I haven’t posted anything here in a while. This is a good thing, as it’s a result of my being busy with my other (read: real) writing.
That is all I have to say for now.
Except for this: Ever since I titled an entry “Dirty” I’ve been getting many more spam comments. I guess I should have seen that coming.
I’m not a naturally graceful person. I tend to move rather clunkily, which my spellchecker tells me is not a word. Nevertheless, it’s a perfect description of how I move when I don’t pay attention to myself. I lurch about, banging my toes against furniture, sidewalk ridges, or–often as not–seemingly nothing. When I wear a watch I hit the face against a doorway or desk edge at least once a day. When I’m not wearing a watch, I hit my knuckles. I’ve burned myself countless times cooking, and have come close to chopping off a finger more than once.
When I do pay attention to my movement, it’s not so bad. I’m no gazelle, but I’m a bit less mastodon-like. I find that minimalist shoes (including Vibram five fingers, of which I have one funny-looking, blue pair) help me with my movement quite a bit, for if you clomp around on concrete with those on, you’ll feel it, and I don’t mean in a pleasant, “feel the burn” sort of way. And in the woods, minimalist shoes work wonders. They make me want to run down game trails, leap over logs, quick step between jagged rocks (you can feel it when you land on even a tiny rock; avoiding them is a self-preservation instinct as much as anything). Running in the woods while wearing minimalist footwear is one of the few times I feel anything near graceful. I only wish I lived somewhere where I could do so on a regular basis.* Someday.
In the meantime, I’m trying to improve my everyday gracefulness, and I’ve found a wonderful resource. My local climbing gym offers a class called “Exercise and Movement” once a week. My husband and I have been attending for the last month or so, and it’s working wonders. The instructor, a low-key, earnest fellow who could probably kill me with his pinky finger if he so chose (because the force of the death blow would originate not from the pinky, but from his lethal core), leads us through different types of movement each week. The purpose of the exercise is never to pound out as many reps as one can, but to be in control of one’s movement, to move as softly and as efficiently as possible. We are taught to lunge and jump without making a sound, and recently practiced techniques for falling. We did the latter without any padding–save for that provided by our own bodies. It’s a difficult class to describe, but I love it and I find myself trying to apply the principles to many aspects of my life, from how I walk down the street to how I climb.
A slightly more in-depth example of how I believe this movement class is benefiting me: Kickboxing.
I take a cardio kick boxing class once or twice a week (usually twice). It’s a great, fun workout which usually results in my being pretty gosh darn sore, and it involves a lot of “high impact” moves (think: jumping). When I first got my minimalist sneakers, which have very, very little cushioning, I wore them to a class. I barely made it through. My right foot and ankle, which I injured back in college, were throbbing by the end, and I’d experienced several shooting pains during the workout that resulted in my switching to low impact versions of some of the moves. I don’t like doing low impact modifications–it’s an ego thing, makes me feel weak. After that experience, about three months ago, I resumed wearing my normal sneakers to class, having grudgingly accepted that I needed the extra cushioning.
Today, however, I decided to give my minimalist sneakers another shot. With some trepidation I wore them to class. All throughout the workout I focused not only on hitting hard, but initiating movement in my core and, most importantly as far as footwear is concerned, moving lightly and with control. This is not to say that I minced about without breaking a sweat–I worked hard, as evidenced by the pool of perspiration that formed on the floor beneath me. But when we jumped, I did my best to “land like a cat” and not make a sound. Same for when we shuffled, landed a kick or transitioned between moves.
My feet felt great, both during the workout and afterwards. Not a single twinge, despite my old injury. After a few Movement classes, I was able to do an hour of kickboxing all-but barefoot. While this wasn’t a scientific investigation, I feel confident that there’s a certain level of cause and effect here, and that I have my Exercise and Movement class to thank.
*Prospect Park has some quasi-woodland trails, but they’re short and twisty and often lead to concrete. I don’t find running on them to be nearly as exhilarating an experience as running on a real trail, one that doesn’t end for miles and takes you far enough from urbanity that you can forget, however fleetingly, that a place like NYC even exists.
On my previous blog, I started Project Hug-a-Grizzly, the purpose of which was was to overcome certain fears. In all honesty, I can’t recall every fear listed, but know I’ve been doing a good job with some of them: I made myself approach classmates I respected in grad school and form a writing group, even though I was terrified no one would want to work with me; I got a (part-time, student) job and though that has run its course, I am pursuing the idea of meaningful employment and currently volunteer at my local zoo; I’ve done things that made me anxious of being judged by others (mostly little stuff like jogging home from the subway when the urge strikes, or attempting a difficult climbing route when lots of people are watching). All in all, well done, me.
But there was one fear that fell, rather intentionally, by the wayside…. driving. After college I got out of practice, and I’ve been terrified of driving anywhere other than my hometown ever since. Too many cars, too many people, too high of speeds. Even going a few blocks to the grocery store in Jersey City scared me, and here in Brooklyn I lived in fear of mowing down a bicyclist or getting lost on the one-way streets and ending up broken down in some unsavory neighborhood. But now, after years of failure, I believe I have finally overcome my fear of driving.
