New discovery: Korin Japanese Knife store

Last week, I had to pick up a last-minute gift for my god-husband, Pete. He's the god-father to my awesome god-daughter. I decided to venture into the Japanese store that's around the corner from my office and discovered Korin (korin.com), which is now one of my new favorite places. They have an array of tableware, some affordable gifts (super cool gold and lucite chopsticks for under $3!!). The store is really dedicated to knives though, you can tell because most of the ones displayed behind the case range range from $150 to $1500. Who knew? I ended up getting Pete a set of hot pots which they kindly wrapped. I was in a hurry and already late which was a shame because I was in a Japanese store and gift-wrapping is an art-form in Japan! It took longer for the amazing wrap job than it did for me to pick out the hot pots! But the result was gorgeous - I wish I'd remembered to take a picture. The folks there are really kind as well, so I'll be doing a lot shopping there in the months to come!

Hoard to Death

E.L. Doctorow has written a new book, Homer & Langley. It focuses on the curious case of Manhattan's Collyer brothers, who obsessively hoarded all manner of newspapers, books and furniture until 1947, the year their house literally came crashing down around them. Police and fireman were left to search for their decaying bodies among their legacy - a staggering 100 tons of rubbish they had collected over the many years.

Tonight, I was sitting by the Hudson reading Joyce Carol Oates' review (she pretty much liked it) of the book in The New Yorker, which had me reminiscing about my own family, as the sun began setting somewhere behind Edgewater, NJ.

Years ago, my mother, sister and I drove to my late great-aunt's place in Philadelphia to assist other family members with the cleaning out of her apartment. The first time I met this aunt had been at my grandmother's funeral, which had taken place six years earlier. Although we never got to know each other very well, I felt an immediate kinship during our introduction, she had flashed me the sweetest smile and her eerie resemblance to my grandmother, made her seem that much more familiar.

It turns out that my beloved aunt was also a compulsive hoarder. She had obviously frequented the many thrift shops along the Main Line on a regular basis. The rooms in her small apartment were crammed with all manner of second-hand things, most of them in great condition, some of them designer vintage and all of them with the tell-tale blue, green and pink Salvation Army tags still attached.

Eight of us spent the entire day sifting through her mounds of stuff and I managed to walk away with an impressive collection of jewelry, gloves, bags and vintage scarves. However, by the time the three of us said goodbye, the place didn't look any different and there was still lots to be done.

I never learned how long it took the rest of the family to complete the job, but what struck me most was how sad and lonely her life had seemed to us as we tossed it away. There was only a small space on her bed that wasn't covered with debris, and that's where the rescue workers had discovered her body.

While I have never been what anyone would call neat,over the years, the state of my great-aunt's apartment has haunted me and I sometimes find myself wondering if that form of OCD is hereditary at all.

Five years of house-sitting, subletting and sofa-surfing has taught me to pare down my belongings, and I am nowhere near as cluttered as I used to be, but I still find myself using that image as my own personal cautionary visual.

Over the years, I've heard similar stories, and seen the beginnings of it first hand, but none of them could give the Collyer brothers a run for their money.

blistering and sad

I'm sick of being sad. I was outwardly doing fine for quite some time, riding the high and away from the load that seems to carry itself on my shoulders. But for some reason, after I completed my first day on my new gig, I stopped by the Barnes and Noble and picked up a copy of "The Year of Magical Thinking". What was I thinking? I waited two days and just read the first chapter last night before bed, even though I was a bit sleepy and I had to wake up early. I cried through most of it, and then went to bed with all these thoughts running through my head, and the tears sliding down my face and into the feathers beneath my pillow case. And it's August and cold.

I tried detoxing last week and over the weekend, but my stomach is quite messed up. I just feel drained all over again.

So tonight, I'm talking to Willy and he says that I've changed (for the better, whatever that means) in regards to my sister, and that I'm harder. I don't think that's completely it, or even a good thing, but what I did realize is that for the past few months I haven't been living in a bubble so much as a blister. You know how the blister bubbles up to protect the affected area? I've sort of created this blister around me, and nothing else can really affect me right now. It's a matter of self-protection, I guess.

Buddakan in New York: Japanese and Chinese gastronomy

Okay, so I didn't produce this spot, but I'm still technologically retarded, so I haven't a) been able to figure out how to burn a copy of the bulthaup spot, or even retrieve it off my hard drive and b) been able to find any of the other spots I've done online, so this will have to suffice. I suppose I shouldn't really mix work and grieving together, but until I can separate them, this will have to do in the interim. A bit macabre, I'm sure, but...welcome to my world.

Breathe (12am)

From April 20, 2007:

(unedited) Tonight.

