City Wendy

A Christmas Warning

On Sunday, Drew and I are taking an overnight flight to Germany to spend a week with my family for Christmas. Drew's never been to my parent's home, or to Germany, for that matter, and there are several things I've been warning him about. He's been hesitant about visiting Germany because, you know, a lot of Jewish people were murdered there once, but what he doesn't realize is that there are plenty of other things to concern himself with.

1. First of all, Germans speak German. I went as long as I could without telling him this, but I finally broke down over the weekend and let him in on the well-kept secret. After the initial shock wore off, Drew admitted that he's looking forward to singing "Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto" to all the native Germans. When I told him that "Domo Arigato" was Japanese, not German, he said, "Oh yeah, I meant Wayne Newton's 'Danke Schon.' I'm gonna sing the shit out of that song!"

2. Second, contrary to popular belief, the beer in Germany is not free, nor is it always served by women wearing slutty lederhosen. Drew was not happy to hear that. When I told him that we could probably get my father to buy us a round, Drew asked if he would do so wearing lederhosen and I assured him that that was distinct possibility, though not to expect any cleavage.

3. Third, the guest bedroom we'll be staying in has a see-through beveled glass door. "You know what that means, right?" I asked Drew. "Yes," he replied stoicly, "I won't be able to do my naked jumping jacks every morning when I wake up."

"Well, you can," I replied, "but you'll just have to do them in the bathroom."

4. Fourth, any fun that can be had on the autobahn will be canceled out every time we pass an "Ausfahrt" sign ("Exit" in German) and my dad makes a fart joke for the umpteenth time, complete with sound effects.

5. Fifth, while there are indeed real-live shepherds in the meadow near my parents' house, they do not often wear anything beneath their long robes and have been known to flash unassuming Americans visiting from New York. Wearing Yankee paraphernalia is not advised.

6. Finally, German toilet paper is about as soft as a shell on a dead armdillo. "You know what that means, right?" I asked Drew. "Yes," he said disappointedly, "I will stay away from the sauerkraut."

Maybe Next Year I'll Limit My Resolutions to Just Ten

As 2009 quickly winds down to a close, I thought this was the perfect time to see how I've done on my resolutions for the year before things start getting Christmas-crazy up in this place. Self-indulgent, yes, but this is a personal blog, after all. Anyway, I'm not sure if I ever shared my resolutions with you, but here are most of them:

1. Get decent health insurance by February.

Ha!! I didn't sign up for decent health insurance until this week! Neither Drew nor I get health coverage through our jobs, despite being fulltime, permanent employees, but Drew's employer at least kicks in a little bit for it (maybe 25% or something), so a few days ago when he had open enrollment, I signed up for spousal coverage (something that, of course, wouldn't have been an option back in February). Now I can finally get all my funny moles checked out without spending  a butt-load ... although, come to think of it, I'm spending a butt-load on my monthly premiums. But anyway, I'm sure there's some benefit to being covered ... right?

2. Take a spring break trip.

Check! I don't think I'd ever taken a real spring break trip, so it was a real treat to go to Costa Rica with Drew in early March. Definitely a good resolution.

3. Visit Charleston, SC.

Didn't do this, and frankly, I'm not sure why it was even a resolution. Sure, I want to go sometime, but there are plenty of other places I'm equally eager to check out. Anyhow, I got in a trip to Central America, a honeymoon to Spain and Portugal, and I'm going to Germany next week, so I definitely got in some good travel in 2009. Next year I think I might like to focus on smaller, less extavagent trips, so maybe I'll get in that trip to Chasleston after all.

4. Exercise 3-4 times a week.

Ugh. No. I failed miserably at this. Actually, I guess it depends on how you define "exercise." There were periods during the year  — two or three months at a time — that I was pretty committed to regular jogs, yoga classes, and biking, but then there were months that I rarely "suited up" at all. Still, even when I wasn't necessarily making a point to "work out," I managed to get in long walks (2-5 miles) at least a couple times a week all year long. I'm back on the exericse wagon (um, as of yesterday), and plan to do better next year. I've got post-wedding weight to lose!!

