photo by Denise Grunstein
clothes by Sandra Backlund 

It's Sunday morning, warm and raining. This apartment is nice in grey weather. It's just the kind of place you want to hunker down with tea, a book, and some Chopin (or Dave Brubeck or some musically intellectual equivalent). I don't know shit about classical music and a very little more about jazz, but it's lovely to listen to (some of it, at least) and it makes me feel smarter. In the overcast light this becomes a very esoteric space. 

My big plan for today is to have a nice, hot shower and go for a walk (I'm drinking the last of the coffee right now). Then it's home to sort the records, which have been in a state of disarray since the move. It's very hard to find something to listen to when Doris Day is stuck between Supertramp and Neil Young. And when that's done? Tea. Book. Chopin.

I love Sundays. 

g.

photo by Tim Walker

Yesterday was Sunny Jim's birthday.

Some people hate birthdays - and holidays and general fuss - but he is definitely not one of them. Watching him over our first Christmas together was amazing; he would practically quiver with anticipation every time we passed some Rockwellian display. I swear, every time he saw a Christmas tree he would have to restrain himself from hopping up and down. He had a whole collection of little ornaments and things he'd collected since he was a kid; talking about them made him all sentimental. I have to say, it was totally unexpected. He's usually a bit stern, inclined to be disappointed with the world (I knew from the start that he was very much like my father). Anything that could make him so giddy and happy was something I knew I wanted to indulge.

My mom was like that, too. She'd run around for weeks singing carols and cleaning and baking. My siblings and I have that in us and with mom we indulged ourselves (though we never had her stamina). But since she died we've learned to restrain our enthusiasm to keep from driving dad bonkers. It's not that he was a Grinch - not at all. I remember mom saying that, in the leaner years, she had to reprimand him for bringing home too many treats. He loves the byproducts of holidays - time off, good food, general relaxation. He's not a super creative gift giver, but he's generous to a fault when he can be, and loves to pay for things or get us some little thing we might have mentioned in passing. But he's intimidated by the expectation that comes with Events; the whole social aspect is, for him, a nightmare. When mom was around he could tolerate more but now, on top of his natural reluctance, every would-be family celebration is a reminder that she's gone. So that's the end of that.

In any case, I spent the last week rolling out a week long celebration. Starting last Sunday, I've said Happy Birthday and given Sunny Jim some little gift every day (It's not big stuff - just little things like bringing home Pad Thai or a bottle of hooch). Yesterday, I took the day off. I baked an absurdly rich three-layer Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte filled with booze and buttercream. I made pretty little trays of crudités and mini-quiches. I cleaned the crap out of the apartment and lit candles and at the end of it all we had some of his friends over for drinks and Star Wars Monopoly (the only difference between kid parties and grownup parties is liquor).

It was the Six Days of Birthday.

On the seventh day I rest.

g.

Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte:
a traditional German Blackforest cake

(preheat oven to 350°)
 

This recipe come in several parts. It's not hard to make, but it takes time. This was my first try and it took about 4 hours to make and assemble the cake and filling. 

Cake
9 large eggs
1 1/2 c sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
6 oz unsweetened or semi-sweet bakers chocolate (melted)
1 1/2 c four

Blend eggs, sugar and vanilla for about 15 minutes, until the batter is thick and fluffy. Alternating between the melted chocolate and the flour, fold in the rest of the ingredients with flour as the final addition.

Pour the batter into three 8" cake pans and bake for 15-20 minutes (or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean). Cool cake in pans for 5 minutes and then thoroughly on a cooling rack.

While you're preparing the batter, start the syrup.
Boil for five minutes:
1/4 sugar
1/3 cup water
Let cool, then stir in:
2 tbsp kirschwasser

Once the syrup is ready, pierce the tops of your cakes with a skewer (I used a sharp chopstick) at even intervals. Then slowly pour the syrup over the tops. I put the cakes back in their pans to do this so the stuff wouldn't run everywhere. Because the syrup was quite thick, I spread it all over the tops and set them aside to soak it up while I made the buttercream filling.

The Buttercream Filling:
1 1/2 c confectioner's/icing sugar
1/3 c unsalted butter (room temperature)
1 large egg yolk
2 tbsp kirschwasser

Blend sugar and butter until creamy, then add the egg yolk and continue to blend until it gets a bit fluffy (about 5 minutes). Fold in the kirsch. Try not to eat it all because holy crap does it ever taste amazing but there's only just enough to make the cake.

