Signs of Autumn

Fall has officially fallen here in Brooklyn--Eric, Baxter and I took a walk this morning to buy a large pot that will be the winter home of Eric's incredibly healthy, entirely accidental chili pepper plant (which grew over the summer from a batch of dried chilis tossed into an empty windowbox after they had collected dust long after I bought them on a trip to New Mexico)--and I'm reminded of all the reasons why I love New York City...and the East Coast.

Fall weekends in the city are stunning...all blue skies and crisp breezes...and my very favorite thing about city living--the fact that every corner deli doubles as a flower shop--becomes even more awesome. Pumpkins are piled up outside of the entrances, waiting to be bought and carved, mums are lined up down the sidewalk in an explosion of fall colors, and dahlias make their appearance.

I try to have fresh flowers in the house as often as possible...when they cost $5, there's really no reason not to have something beautiful on my kitchen counter...but dahlias are my absolute favorite. They're only around in the fall...and they come in these stunning colors, brilliant deep reds that hint at purple, burgundies that look more like burgundy than the wine they reference, oranges that bend into yellow, or is that red? They're gorgeous. And they're special to me for a number of reasons...they were the cornerstone of my wedding bouquet (we were married in October), of the little posies that littered our wedding reception...and they were my grandmother's favorite flower.

My grandmother was British...the most British of British women, and, while I often regret that I was not able to spend more time in England with she and my grandfather, one of the things I do remember is that she loved freshly cut dahlias. Apparently that's a genetic thing. Because when I saw them in my corner deli today, I got more excited than I should have done. And now there is a bright, burgundy bouquet in my kitchen.

And a newly potted chili plant with one, beautiful red chili on it. Any suggestions of what we should do with it?

9.11

Every year, September comes, and every year I think 'this year, it won't be weird. This year, the day will come and go and I won't think about it.'

Of course, it is weird. I do think about it.

Today, I lose my ability to be articulate. I forget how to say things eloquently, how to explain my thoughts and feelings using the words that I so carefully choose and so proudly master on other days.

Today, I am quiet.

Because there are no words that can say all the things that I want to say. And the sentence I would like to write--it never comes.

In which a hawk makes my week...

So, I had kind of a blah week. But the weekend is going to ROCK. How do I know this? Because no weekend that begins with this post at Gawker can't rock. It's cosmically impossible.

The lesson here?

Emo Hawk + Jerk Chicken = Greatest New York Moment of All Time.

Today, in "Things That Are Awesome."

Tweenbots!

Creator Kacie Kinzer writes:

In New York, we are very occupied with getting from one place to another. I wondered: could a human-like object traverse sidewalks and streets along with us, and in so doing, create a narrative about our relationship to space and our willingness to interact with what we find in it? More importantly, how could our actions be seen within a larger context of human connection that emerges from the complexity of the city itself? To answer these questions, I built robots.

Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged. Often, people would ignore the instructions to aim the Tweenbot in the “right” direction, if that direction meant sending the robot into a perilous situation. One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to the Tweenbot, "You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road.”

First, I love TweenBot. Second, how awesome is it that people stopped to help him? It just reminds me that, at our core...people are awesome!

And...Third, he did get there. In 42 minutes. With the help of 29 people.

Word, humanity.

In which the author covets walls.

Ok. So I think I've said that Eric and I are casually looking to buy an apartment. I say casually because we're not entirely unhappy with our apartment...where we pay a fairly low rent for a fairly large kitchen and a terrific neighborhood that we simply couldn't afford if we were to buy.

That said, I go through my moments of wishing that I could sit on the couch, look around the apartment and cackle "MINE!" at the top of my lungs. But mostly, I refrain from doing this. And then I see things like these super amazing wall decals from Dali Decals at Etsy, and I WANT them. I want these swirling poppies... and i want this fancy chandelier... and i want this tree, complete with bird (i also want to be able to keep an orchid like that alive for longer than 6 days)... and, i'll confess (although this will scare the pants right off the Eric), this makes me kind of want to decorate a kid's room. Although I totally understand that is not the same as wanting to have a kid inside the kid's room.

But man do they all make me want walls to call my very own.

This is What I Want to Tell You

ok...I'm knee elbow neck deep in ROMANCING A RAKE, but I just had to post quickly and tell you all that my fellow Brooklyn 2009 Debutante Heather Duffy-Stone's book is out today! This is What I Want to Tell You is out from Flux and is edgy and amazing.

Don't believe me? Come hear Heather read from TIWIWTTY on Wednesday night as part of Teen Author Reading Night at the Jefferson Market Branch of the New York Public Library (6th Avenue and 10th Street)!