It all started with my college suite deciding to hold our somewhat-annual reunion in Ithaca, NY. Five of us needed to get there from NYC. There was talk of taking a bus or renting a car. Bus tickets are expensive so the rental idea was winning out. No one wanted to drive, however, at least not in the immeadiate vicinity of NYC. One person purchased a new car just a month or two before the trip, negating the need to rent, and it seemed like the stalemate had come to an end. However, my car-buying amiga is still fairly new to driving and didn’t feel comfortable driving on highways with so many people in the vehicle, so the driver issue was still, well, an issue. After much back and forth, I decided: oh, what the heck, I’ll do it.
My being the primary driver was decided a few days before I left for a two-week trip to Ecuador, and when I got back… I just started driving. Knowing that I had to drive to Ithaca in a week replaced my fear with a sense of duty. I also changed a major aspect of my driving attitude.
My biggest downfall as a driver has always been that I worry too much about the people behind me. I worry that I am inconveniencing them, usually by going too slowly. The only accident I’ve ever been in involving another car was minor, but if I hadn’t been worried about getting rear-ended it never would have happened. Well, screw them, I decided. And that’s my new driving attitude: Screw Them. As long as I’m going at least the speed limit, I no longer care about the person behind me.
After this self-imposed attitude adjustment, driving around Brooklyn became a breeze, and I made a successful pre-trip foray onto the BQE. On the Ithaca trip, I had one short relapse: while looking for the small side road to my friend’s house, I noticed a pickup tailgating me. I was too nervous about the tailgater to really slow down and look for the street sign. I missed the turn. I was able to turn around less than a mile later, so no big deal, but the incident was reaffirming: worrying about the driver behind you will only get you in trouble. The 5 hour drive was otherwise without incident (excluding a minor–and hilarious–navigation error). I actually rather enjoyed the drive, and was more than a little proud of myself. In one day I put in more hours of driving than I probably had in the entire previous year.
It helped that I was driving a brand new Subaru Forester. Our car is an old Sebring, which sits really low and–in our case–has nearly non-responsive brakes, not to mention no AC. The Forester was nice and high (I could actually see!), the brakes worked and not only did it ride smoothly, I could adjust the interior temperature. At the end of the weekend, safely back in Brooklyn, I returned that lovely vehicle’s keys to its owner with great reluctance.
I still don’t enjoy driving our crusty old Sebring on unfamiliar roads, but I can do it–as evidenced by my driving my friend to and from the doctor after she sprained her ankle rock climbing with me. But that, dear reader, is a tale for another time. Until then, let’s all revel in the fact that at the age of 28, I can finally drive… again.
I recently returned from the trip of a lifetime–the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador. My husband and I went with Gap Adventures, and our stay was land-based (as opposed to being a cruise–we had to take boats a lot, but we stayed in hotels on the islands). It was just fantastic. I’ve been wanting to go to the Galapagos since seventh grade, so my expectations were unreasonably high… and yet the trip met them. I don’t think I’m going to write much about it here, since I might try to do a real essay about the trip, but I wanted to say it was amazing. I was chased by sea lions, saw hundreds of tortoises ranging in age from four months to well over 100 years, snorkeled with penguins and sharks, photographed the fabled blue-footed booby, rode a bike through the highlands of San Cristobal… the list goes on. A lovely, lovely, trip. If I had to choose between living the rest of my life in NYC and spending it in the Galapagos Islands, I would chose the Galapagos. No contest. They might not have good steaks on the islands, but they have the internet and remarkably delicious sparkling water. Not to mention a place called Tortuga Bay–with good reason.
I don’t understand
poetry
nowadays.
Seems to me
it’s just the prose
without the plot.
One morning last week, while I was walking to the subway, I noticed movie filming notices posted along the street. The project name was Fiona’s Tale. Hmm, I thought, something to do with Shrek? A few nights later, I googled the project and learned that Fiona’s Tale is actually the code name for the new Spiderman movie. The fact that they used a code name and I had to do “research” to discover what movie was being filmed made me exponentially more excited than I otherwise would have been. Spiderman filming is exciting to begin with, add an element of secrecy, and I was thoroughly hooked.
And by hooked, I mean I walked by a few times over the weekend. There wasn’t much to see when I was there, though I enjoyed the giant crane-mounted rain machines. I had read that Emma Stone was in the movie, and I really like her, so I had my eyes peeled for her on the set. No luck. But, looking through my binoculars as they filmed one scene over and over, I saw someone who–as I said to my husband–”looks like the mom from Forrest Gump!” I looked up the movie on IMDB later and learned that my observation was entirely accurate: Sally Field plays Aunt May.
Spoiler Alert (not really): The scene we watched involved Aunt May talking to two younger women on the street. Our street is in the background! Yay.