This woman got on at Whatever Street. Going uptown. She has a near-newborn strapped to her chest and a 4 year old boy being dragged by his forearm. It’s quarter to midnight on a Thursday. Both kids should really be safe in bed at home, but they’re not. Instead, they’re cruising on the Uptown A-train. Her acrylics are long and due for a touch-up as she grabs her son, “jay=jay” underneath the armpits in an attempt to pull his head closer to her lap, all the while she has a bottle filled with formula jammed in the mouth of the near-newborn who screams from tiredom, not quite hunger as the train hurtles forward.

Jay Jay is screaming as they board the train. I feel for her and offer to pull his other leg onto the seat cuz its just dangling there, and she says okay. “Can I tie his shoes?” I ask, and later realize that must sound a bit patronizing. “Yes, please” she says. She never thanks me, and I tie his shoes carefully, as not to wake him, because it’s now nearly midnight, and he’s only four years old and deserves to at least know what its like to be safe at this time at night. But I’m judging her, which isn’t fair - I don’t really know her story, and her kids are really cute.

Something just tells me that they’re getting off with me at 145th, so I listen to Bjork, as the train leaves the 135th Street station as she begins to gently slap and then pinch Jay Jay’s face. “Wake up, you have to walk now” she tells him. The train eases into 145th and I pause my iPod. “I’ll help” I tell her as she tells Jay Jay that she can’t carry him. “I easily scoop him into my arms and he screams at the knowledge that a stranger has him in his arms. “It’s okay” I tell him, “Your mom’s right there” She’s grabbing two black plastic bags, and his hoodie in her hands as we climb the stairs. He’s ramrod straight in my arms, so I try to cradle him and she mistakes it for weakness, “I know, he’s not that light anymore” she tells me. “I’m gonna call his father when we get upstairs.” She walks over to the bench upstairs which is still inside the turnstile and a payphone hangs beside it. She thanks me as she lifts the headset, and I grab Jay Jay’s hoodie and prop it beneath his head as I lay him on the wooden bench. He’s still crying. He’s only four. And somehow, I think he deserves better.

What next?

It's a month to the day since my last post, and 6 hours after previous post, my world changed almost beyond my comprehension. The chest x-ray never happened. Chelle was supposed to take her that morning, and they had agreed to wake up at 7am. We had left all the bedroom doors cracked open in case she needed anything, and the brass bell that had once belonged to my great-grandmother sat beside her bed. I heard Chelle step into the hallway and walk into Mom's room. Heard her call to her over and over, her "Mom?" quickly morphing into a more shrill, "Mommy?" that launched me out of bed and into the room where Chelle stood over her body, which was on the floor between the wall and her bed. The truth is, it always annoyed me when Chelle occasionally referred to our parents as Daddy and Mommy, well into our adulthood. The same way she calls our neighbors Miss Rose and Mr. Julius, as if we were living in the South, circa 1954. I called 911 and screamed at Chelle to help me turn her over, she was a little slow from the panic. I also yelled at the 911 operator because it seemed to take way too long for the ambulance to find its way to our house. Her fingertips were cold, her eyes were unfocused slits and her chest was warm. Later, the brown-skinned EMT would tell me that this was probably because she was laying near the heater. I still only half believe it. Her lips were stiff with rigor but we both tried mouth to mouth on her even though I knew the truth all along.

When they told me she was gone, Chelle grabbed me, and we hugged, and then she tried to ease me back into the room I slept in, which is small and was piled with my clothes and a complete mess. There was no way the two of us could fit into the mess, and I didn't care whether or not the EMT's saw my grief, in fact I'd rather them see that then the mess that lay behind me, so I fought her on that and won. Then I ran down the street to get our neighbor Rose, who was also a nurse, and one of Mom's closest friends. I passed Freddie on the way, and she started to ask me if it was my Mom and I cut her off and said, "Yes, she's dead," I never slowed down my pace., intent to get Rose, hoping she could help. No one was at their house, which meant I had to face Freddie again, who was spinning around in circles, while the snow drifted around us. I apologized for my rudeness and hugged her, resenting her neediness along the way. I never claimed to be a good Christian, or any sort of Christian at all.

transatlantic stalking via text

The oiliness of the creepy text messages sent to me from the Psychotic Brit has still got me reeling - two days after the fact. I'm not sure which bothers me most -the assumptions involved (that me and my friends are American whores), the faint hint of racism disguised as exoticism or the fact that I never actually had sex with his friend who apparently told Psycho otherwise. I just don't know.

Mom came home from work with her breath so shallow I was afraid to leave her by herself for more than 4 minutes at a time. She's going for a chest x-ray tomorrow. It's a battle for me to keep it together, but I'm trying my damndest, harder than I've probably tried for anything else in my life. I still have to face the facts though, and that scares the hell out of me.

I did get a wink on match though, and also set up an interview for a job next week. Some things are turning around I suppose, so that's something to be grateful for. Always turn to the positives...