Aside from me (reading from The Season) and Heather reading, you'll also get a taste of books from the awesome Donna Freitas (The Possibilities of Sainthood), P. E. Ryan (In Mike We Trust), and Siobhan Vivian (Same Difference). The whole shindig is hosted by David Levithan (who needs no introduction), so I can guarantee it will be super fun!

So...if you're free on Wednesday from 6-7:30, come celebrate with us!

International Debutante Ball

I've been meaning to post about this since the 30th, when the New York Times ran a fantastic piece on the International Debutante Ball, which took place in New York City at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel on December 29th.

According to the listing for the ball on CharityHappenings.org,

Forty-five young women of distinction from the United States and abroad will make their bow to society at the 54th Anniversary of the International Debutante Ball and dinner dance. The debutantes represent England, Austria, Africa, Hong Kong, France, Germany, Scotland, Yugoslavia and eleven American states. Each debutante will be accompanied by her own escort in white tie and tails, and a military cadet in dress uniform who carries the flag of the country or state which she represents. The Ball benefits The International Debutante Ball Foundation Charities.

The Times article made some really interesting points about this year's ball...as we all know, the world is in something of an economic crisis, so the $14,000 pricetag for a table at the IDB was a bigger ticket item for many than it has been in the past. Add to that the cost of the designer dresses (from Vera Wang and others), kid gloves, Mikimoto pearls, and the flights and hotels in New York during one of the city's most travelled weeks of the year, and launching your daughter into society in 2008 is no small amount of money. But, that's not to say that it isn't worth it. The IDB, like many of the other Debutante Balls around the country, has a long and venerable tradition--since 1954, it's been launching bright, beautiful young women into society. The Times piece references several mothers who, aside from launching their daughters at this year's ball, were IDB debutantes themselves.

As you know, I write Regency historicals--and there is little question that in the early 1800s, ballrooms were the center of politics, business, and world events. The Duke of Wellington planned the battle of Waterloo on a dance floor in Belgium, for goodness sake. While, certainly, debutante balls hold less geo-political weight these days than they used to, there's no question that coming out is about more than pretty dresses and boys in tails for these young women. It's fun, but it also serves a purpose.

I think Anna Moody from Jacksonville, Fla., said it best.

“I love it,” Ms. Moody, 18, said after shaking hands for an hour and a half in the receiving line, wearing a Vera Wang gown inspired by Audrey Hepburn and Mikimoto pearls. “I’m networking.”

Congratulations to the 47 newest and brightest International Debutantes. Welcome to the World.

mom and dad

my parents are in town today...i'm waiting to be summoned to meet them at my mother's favorite destination. my dad and i will suffer through drink coffee and chill out until she is ready to do something that we're excited about (although I do like to look in the windows). afterwards, we'll tool down to SoHo for shopping and bonding, and then Eric will meet us for yummy lunch.

I like my parents. I'm looking forward to it.

cupcakes have magic powers...

anyone who knows me knows that i really really like cupcakes. way more than big cakes. they're special, individual bits of sugary sweet love! you can have your own (helpful if you're a red velvet girl married to a chocolate guy)! and you can eat them in their entirety without feeling too guilty. cupcakes are a special new york thing. in other places, people make them for kids birthday parties and school events and bakesales. here, cupcakes are a religion. there are a few amazing cupcake bakeries here (we're talking about places that ONLY bake cupcakes. that's how serious they are: there's the most famous, magnolia bakery; the one with the prettiest cupcakes, cupcake cafe; and my favorite, Sugar Sweet Sunshine. As you can see, cupcakes are a serious business to me. :)

well, eric got invited ages ago to the IgniteNYC Cupcake Decorating Championship, which happened this week, and he FORGOT to tell me! Whaaa? I only discovered that this happened today, when the fantastic bre pettis posted some awesome photos of the event this morning! It looks SO fun...hosted in conjunction with the Cupcakes Take the Cake blog...you should rush over to flickr and check out the photos of all the entries...and the winners (The Biltons by Nick and Danielle)!  They look fun and silly and yes...even yummy.  

I vow I shall not miss this next year.  At least, not unless Eric forgets to tell me again!  