Yesterday was a beautiful spring day; to mark the occasion I went for a walk in the park. There I saw something that made me very happy, and a little nostalgic:
Two small children (a boy and girl, about 3 and 4 years old, respectively), sitting in a mud puddle. The boy was smiling and making handprints in the ground. The girl held a handful of wet leaves to her face, enthralled. Their caretaker was a few feet away, hanging out–not screaming about bugs or dirt or germs, just letting kids be kids. I couldn’t help but smile. I feel like everywhere I go, I witness parents telling their kids not to touch anything, it might be dirty, you don’t know where that’s been, blah blah blah. When I was a kid, I was always dirty. I used fish heads as finger puppets. I raced earthworms. I followed frogs into ponds. I remember sitting in my driveway dumping handfuls of dirt onto my head and rubbing it in, because I loved scratching it off my scalp with my fingernails. It was a good life, and it’s lovely to see that just because a child grows up in NYC he isn’t necessarily going to be denied comparable experiences.
I also bet those two kids are going to have stronger immune systems as adults than the average native-born NYCer.
About two months ago, I started training to be a volunteer docent and animal handler at the Prospect Park Zoo. It’s been a wonderful experience thus far, and yesterday was our first day of animal handling instruction. We were taught to present “herps” (reptiles and amphibians). I was excited for the frogs (who stay in small plastic carriers; we don’t touch them b/c their skin is so porous) and turtles, and they were indeed great, but an unanticipated lizard stole my heart–the Inland Bearded Dragon.
A week or two earlier, the dragons had caught my eye in their display. They’re near the meerkats, so I don’t think I had given them much attention before, but I thought they were pretty cool–sharp, yellow scales, triangular dinosaur mouths, laid-back demeanor. I liked them.
Well, yesterday I got to hold one. It was a whole different world–these little guys are awesome. Holding the lizard’s body in my hand, so that his (or her, I honestly don’t know) head extended just past my fingers, and his tail ended at about my elbow, was just plain amazing. I couldn’t stop smiling. And the lizard didn’t seem stressed at all–he hung out while I petted his rough, dry back and marveled at the way his spiked sides puffed with every breath. I was particularly enthralled by the lizard’s coloring. He was a dune-ish yellow all over, but with spots (particularly right around his eyes, like outlines) of bright, almost neon yellow. He looked like a pile of mica with sunlight glinting off the corners. If mica were yellow.
I imagine the coloring is an adaptation that helps the species blend into the sand and rock of their native Australia, but combined with sharp, protruding scales, a puffy spiked throat, and tractableness, it also serves as a key to my animal-loving heart.
Important Note: The opinions expressed in my blog in no way represent the opinions or position of the Prospect Park Zoo.
There’s a tavern in my neighborhood that often places a chalkboard on the sidewalk in order to advertise its happy hour or proclaim the establishment’s love of its customers. One cold day not too long ago I walked by and written on the sign was, “HOT TASTY EATS.”
However, the E was smudged, so it looked like, “HOT TASTY CATS.”
I laughed all the way to the gym. Delicious.
I have a life-long history of crazy dreams. The earliest I can remember involves my mom pulling a pair of uzis from paper grocery bags to slay a T-Rex that was chasing my dad, my brother and me. I was maybe four years old, and my dreams have only gotten better since. Among the recurring themes of my dreams: the undead.
In my sleep I’ve survived countless zombie apocalypses and let me tell you–no two are quite the same. I’ve been trapped in a tiny apartment with my family while the infected claw at the door. I’ve cried as a loved one cracked and gave himself over to the horde just to end it all. I’ve sprinted through a muddy forest, desperately seeking a nearby lake so I could swim to some rocks just offshore (because zombies don’t like water?). I’ve been contained in a labyrinthine quarantine, where I finally made it to the clear wall separating the complex from the rest of society only to see ordinary people on the other side of the glass pointing curiously and without compassion at bloodied, terrified me, hoping I would turn before their eyes. In one dream the zombie king kept me alive and uninfected, chained by the neck to a fence, so all the other zombies could remember the wretched beings they conquered. This one had a happy ending though–after my two attempts at suicide were thwarted, a group of perhaps a dozen people flew down in a spaceship and rescued me. We zipped off to colonize a new planet (I prefer not to think of fate of our offspring, given the limited gene pool).
But perhaps my best zombie dream of all time started as a traditional trying-to-escape romp. For days I scrambled through countless horrid confrontations, and always managed to just barely escape. After what felt like a lifetime of this (and something involving a pet shop), I was hiding out in a car, starving. I hadn’t had anything to eat in days. And then I saw a loaf of bread–a nice thick long loaf–sitting on the seat next to me. I dug in, gnawing at the center of the loaf. It was the greatest thing I had ever tasted. I ate in ecstasy, thinking that this was the best bread baked in the history of man. As my stomach began to fill, however, I looked down and–dun dun dunnn–the loaf was bread was actually a human arm! Turns out I too was a zombie, hungering for flesh. As a college friend-zombie soon explained to me, this zombie virus came complete with some sort of chemical inhibitor that kept the infected from realizing they were zombies until they were mentally prepared to accept it. Dream-zombie-me remembered how several of the undead had ignored me in the day or so before the bread/arm experience, and all began to make sense. And then we had a party, where it was universally decided that being a zombie was far better than being a human.
And you were there, and you… and you…