5. Grow out hair.

Yes! Three-plus years after my fateful mullet, subsequent chop-off and many months of sporting short styles, my hair is officially grown out:

 

This time next year, I hope my hair is down to the middle of my back. It's been about 15 years since I had truly long hair and I'm ready to rock it again. It may seem like this was an easy, cop-out resolution, but achieving it meant skipping my regular 6-8 week trims even when my hair was totally, completely, absolutely driving me bonkers. And when you have as much hair as I go, that's saying something.

6. Donate at least 6 times to Kiva.

A few weeks ago I blogged about Kiva, the agency that disperses microloans to entrepreneurs in developing nations, and said that my resolution had been to donate every month. Now that I'm re-visiting my list, I see that the goal was actually to donate at least six times, which I did, so, good for me, I guess.

7. Pay off credit card debt by June.

When the year began, I still had major credit card debt (around 10K!), mostly from months of underemployment when I was forced to live off plastic. I tightened my purse strings — even when I had a wedding to pay for (hence the strict budget) — took some extra work, and yes, managed to pay it all off by June. I will never, ever be in credit card debt again. Ever!

8. Pay off $10,000 of student loan debt.

By November, I estimate I'd put about 5K towards my student loans, and then, my dear, sweet, generous husband offered to pay off the rest from his own savings. He made a good point that as a married couple, my debt was his debt and that it didn't make sense to continue paying exorbitant interest rates for years to come when he could pay the whole thing off now. Yeah, I'm lucky ... and I'm not quite sure what I did to deserve him, but I'm incredibly grateful to start a new year completely debt-free.

9. Call at least one friend per week.

I hate the phone and rely too much on emails to keep in touch with friends both near and far. But there's nothing like hearing someone's voice and having a real-time conversation, so this year my goal was to not only answer calls instead of just letting them go to voice mail, but to make more calls myself. I never really counted how often I called friends, but I'm sure it was more than once a week. I still don't love talking on the phone, but the discomfort is worth feeling more connected to my peeps.

10. Write at least one letter to my grandparents every month.

I'm a terrible granddaughter. I think I probably sent five, maybe six, letters to my grandparents — and two of those were just thank you notes and two were postcards. Oh, why, why, why can't they have email?! It would make things easier. I don't call as often as I should, either, but that's because my grandmother will keep you on the phone for, like, three hours (I'm serious. Sometimes my mother will talk to her for FOUR hours), and I rarely have a chunk of free time like that. So I decided in an effort to compensate for not calling as much, I'd write letters. But I failed and I feel awful about it. Ah, next year!

11. Wear more dresses.

Well, considering that until 2009 I hardly wore any, I'd say that even the few I wore this year would qualify as "more." I can't remember what the point of this resolution was, though. Maybe to look more "put-together" or something? Actually, I think it was because Drew said he liked me in dresses and I wanted to look good for him. He married me, so I guess he approves.

12. Change cabinet pulls in kitchen.

Really, Wendy? This was a resolution? This didn't get done and I don't feel the least bit bad about it. I'd put it on my list for next year, but surely there are bigger things to worry about (like finding a new place to live!).

13. Cook two new recipes a month.

Does it count if I found the recipes, did the grocery shopping, set everything out, and then had Drew do the cooking? It does? Well, guess what? I still fail! I think we managed maybe one new recipe a month. But my parents just gave us a Crockpot as an early Christmas present and I suddenly foresee many new recipes in our future.

14. Cook five lunch/dinners a week.

There was probably one week this year I actually cooked five meals. Maybe. Hey, what can I say? I'm a sucker for my Thai take-out.

15. Try the 30 day bikram yoga challenge.

Oh, fuck you.

16. Find volunteer or teaching gig.

I volunteered to take out the garbage once — does that count? Actually, the point of this resolution was to "give back" and to feel part of a larger community. I fail. Next year?