---

Other musings you might enjoy:

The Chocolate Wars

September 11, 2008

Author's note: I wrote the following on September 11, 2002, and I reread it every year. This year, I share it with you.

so much happens in a year. and they go so fast. and it's funny...most people count their years by specific dates...birthdays. anniversaries. another 365 days. another long, languorous rotation around the sun. my how things change and how they stay the same.

and it gives me pause, because i think about those people whose birthdays and anniversaries fall on september 11th...and i wonder how they feel to have that day taken from them. and i think about the people who have the other kind of anniversaries on september 11th. the kind of anniversaries that you don't want to celebrate. my how things change and how they'll never be the same again.

and there aren't any answers. there weren't answers a year ago, and there aren't any now. and that makes me crazy, although i'm getting used to it. god i was angry then. i felt hatred for the first time in my life. i wanted vengeance. vengeance is such a fascinating word...it has such rich connotations. and it's not a word i'd ever have used before. but that's what i wanted then. i hated them, and i was thrilled when they were given a name and a face, and i could direct that anger. i hated god; i went to church because it seemed like it was the place to go—all that catholic schooling pointed to god for answers. i didn't get them. i hated people; i wanted to scream my throat raw when people who weren't here said that they "knew it was going to happen" and that they "felt like they'd missed seeing a movie that everyone else had seen." i was angry and when i think back, i can still feel it in the pit of my stomach. i'm not as angry now...but i still have my moments.

sometimes i feel like a fraud. i think about that morning and how very removed i was from it. i think about the fact that i was 60 blocks away. and no one i knew was hurt. and no one i loved was there. and i see that look cross people's faces when i refer to that day. that look that says "why is she so sad? it's not like she was *really* there." and when i see that look i think, maybe they're right. maybe i shouldn't be so sad. maybe the thought of it shouldn't make me tear up. maybe there's no really good reason why i grieve.

but i do. i grieve for the firefighters who went up the stairs when thousands could think about nothing but getting down them. i grieve for the wives who waited for husbands to come home and never stopped waiting. i grieve for rescue dogs who were depressed because they couldn't find survivors in the rubble. i grieve for doctors who lined up to treat patients that never came. i grieve for the men and women who worked in the newsstands and delis at the base of the tower...no one seems to talk about them. i grieve for men and women who held hands and jumped into the sky to escape a fate worse than a 110 story drop. i grieve for this city, with whom i've had a love affair for 20 years, which lost an immovable piece of its skyline. i grieve for all the new yorkers who look at that skyline and see "a kid missing its two front teeth," as someone so eloquently said to me in the days following the disaster.

and then there's the selfish part of me. the part that grieves for me. for what i knew of the world then, and what i know of it now. for what i missed. for the fact that i didn't take a last look at them. for the fact that i'm forgetting just where they stood, and just how they looked. for the fact that "my" new york is forever changed...and something there will always be just out of place. for the fact that there will always be a before and an after. i grieve because i never got the chance to say goodbye. because all of a sudden, i was thrust into uncertainty with nothing to do but aimlessly wander down fifth avenue. because i've had no choice but to reconcile myself with this new world that i hadn't been prepared for. i grieve for the part of me that used to take things as they came. and i have moments of severe distaste for the control freak that i've become—but now and then i feel her fade, and i have moments when i sense that the old me is coming back.

of course...there are silver linings in this cloud. there is a year that has changed my life. there are stories of hope. and there are things that ease the sadness. there are moments (that come more frequently now) when i know that there is an innate good in humanity. last night, there was a car service driver who explained how he put on his turban right after he explained how he felt about this strange, unhappy anniversary. several months ago there was a doctor on a train who took my pulse while a woman i didn't know handed me saltines. there are traffic cops downtown who don't just give you directions, but escort you to the brooklyn bridge. there are neighbors who offer to help if you ever need anything. there are new friends and old ones, who call just to check in. there is love, found before the dust could settle. and there is faith in humanity that is far more powerful than faith in god ever was.

i will light a candle today. and i will think about what is gone. i will spend the evening with my closest friends. and i will be thankful for what is here.

on heat. and not the good kind.

it's about 1200 degrees in new york city today. ok...perhaps that's a bit of an exaggeration.  but it's over 90 degrees, feels like it's 105 degrees, and is sticky and oppressive and they're predicting thunderstorms and hail, which wouldn't be so bad, because anything is better than the alternative, when the blacktop virtually hums with heat.

baxter and i ventured out of the house this morning, as we do every weekend morning, to scare up some breakfast for both of us.  baxter, like most city dogs who don't have constant access to the outdoors, LOVES going outside.  he's part boxer, so he does this thing called kidney-beaning where he loses control of his entire body and wriggles around in a circle until you open the door and let him bolt down the stairs.  

on days like this, though, baxter gets outside and looks up at me with nothing short of abject confusion, as if to say, "mom...why did you take me to this awful hot place? what happened to the real outside?"  poor baby.  i'm wearing a tank top and my skin is melting off...he has a fur coat.  