To assemble your cake you will also need:
approximately 3 c canned/preserved sour cherries or 2 c canned and 1 c fresh, drained and patted dry
(the recipe I had said 2 cups, but I found it wasn't quite enough - I like lots of cherries) 
1 1/2 c whipping cream (whipped)
grated dark chocolate

Place your first layer on a cake plate. (If you don't have a proper one, make sure the plate you use is the one you want to serve it on. Once this is done, you won't be able to move it.) Spread the top with half the buttercream, then arrange or drop between 3/4 and 1 c of the preserved cherries on top. Using sour cherries is important; tart fruit and kirsch give this cake its flavour.

Add the second layer and repeat.

Add your third layer and coat the entire cake liberally with the whipped cream. Decorate the outside with the remaining preserved cherries or use fresh ones. If you like, sprinkle with grated chocolate, etc. 

The buttercream has a raw egg yolk, so keep this cake chilled until serving. I waited to add the whipping cream until just before I served; the room temperature topping offset the chilly cake. 

My addition:
I heated the syrup/juice I'd drained from the cherries to just boiling, then added some cornstarch to thicken. Then I took it off the heat and let it cool a little before I added 2 tbsp kirsch. It made a very tasty, warmish sauce and looked pretty fancy poured over the slices of cake. 

Hello actual people. I'm a bit a-feared, as Sunny Jim likes to say.  

Last night was Proof Reading. It's the first issue with most of the senior staff gone - our copy editor is in Berlin, another senior editor has relocated to Boston or some such. That meant working through the copy with a handful of editorial interns, mostly under the age of 25. 

I always liked proofing. It was a nice, concrete task, usually performed in silence. We would sit, three or four of us, in a room, quietly combing through the big, colour proofs for any errors that had somehow slipped through copy and fact-checking. Every few minutes someone would ask a nice, answerable question: "What's our policy on commas in numbers over 1000?" or "Are we spelling tee shirt with a t-e-e or a t dash?" And whoever was closest to the style guide would check. Once or twice in a night there would be a little dust-up over whether or not to hyphenate something or which spelling of "grey" was more Canadian. We would get very passionate for two or three minutes until the copy editor made the call, and then all would fall silent again. For ten more minutes, the only sound would be the rustle of paper and the scratch of pencils.

It was even better when we met in the early morning, rather than at night. The hour discouraged any communication beyond what was absolutely necessary. Working in the cool grey light (grey with an "e") felt disciplined and meditative. It appealed to my ascetic side. 

Last night was not that.

Last night I was lucky to get through a whole paragraph before some little bird piped up with a remark. Sometimes it was a question about the copy; more often than not it was totally unrelated. "You'll never believe what happened last night!" Whatever it was, it would start half the other birds chirping as well. "I forgot to tell you...!" Good lord. I absolutely adore them, but they are just too jam-packed with bubbling hormones to sit still for more than a minute. They seem to find silence physically torturous. 

But I will admit, some of it was pretty amusing: "Do you spell S&M with a slash? Like, ess slash em? Can that be right?" The question sent the room into a fit of giggles. And comments. And reminded at least two people of something they'd wanted to tell someone and forgot. 

I saw this program on TV once, about barking dogs. It said that every time a dog barks, another dog hears it and barks in response. A third dog hears the second and so on and so on. Ultimately, it meant that at any given moment there is a chain reaction of barks that rolls like a wave from one end of the country to the other and back again.

(I'm just saying.)

When it was time to go, they all left together. No matter how the editor and I admonished them to be quiet on the stairs (the office is in a residential apartment and the neighbours get very annoyed) they tumbled down like colts on a ramp, a clatter of hooves and whinnies. When they slammed the door behind them (they cannot not slam the door) the silence was audible.

We four old folks who were left (my editor, her husband, Sunny Jim and I) exchanged weary grins as we said goodnight.

I have no idea if we "proofed" well or not.

g.