17. Join at least two meet-up groups.

I did! i joined them ... I just never went to any of the meet-ups. Oh well. Anyhow, the point of this goal was to make new friends this year, which I did — some pretty good ones, actually — so I'm not too worried I didn't technically achieve this resolution.

18. Read a book a week.

Ha! Another failure. I think I read, like, 15 books total? Maybe 20, but that's probably pushing it. Ironically, one of the meet-up groups I joined was a book club. Maybe actually going to a meeting would have helped here ...

19. Limit internet time.

Well, now you're just mocking me.

Anyhow, there were a few other resolutions on my list, mostly writing-related. Guess what? I failed at all of them! Next year I really want to focus on finding an agent and finishing a book I've sort of started. This will take actual determination, something that, if 2009 is any indication, I really need to work on. We shall see...

How did you guys do on your resolutions this year?

'Tis The Season

For anyone who reads this blog on a fairly regular basis, you know that one of the biggest points of contentions in my life — the thing that keeps me from truly relaxing into my role as a sane and civilized member of society — is my neighborhood. To give you some perspective, I live close enough to Times Square that if I suddenly got the urge to take a photo with the Naked Cowboy, I could run down the street, find him amidst the tourists, pose for a picture, run home, upload the photo and post it online in about 20 minutes flat — 15 if I hustled. I live two blocks from Broadway, a ten minute walk to 5th Avenue, and a hop skip and a jump from Central Park, and let me tell you, if the rest of the year didn't already make me feel crazy enough, in the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year's, when my neighborhood is held hostage by tourists so overcome with holiday squee they dangle jingle bells from every available limb and swing shopping bags with gusto, it's all I can do to hold my shit together with strands of stray tinsel and reindeer farts. I'm over it.

This past week things have really come to a boiling point. In addition to the holiday commotion, there's been daily jackhammering right outside my livingroom window every morning from 8 AM until noon (as I type this, the jackhammering has stopped and there's now literally a gigantic saw slicing a grid down the middle of the street). Friday night our neighbors had a party that kept me awake until 3 AM, and on Saturday when all I wanted to do was spend the cold, rainy afternoon at home watching a movie, one of our other neighbors — a woman who's at least 40 years-old and should know better— blasted Britney Spears for hours on end while she vacuumed her fucking walls. Suddenly, I no longer felt bad for her that another neighbor got so drunk a few weeks ago that he barfed the entire contents of his dinner right in front of her door on the way up to his apartment after a hard night of partying.

Of course, I'm safe saying all this now that my friend, Susannah, who's flying up to New York to catsit for us while we're in Germany over Christmas, has already bought her ticket. Hopefully, all the noise and commotion will make her overlook the mice problem. Kidding! (Sort of). And if not? Well, she can always run down to the Naked Cowboy for comfort. Happy holidays, indeed.

My Other Writing World

Hey, did you guys know I have a regular advice column? I do! It's called, fittingly, "Dear Wendy," and it runs (almost) daily over at The Frisky. The Frisky, for those who don't know, is my day job. In addition to the advice column, I blog several times a day over there about pop culture, love, relationships, stuff like that. Sometimes — maybe once or twice a month — my personal essays and articles get picked up on CNN under the "Living" section. I used to get kind of a kick out of seeing my name on such a well-read site, but now it just makes me anxious because the CNN commenters are so incredibly vicious. It takes a thick skin to deal with all the nasty name-calling and character assassinations, and since I'm rather sensitive, I just avoid looking at the site.

Still, I always know when I've got something up on CNN. Suddenly, traffic to this here blog doubles or triples (from people angrily googling me name and finding it) and if my essay particularly hits a nerve, my email in-box will flood with notes from readers. Fortunately, the ones who take the time to actually send me a message are usually supporters. A couple weeks ago someone wrote to reassure me I wasn't a terrible person even though everyone was claiming otherwise. I had no idea what he was talking to so I went over to CNN and sure enough, a recent article I'd written, one I thought was pretty innocuous, had garnered several pages of hateful comments. It seems to me some people are awfully miserable and simply looking to project that misery on someone — anyone — else. I try not to take any of it personally.