so...we did our business...mine slightly less base than his...and made our way back into the air conditioned apartment.  i always feel slightly guilty on days like this, when the sun is shining brightly and i'm locked in my apartment plotting my avoidance of the outside, trying to figure out how many days I can go if i don't do laundry.

and i can't help but wonder how humanity survived before the creature comforts of the 20th Century.  

i'm working on the sequel to The Season now, which spans the summer months of 1815 in London, which I can only imagine smelled about a thousand times worse than brooklyn does today.  in new york, at the same time, people escaped the city for the country, where there was more space and some room for wind to take the edge off the heat...but in London, they actually came to the city for summer.  they put on their heavy silken ballgowns, took tea in closed of receiving rooms, danced the night away in ballrooms laden with people.  Eric once asked me why people are always threatening to swoon in the regency novels i read...one imagines it wasn't a threat so much as a reality for women locked in the twin hells of un-air conditioned rooms and unforgiving corsets. 

so, yeah.  it's hot today.  but at least i have an escape.  and i can be thoroughly unladylike in my shorts and tank top and lay spread-eagled on the floor of my airconditioned apartment.  if alex, vivi or ella tried that, their mothers would have fits of the vapors.  which is a story for another time.  :)

happy summer!

a beautiful day for a spin cycle

living in new york has its ups and downs.

on the plus side, delis that are open at 3am for that post-midnight snack you simply CANNOT live without, every kind of ethnic food imaginable, and ATMs wherever you need them.  

on the down side, it's pretty much unheard of for people who live in 3rd floor walkups in Brooklyn (like yours truly) to have laundry in their building.  this means that instead of being able to do laundry at your convenience (read: in your jammies, while reading a book), once a week or, if you're like us, once every few weeks, you have to haul a shopping cart threatening to buckle under the weight of your dirty clothes a block and a half to the laundromat.  so. not. fun. 

especially on a gorgeous spring day when you want to put on your cutest tank top and take the dog to the park.

but the new york city laundromat is an urban institution--ultimately, it's the greatest representation of the democracy of city life.  There, the urban hipsters' ironic t-shirts meld with dog toys that desperately need a clean, that sweater I need to wear to work on Tuesday, newborns' onesies, and the granny panties of the lady who has lived on the block since her own infancy.  

For several hours on any given weekend, we separate our lights and darks together. We move our wets to the dryers in a synchronized dance.  We stand in solidarity against the dryer that has been marked Out of Order since we moved to the neighborhood.  We make room for each other on the folding tables in a silent understanding that, while none of us really wants to be there, for a few moments, we are comrades in arms.  

Some people dream of their futures and of wonderful, extravagant things--fancy cars, big houses, sailboats, country club memberships, box seats at Shea Stadium.  My dreams are much more pedestrian.  Some day, I hope to have a washing machine--and, wait for it, a dryer--to call my very own.  

But I confess, there will be moments when I miss the poetry of the laundromat.  

theater...or theatre?

For Christmas, Eric gave me tickets to The Farnsworth Invention, a new Broadway play by Aaron Sorkin staring Hank Azaria and Jimmi Simpson. I should tell you that I am OBSESSED with Aaron Sorkin. I think A Few Good Men is an amazing move...I think Sports Night is the greatest television show ever made, followed very closely by The West Wing...and, in general, I covet Sorkin's ability with the written word.

I would have wanted to see this play no matter what it was about because of my unhealthy love of all things Sorkin, but that desire was enhanced by this--the first time I'd ever heard of Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of the television, was from Sorkin himself--on a fantastic episode of Sports Night during which William H. Macy regales a group of people with the story of Philo's brother in law, Cliff Gardner, who didn't understand a thing about chemistry or physics or engineering, but recognized that Philo would need glass tubes, and taught himself to blow glass to help him. That reference was designed to impress upon people the importance of finding the talent in every person, but it's always inspried me.

But...getting back to the Farnsworth Invention...what a remarkable play--the performances were incredible; Hank Azaria blew me away...and the story (which could have been a real snore considering it was, at its core, about a patent battle between Farnsworth (the person who invented the television) and David Sarnoff (the guy who started NBC and put a television in every house)) was amazing--telling, instead, the story of a brilliant young inventor and the invention that changed the world...while destroying him in the process.

More importantly, though, the play explores the question that we've all asked ourselves hundreds of times..."what if we could do it all over again? would we change anything?"

I would love to say I wouldn't change anything...but I have to imagine that if I did some serious soul-searching, I'd change quite a bit. What about you?