I just read this and, after letting my heart break for a second (how many times do we have to be reminded it's what we don't do that we regret?) I have decided it's time to put my foot down. No more screwing around. I either write every day or I stop pretending I can. Or I will later. Or whatever it is I tell myself to keep from drowning in the possibility I have, somehow, become a career secretary engaged to a dog walker*.

It's not going to be pretty, but if you come back here you have no one to blame but yourself.

Some of the advice in the post I linked said, "Write what you want to read." So what's that? 

I want someone to tell me the world is beautiful - not because it is a valuable lesson or because it there are nice people among the mean ones. I want to believe it's beautiful just because it is - shitty, awesome, whatever. I want to find new ways to look at things so I don't forget how. I want someone to reassure me that even though there may not be any reason for anything, at the end of it all, it will have been worth it just because I was there. I want to know what people are thinking - how they parse out the world. Partly it's because I want to see if I'm okay and partly because I want to see if they have something to teach me. And I want to laugh. Laughing is good for you - I know this because a bunch of doctors said so. 

It's a tall order. I'm not sure I'm qualified to teach anyone things or whether or not anyone will want to know what I think. I have no idea if I can make anyone laugh (that one is particularly intimidating). But I'm pretty sure I can just say what I see and that will cover the other stuff. 

At least I will be doing something.
g.

*This is meant to illustrate the dismal bare-bones fact of the thing and emphasize the chasm between the person I want to be and how I see myself. I have no problem with being a writer who pays the bills doing secretarial work - most writers need day jobs. I also have no issues with people who love being secretaries and want to do that and only that all their lives. Considering the number of shitty writers vs the number of good secretaries, I'd say we need more of the latter than the former. I am NOT passing some negative judgement on secretaries or dog walkers or on my fiancée, whom I absolutely adore. But I will admit it does make me sad that I don't think he is doing the thing that would make him happy, either.

"Famous" and "infamous" do not mean the same thing.

It's early enough, for a Sunday. I should be in bed, but I'm not. My cat is lying on top of the cedar chest next to me, his harp-seal belly a declaration of satisfaction contained between the quotes of his curled paws. He's looking at me, trying to decide why I'm looking at him and if it means he's going to get something nice. In a moment, if nothing appears, he will curl one paw over his nose and go back to sleep.

I envy his contentment. I'm not crazy about the whole litter box system, though.

Sunny Jim and I have been searching for a couch for our apartment for a while, now. We both came into this arrangement with minimal furniture and, though we have a lovely vintage cabinet and a few fantastic lamps in our beautiful front room, we still have nowhere to sit. The space is long and narrow so, after looking around a bit, we agreed our best options were French Provincial or mid-century Modern. That way we could have length without the (useless) depth of so many overstuffed contemporary pieces. Of course, when you're working with a tight budget, that's easier said than done. Antique and vintage dealers - especially in the city - have some pretty inflated prices. Remakes of either of those styles cost even more. To find something thrift is hit or miss and, now that our city is experiencing a bedbug epidemic, we'd have to source something out of town. 

Then a week ago, at about the same time, we had two bits of news. First, a friend in another city found a great French Provincial set for next to nothing at a charity shop. She couldn't hold it for long - we had to make a decision. Then, one of Sunny Jim's relatives said someone in the family had a lovely (and similar) piece in storage and it was possible we might be able to have it - but we wouldn't know for at least a week. 

My first inclination (and I said as much) was to go with the thrift piece. God love family and friends who want to do me favours, but I have had a lot of people hold out a lot of carrots and very few of them ever ended up on my plate. A couch in the hand and all that. But after a long discussion (and a bit of an argument over whether or not I was "accusing" people of being unreliable) I told my friend to let the thrift piece go - we would hold out for the other.

Which, of course, has fallen through.

It's no one's fault and I'm not upset or resentful. Really I'm not. I am mostly grateful the people who love us have our happiness on their minds and want to be helpful. Everyone had the best intentions and I appreciate that. But I am going to have to learn to trust my instincts about these things.

And I'm going to have to learn to curl one paw over my nose and go back to sleep.
g.

I'm watching Black Swan at work.
That may have been a poor choice.

BECAUSE IT'S MENTAL.

g.