Anyhow, if you're interested in what I'm up to over at The Frisky, you might check out my advice column (feel free to email me at dearwendy@thefrisky.com if you've got an issue I might be able to help with. I promise anonymity). Yesterday I wrote about gaining weight after getting married. The day before I wrote a particularly personal essay about how Drew just paid off my student loans (can't wait to see what the CNN readers have to say about that!), something that makes me both profoundly grateful and pretty guilty. And recently The Frisky re-ran a popular post I wrote last year called "What every woman should have before she turns 30."

As grateful as I am for my job — and believe me, a day doesn't go by that I don't acknowledge how lucky I am to be making a decent living as a blogger — I'm so happy I still have this little tiny corner of the internet that's all mine. I know most of you never comment and I certainly don't have the kind of readership many other personal bloggers have, but still, it means a lot that you guys take the time to click over here and see what I'm up to. You continue to make this a safe place for me to share insights, stories, observations, and what-have-you. So, thanks for that. Some days it makes all the difference.

My Favorite Documentaries (So Far)

First, thank you so much for all your documentary suggestions. I can't wait to watch some great films over the next few months. I wanted to share my list of favorites with you guys too. I've probably inadvertently left a couple off and I'm sure I'll no doubt add to it as I continue watching the docs you've recommended, but as of today, to the best of my recollection at the moment, these have been my favorite documentaries:

Grey Gardens
Capturing the Friedmans
Born into the Brothels (I watched this last night — so good!)
The Cruise
Man on a Wire
Crumb
Alone Across Australia
Rivers and Tides
Jesus Camp
The Up Series

Grizzly Man

A few that I've seen recently that aren't necessarily favorites, but still very much worth watching:

Crazy Love
Mad Hot Ballroom
Street Fight

Person Jesus Camp

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Real Life

Last week I spent Thanksgiving with Drew's family at his father's place on the Upper West Side. It's the same apartment Drew and his brother grew up in, which, as someone who lived in five different places before she was ten, always kind of blows my mind. It's funny to stand in the kitchen there and imagine maybe a 7-year-old Drew licking brownie batter out of a bowl, or pushing his toys cars and trucks up and down the hallway like his 3-year-old nephew did last week. I like that by living here in Manhattan, just a mile or so from Drew's childhood home, so much of his personal history is available to me in an almost tangible way. I like that it gives me a deeper insight into him, but maybe just as great is simply the window it gives into a life completely different than my own.

Maybe you're like me and you're fascinated by the way other people live their lives — you're reading this blog after all, and chances are we've never met in person, so there must be something that draws you in. For me, it's not even so much that I think other people's lives are fascinating — I'm just fascinated by the way they live them: the way they form relationships, the things they talk and think about, the stuff that's important to them, the things they dream about.

Lately, I've been feeding my insatiable interest in other people's lives by watching a shit-ton of documentaries. I love 'em. Even the bad ones — and God, there are some bad ones — can still be kinda great. The ones that are bad are bad for a variety of reasons all of which are the fault of the director. Usually a director fails to let his subjects tell their own stories and reveal their own truths. He's got his own agenda and becomes more a puppeteer than a filmmaker. I hate that. Why bother making documentaries? Make a fictional movie if you've already got your script. Anyway, all this is a long-about way of asking if you've got any good documentary recommendations. There's a chill in the air and I need to stock up for the winter.

Love, Life, Thanks

I did one of those Tweet Clouds yesterday where Twitter users can see which words they tweet most frequently. Looking at the cloud, it seemed my top three words were "love," "life," and "thanks," which I liked a lot and seemed fitting, but on closer inspection I realized that my three most-used words were actually "wedding," "time," and "night." Oh, right, there was that whole six-month period this year when I discussed almost nothing else but my nuptials. Still, I feel pretty good that "hope," "happy," and "people" are among my top words as opposed to, say, "despair," "sadness," and "nobody." Also, Chicago was at the top of my list, but no New York, not yet.

