Dancing

Today I had one of those days where it seemed like every other face I passed was familiar. My friend David likes to say “There are 100 people in New York and you’ll see them everywhere.”

On my way to work, I sat on the train across from a man who I’ve seen shopping, walking, dining, drinking in the neighborhood for the last four years. His hair has gone grey. I noticed just a few when I first recognized him. Now it's become an appealing silver, solid grey collecting above the ears.

During my lunch break, I passed a girl who was a fixture in the fraternity circuit in college. I think I often saw pictures of her with her tongue out, or grabbing her own boob. She was a friend-of-a-friend and I smiled but I don’t think she remembered me.

After work I trotted back to the subway, passing the barber who smokes outside the Style and Smile salon atleast 10 blocks from his shop. And when hiking up the 8th avenue subway steps back in Park Slope, I noticed the woman who I stood dangerously close to last week on a crowded F, while she updated her friend on her business school interviews and wedding plans. She’s getting married in Vermont, they haven’t found a decent indoor-outdoor option yet.

Sometimes I like to picture the city full of couples and singles, dancing in big and small circles, around and through and around each other, and maybe there’s a big chandelier hanging above.

Resolutions

This winter I decided to write down some New Year’s resolutions during a slow afternoon at work. I’m not a resolution addict but having started a new job and moved into a new home last August, I spent a few months just catching my breath. Jan. 1 seemed as good a time as any to set some new goals.

I’m attracted to the structure of goals, the pining, checking of boxes and pats on the back. A few years ago I applied to run the New York Marathon and finished in minimal pain, check. Likewise, if I set my sights on a bottle of wine on any given night to accompany a movie or a friend, I’ll be sure to finish that bottle, check. The word goal carries positive overtones, but the term can be applied to varied aspects of life—consumption and ambition alike.

Before I knew it my “resolutions” were divided into several categories covering three pages, and I had writer’s cramp. I was surprised at my productivity level and felt a little light-headed.

One of the first resolutions in my "health" category was to go to a yoga class at least once a week. I certainly don’t consider myself to lead a yogic lifestyle, but it’s a good place to find some quiet every once and a while. I made it to yoga twice. The second class canceled out the yoga=quiet equation. The instructor filled up all that quiet space with words using yoga ideals as her springboard. She focused her mini-sermon on my favorite new topic: resolutions. She suggested that it might be unhealthy to focus on continually trying to perfect ourselves. She repeated a new mantra—You are already what you seek. Just ten minutes later the instructor dipped into humored self-deprecation saying that she wanted to hunt down the urban-legend taxicab matchmaker to solve her single blues.

The next day I ran a few miles on the west side highway after work, picked up some wine, sausage, and chocolate for a dinner party, and accidentally lost my resolutions packet somewhere between home and the studio.

Face Lift

You, my six readers, may have noticed that pinkpelvis was gifted a makeover courtesy of the design superhero, Khoi. Stay tuned for more frequent musings, a broader vocabulary, more delicate observations, longer lashes and a whiter smile.

Top 10 Reasons to Visit the Jersey Shore in March

Lovely Sea Isle City 
10. Without heat or water in the beach house you can cuddle with your friends and a dozen gallons of Wawa fresh spring water.
9. SPF 5 will suffice.
8. You can skip the Borgata casino and find watery margaritas in the middle of an Atlantic City outlet mall.
7. Avoid menu dilemmas as restaurants along the entire coast are devoid of anything but cheesesteak ingredients.
6. The grease supplements from daily cheesesteak meals will warm your bones.
5. Your options for love are simplified to a choice between the crossword-puzzle cop at the corner, the toll-taker en route into the island, and the strapping young man at the only year-round fish market.
4. At the Ocean Drive Bar everyone always parties like it’s the fourth of July.
3. A local band named Slippery will experiment with some Gwen Stefani covers instead of sticking to the Bruce Springsteen favorites.
2. Jello shots are only a dollar each at the OD. Optional whipped cream topping is free and warmed in the barboy’s back pocket (a gent named Angelo with the girth of a Mac truck).
1. No need to fight for beach blanket space, and plenty of time to discuss the merits of In Touch magazine.

wee glimpses

Sometimes acts of kindness really stir me up all the way down to my feet. Yesterday after a long long Saturday of work, helping college students with various silkscreen projects, managing chaos, nearly removing one of my uninsured fingers on a lithography press bed, I tried to squeeze in a last minute freelance project to make the month a little more comfortable. I felt like every hair on my head was standing on end and swiftly ruined four overpriced American Apparel t-shirts due to a pinhole in my screen and bright red ink trailing around on my shirt cuff. I was fighting off tears, due to this closing of what seemed a neverending week, and my complete lack of craftmanship in the medium I like to call my own.

One of the continuing education students who I consider a friend after chatting over the last semester had stuck around to help me clean the silkscreen studio; a truly generous person. As I debated whether to sob or throw a temper tantrum over my defaced shirts--both quite attractive options--he pointed me in the direction of a Chelsea odd shop that sells about 100 different styles of tighty whities and some very affordable Fruit of the Loom Ts. He then helped me reprint all my new shirts front and back as I regained my composure and began to act my 26 years again.

I had to drop off my now near-perfect shirts near the apartment he shares with his wife and as we walked downtown he described his siblings who all still live in Brazil, and I thought about how insanely comforting new conversations can be.