Not long ago I happened upon a site that offered a side-by-side comparison of Bert Stern’s famous photos of Marilyn Monroe at the Bel Air Hotel in 1962 and his 2008 “recreation” of that shoot with Lindsay Lohan for New York Magazine. The audience was encouraged to give their opinions on both photo sets and decide which they preferred. Almost every comment left at the end of the post was some variation of “Lindsay Lohan is no Marilyn Monroe.” But I think everyone missed the point - because once you stop comparing the two, the most interesting contrasts emerge.

I was in my 20s when I first saw the original images; I found a handful in a magazine the year Stern’s book, Marilyn Monroe: The Complete Last Sitting came out in 1992. The thing that surprised me about the photos was how joyful they were. Monroe never struck me as a particularly joyful human. She always seemed so on, living up to the image she’d built (or had thrust upon her). Her Monroe-ness kept me at arm’s length; the energy necessary to maintain it was vicariously exhausting. But in Stern’s photos she seemed unaffected, playful and relaxed. She looked like she was having fun and it made me grin. 

When I look at Lohan’s photos, they make me uncomfortable. She poses herself so carefully, contriving the “sexy” expression you see on little girls playing at Movie Star. She is struggling to put on Marilyn; one actress assuming the persona of another actress who had constructed a persona. It’s all very Victor Victoria and her anxious eyes belie the confidence of all that skin. And Stern captures it all, making his photos as remarkable as ever.

Of course Lohan is no Monroe. Seriously? Neither am I, neither is Dita Von Teese. How is that even worthy of remark? What Stern has done is juxtaposed two women: one an adult, one barely out of her teens; one captured in an organic moment of confidence, the other in a painfully self-conscious act of mimicry. Each has lived a life weird enough to give them layers with or without clothes. Commenter’s seemed outraged that Lohan would presume to invite the comparison - but no one asked why. Why was the only question I had.

What was it that motivated her to put on shoes she had to have known she couldn't fill?

g.

Is it just me, or is it starting to feel like the end of the world? I don't remember things being so rife with biblical doom when I was a kid. And I feel like it has to be more than just the Aquanet I used in high school.

I waver between beliefs (or rather, belief and none). It's doctrine by desire. That makes me spectacularly ordinary, I guess. I wonder at what point I began to realize I have no original thoughts? The idea isn't self-deprecating - just true. Whatever I can come up with - whatever I think - it has been thought before. Probably a million times. A trillion. Some days that's enormously comforting; it's a connection. But some days it's exhausting, defeating. (Though without flavour or texture, my mediocrity is curiously hard to swallow.)

Today it just is.

An earthquake, a tsunami, disaster, death; I have the luxury of considering it at arm's length.

For now.
g.

illustration by julie verhoeven

I was watching a documentary about Harry Nilsson. They were talking about the song "One (is the lonliest number)." The persistent, instantly recognizable staccato notes that open the piece were meant to approximate the sound of a busy signal. The story goes that Nilsson had been trying to place a call and, in a moment of inspiration, wrote the whole song with the telephone receiver pressed to his ear, listening to the repeating tone.

When I was a kid, our phone was a rotary dial. We had a party line (we shared our phone line with another house, and our calls differentiated by unique rings); it was cheaper than a dedicated one. Only businesses with multiple lines could put people on hold and no one had ever heard of call waiting.  No one I knew had an answering machine. Our isolated house in the country was considered "long distance" from most of my friends and it was rare for me to be allowed to place a call. It seemed like such a grown up thing. I remember standing in front of the telephone, slowing dialing each number to be sure I didn't make a mistake. My heart would hammer with anticipation.

Later, as I got older, started high school, the family who shared our line got their own. And they changed the telephone area demarcation lines, so we weren't long distance from everyone anymore. If my homework was done and I didn't stay on the line too long, my parents eased off on the rules. (Although I should mention that I always had to tell them who I was calling and, sometimes, why.) But now there were boys. And parties. There were reasons to call people - ones that felt necessary and exciting and fraught with danger. A call not placed - not received - could be the difference between abject happiness and total social tragedy.

With all that expectation attached, getting a busy signal was some terrible purgatory - an inexorable, senseless denial without recourse or reason. There was no way of knowing how many times you'd have to dial to hear the intermittent purring of an open line.

My first thought upon hearing the story was, "That's genius."

My second was that although the song might last, the busy signal is already almost extinct. How will people recognize that perfectly imagined sound of helpless urgency?  

g.