I was in Chicago a couple weeks ago. I wandered through my old neighborhood, danced and laughed with my friends, and drank champagne for breakfast, lunch and dinner. At Cafe Bong I sang my whole karaoke repetoire, hugged the owner multiple times, and left with a free Heineken stuffed in my purse. "I have to close now!" Jinny said at 2 AM, handing me the beer as a peace offering. "You drink it next place!" she said, pushing me out the door.

Earlier that day I walked along a street near Roscoe Village and felt a pang of homesickness. Actually, what I felt first was familiarity, and something deeper than that — comfort, I guess. That street near Roscoe Village, that street whose name I couldn't even tell you, a street I may or may not have ever walked along suddenly felt more familiar to me than anything else I'd experienced in recent months. It felt like home.

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Yesterday, by a combination of lucky mistakes, great timing, and some good old-fashioned sweet talk, Drew and some friends and I ended up in a most magical bar at the outskirts of Brooklyn, in Red Hook. The bar, Sunny's, is usually closed on Sundays, but the six of us or so were able to finagle our way in for the late afternoon into early evening. We caught up on each other's Thanksgivings, shared some leftovers, and listened to a college station on the small radio behind the bar.

Sunny's is a well, worn-in joint near the river with slanted floors, cracked red leather booths, and nautical-themed artwork and family photos on the walls. It's not a shiny place, but it glows. There's even a banjo made out of a bedpan in one corner. 

"I like your bar," I said to Sunny when he came back from having dinner with his wife and daughter next door. 

The booze had made me feel warm, but not yet dizzy, and I was in that zen-like spot between mindfulness and daydreaming. Everything, of course, was painfully significant.

"I appreciate that you like my bar," said Sunny, who has eyes like shiny marbles and a long, thick mop of grey hair on his head, "but when people say that, what they really mean is that they recognize something in the bar that they like about themselves. You like things that remind you of what you like in yourself."

Hope, happy, people, love, life, thanks. I guess he's right.

It's Damn Fun Being A New Yorker

Since Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind" was released in September and certainly since he and Alicia Keys played it before game two of the World Series, it's become an instant anthem for New York City. On warm afternoons when I keep the windows open, I hear it playing in cars passing by on the street below all day long. Sometimes the lyrics blasting from the cars almost match exactly where they are in my own living room. In New York, concrete jungles where dreams are made of/ there's nothing you can't do, now you're in New York!

Yesterday I grabbed my iPod and went for a 4 1/2 mile walk to Union Square and back, down 9th Avenue, across 36th street to 6th Avenue, down to 25th street and over to Broadway. It was a sunny afternoon, but the skyscrapers blocked my view of the sky and shaded the streets. At intersections, I turned my head up, caught some sun peeking through space between buildings, turned Jay-Z and Alicia up. These streets will make you feel brand new/Big lights will inspire you, let's hear it for New York!

"Hey, smile!" a guy unloading a truck yelled at me as I passed by, "It's a beautiful day and you're  gorgeous lady, so smile!" I smiled at him. More than any other comment I get on the streets is a request for a smile. I guess it's what New Yorkers are hungry for the most.

"Can you help me get a bite to eat?" a homeless guy leaning against a wall asked. (This is the second most common request).

"No, I'm sorry," I replied.

"How about a smile, then?" So I smiled.

"God bless," he said.

On 17th street I stopped in a lingerie shop to find a new bra. A man with dyed black hair and an uneven bowl cut walked in a few seconds after me.

"I'm looking for a really pretty bra," he told the saleslady when she asked if he needed any help.

Call it a sixth sense, call it being prejudice, but I immediately suspected he was shopping for his sex doll.

"What size do you need?" the saleslady asked.

"Uh, like, maybe a 32 B," he replied, "Or, well, probably, like, a C, a 32 C. She's nice and full."

