the lady Jackie. I like cops.

I feel like hosting them. I wished my soup were ready. I wonder if they can smell the thyme. I tell them if I had known they were coming, I would have cleaned.

I have no fences. They see me in my pink pajamas. They step over my piles of library books. They see the knocked down vitamins beside my bed and my chair covered with jeans and unopened mail. Jackie peeks at sheets of music on my table – she reads Pat Benatar lyrics. “We Belong”.

Jackie opens my window. I tell her it’s broken. When you open it, it doesn’t stay inside the window frame, and it also doesn’t stay open. I’ve been aware that it’s been broken for the past three years, but every time I tell my now deceased landlord or the repair man that I need it fixed, they tell me that they will come tomorrow, and they never come.

Jackie puts her big stick in my window to prop it up. She climbs out the window and gets on the fire escape. While she is trying to open my neighbor’s window, Raul agrees that it’s hot in my apartment. Jackie climbs back into my apartment through the window and asks for a screwdriver, which I am fresh out of. She asks for a butter knife.

I don’t know why these cops mesmerize me. I’m a liberal. But they do. Jackie works on the window with the butter knife, facing danger. Raul turns off my heat by rotating my burning valve counterclockwise, saving my dehydrated skin.

While Jackie is on the fire escape, Raul calls my new landlord, who is from Manchester, England, to see if he has a spare key to my neighbor’s apartment. I think this phone call is called “back up” – in case Jackie can’t get the window open. I’m starting to think like a cop. My landlord is new because my old landlord died two weeks ago. She was a very sweet woman. Raul, not knowing that he is speaking with the new landlord, scolds him about my broken window. While Raul is on the phone, Jackie, back from my neighbor’s apartment, crouches in my window frame, noting that the broken window is a code violation. She would like that point to be noted on the telephone. She jumps back into my apartment, knocks my cream colored Thai silk curtains off the rod, and I waive it off like it’s no big deal.

Raul tells me that until my window is fixed, I should forget where my pen is when it’s time to write the rent check. That feels thrilling. I think Raul scared my new landlord. I think my window will be fixed soon.

I’m not accustomed to having big men fix my heat. I’m not accustomed to stirring my soup while having casual conversations with hot lady cops hanging out my third floor window. I don’t have a whole lot of risk in my life. Nobody has ever stalked me. Nobody has ever stolen my gold. I stand behind the yellow line on the subway platform. I talk to my mother regularly.

When Raul and Jackie leave, they thank me, and I am sad they are leaving. We had fun. I am glad they did not find anything bad in my neighbor’s apartment. Good fences do not make good neighbors. I hope my neighbor and her mother can find peace. I thank Raul and Jackie for their help with my window and the heat. I tell them if my window doesn’t get fixed, I’ll call 911. They smile. “Call us,” Jackie says.