"Okay," she said, handing him a particularly flimsy black lace bra, "How do you like this one?"

"Oh, that's nice," he said, "I'll take it."

"Do you need anything else?" she asked.

"A thong."

"A thong? What size?"

"Definitely a small. She's ... she's tiny," he said, gesturing with his hands the size of her ass, or roughly, the size of a honeydew melon.

After the saleslady handed him a matching thong in size tiny, she asked if he wanted to put the purchases under the recipient's name so she could find replacements easily the next time she came in.

"No," he said, "Put it under my name. She doesn't come here by herself."

"Do you want these gift-wrapped?" she asked.

"No, that's okay," he said, "I've got a box at home."

Yeah, I bet he's got a box at home.

After he left, I wanted to ask the salesladies if they suspected what I did, if they got guys like him in there often, but I resisted. I bought my bra and made sure to smile.

Heading back up Broadway I passed Stacy London from "What Not To Wear," a show I watched almost daily until a couple months ago when I got bored of it. She saw me see her and we had that moment I've had so many times now with celebrities when they realize they've been recognized. There's a whole unspoken conversation in that moment that basically goes like this:

Me: Are you...?

Celeb: Yeah, but please, I'm sorry, I don't feel like talking to anyone right now.

Me: Okay, don't worry, I'm not a freak or anything.

And then, depending on what I think of the celebrity, I usually smile or nod or even do a little wave. Sometimes the celeb smiles back.

After I got home Drew and I took a cab up to the UWS to have dinner with his pops. I brought my iPod along, and gave Drew one earbud and kept the other for myself. I played "Empire State of Mind." Drew looked at me, nodded and smiled. We both looked out the window toward the bright lights and all the stories, Jay-Z singing a love song to New York in our ears.

Tricked Out

For the first time since we met, Drew and I bothered to celebrate Halloween together. We bought our costumes earlier last week — another first as neither of us has worn store-bought costumes since we were kids —  but on Halloween day I wasn't feeling very excited about mine and went out looking for something else to wear. When I still couldn't find anything I liked better, I was suddenly struck with some inspiration and decided to cut almost two feet from the bottom of my foam ketchup bottle, add some lacy footless tights, and a vintage lace robe and go as "sexy ketchup." How meta, no?

In totally unrelated news, the Yankees have a chance to win the World Series tonight and put baseball season, 2009, to bed forever. I'm making a bargain with God. If the Yankees win game 5 tonight, I'll quit writing "X-mas" and actually take the extra one and half seconds to write "Christmas." By the way, I saw my first Christmas commercial of the season at 10:13 AM on November 1st. Have you seen yours yet?

I Should Have Asked for a Finder's Fee

There's a fabled vintage store here in Manhattan, near the garment district, packed with incredible finds, but usually closed to the public. It sells mostly to celeb stylists and costume designers for the movies. A lot of the "Sex and the City" wardrobe comes from there. Anyhow, earlier this month the owners had a big blow-out sale for the store's tenth birthday and decided to open its doors to us common folk for two weeks, three hours a day.

I made a mental note of the sale when I first heard of it on Twitter, but then promptly forgot all about it until I got a helpful reminder Tweet on the last day I could go. I checked the time — I had two hours to get down to the store and do whatever looking around/bargain shopping I felt like doing before they closed. I grabbed a jacket and threw on some shoes. Just as I was headed out, Drew walked in the door and asked where I was going.

"There's this really cool vintage shop that I've heard a lot about and they're hardly ever open to the public, but they are this week and they're having a big half-off sale on everything and today is the last day!" I said excitedly.

"Oh, that sounds fun," Drew humored me.

"You should come!" I said.

"You want me to come with you?" he asked.

"Yeah, come!" I said. "It'll be fun."

"But it's a vintage shop ... with probably lots of girl clothes and stuff. What am I gonna find there?" he asked.

Ladies and gentleman, I'll let this picture answer that question: