Thoughts on the Passing

Like everybody else, I was shocked to hear Michael Jackson died. I wasn't surprised — between the well-known addiction to painkillers; the surgeries; the gaunt frame; the overwhelming stress of lawsuits, debt and living inside his own head, it wasn't hard to imagine that something, eventually, was going to give and his body would be unable to withstand it — but I was shocked. I never thought about him dying. So surreal.

Also like everybody else of my generation, I taught myself the "Thriller" dance and awesomed-out in front of my TV back when MTV used to play videos. I engaged in Global Thermonuclear War against my sister Stephanie when we shared a bedroom in order to claim prime wall space for my favorite Michael Jackson poster (see previous post). I had a jacket that turned into a bag, but when it wasn't folded up, I called it my Michael Jackson jacket because it had zippers and piping and pointy shoulders. I tried to moonwalk and failed miserably. I voted for "Beat It" to win "Friday Night Video Fights." I watched the video for "Say, Say, Say" and wondered what ever happened to all the dancing hobos in the world.

Michael Jackson defined the pop culture of my youth just as much as John Hughes movies, Simon Le Bon Teen Beat posters, lace Madonna gloves, The Karate Kid, "Jessie's Girl," Henry Thomas's uttering of "penis-breath" and K-tel's Hit Explosion did. And the music in his heyday was great. The videos were legendary. For a long time, he was arguably the most famous person on the planet. But I'm uncomfortable with all the adulation of Michael Jackson in the wake of his death. It's important to acknowledge and pay respect to what he contributed to music and pop culture, but the adult he became doesn't change just because he died, contrary to those who are extolling his virtue despite four days ago believing he was a pedophile. And I'm not understanding the disconnect. Outside of the actual sadness of the loss of a person, deaths of icons are always fascinating when millions who long ceased celebrating them before their death line the streets in tears after. Michael Jackson was astoundingly talented, but he was also a mess, and talent does not make somebody an unassailable person.

Nobody is arguing the veracity of Michael Jackson's harrowing, truncated childhood. Joe and Katherine Jackson were shitty parents. They just were. It's true that their shitty parenting brought forth "The Love You Save," which, please, best song ever, but yeah, some people are just bad parents. So it was understandable that he'd have a yearning to re-create his childhood, live out the play he missed, and suffer while he admittedly lacked the ability to relate to people offstage. But Michael Jackson's re-created childhood as an adult lasted far longer than any person's childhood does when they are a child, and despite having kids of his own, he relinquished the responsibilities of an adult — which were lifted from his lap by people surrounding him who were happy to take on that burden. How sad that a man who had all the access in the world to all the best, most effective forms of therapy seemed to get worse and worse, more and more detached, and might not have even known how to engage because his life was spent embedded with these "yes" people whose livelihoods depended on him not changing much at all.

Change is terrifying when you only know one way to live, even if that way of living makes you miserable.

As far as I saw it, as a person who will never know what went on behind those doors, what that environment created was, on a good day, a grown man whose relationship with and affection for children was inappropriate, and on a bad day a grown man who may have been a child molester. I believe he was, others don't; perhaps that's the dividing line between who feels unbridled emotion right now and who doesn't. Maybe we'll never know if he was, depending on what the confidentiality agreements say — and even then, most families who sent their children to Neverland were such opportunists, who knows if they're telling the truth. But what I do believe is that Michael Jackson was so sick, so wanting to be someone else that he changed his entire physical self, so used to being used, such a complicated human being who might have never had the support system he needed or who rejected the strong, good-hearted efforts made toward him, that he should have been hospitalized so he could work with professionals who had his best mental and physical interests at heart, away from everyone else's desires of him. His demons — including substance abuse, which is its own evil animal — went far beyond any saving well-intentioned loved ones could accomplish.

I absolutely believe that no matter what happens to a person as a child, there comes a time in adulthood when they have to stop blaming everyone else and take responsibility for where they are and how they've responded to what happened to them, even if there's no justice or closure or apology. That's not to say everything is surmountable — this is absolutely a simplified version of an idealized adulthood, and Michael Jackson's adulthood was anything but simple — but you owe it to yourself, your family and, if you commit to the responsibility of having them, your children to do your damndest to try. Especially if you have children. Easier said than done for an armchair shrink, right? I wonder how far Michael Jackson traveled along that road — perhaps that's why he wanted to be a father — or was he was just too lost, stuck, afraid and invested in living the dangerous, stunted, damaged life he did because, to him, it was safe even when it wasn't safe? And if he did do the things he was accused of, well, that makes sympathy that much more complicated.

What is heartbreaking about all of this is that many of us have watched a large part of the living of a very sad, bizarre life. In whichever stages of his career or our evolving tastes, he made an awful lot of people happy, yet he was clearly so very unhappy and uneasy with the world. We're all on a quest for happiness — that's the motivating factor for every decision we make, happiness and love — and it requires a lot of work and luck to find it. Whatever happiness Michael Jackson did find in his life, it's too sad that there was so much else that was missing and askew, and for his three children, I hope that in time they find the happiness and stability their father never did.

Ongoing Facebook Comment Stream, 6.25.09

Marla Garfield remembers the day in 1983 when she asked her mom if she could marry Michael Jackson if he converted to Judaism.

Lysa Goodman Poore at 7:50pm June 25
Well he comverted his face, though not into Judaism. Cubism maybe.

Scott Friedman at 7:54pm June 25
LOL Lysa. That's funny right there

Lisa Ferber at 7:55pm June 25
did she say yes?

Marla Garfield at 7:55pm June 25
Picasso never dreamt such a face, oy.

Marla Garfield at 7:57pm June 25
Lisa: I'm not kidding, this is what happened: I asked, and she hesitated for a minute, and I shouted, "You're racist!" and ran out of the room. I was 9.

Lysa Goodman Poore at 7:59pm June 25
LMFAO...Marla, you rock. Me and my Barbie camper van were not worthy!!

Stephanie Garfield Dobbins at 8:19pm June 25
Did this conversation happen before or after you and Stacy ripped down my poster of him (the one in the yellow vest and the white background with the grandma broach) and told me he was not cool anymore?

Marla Garfield at 8:42pm June 25
I don't remember, but in any case, we only told you that because my poster was cooler than yours (brown leather jacket, purple background, no grandma jewelry) and I was bitter you hung yours in the best spot in our bedroom (on the back of our door). The only way I could hang my poster in its rightful position was if I told you Michael Jackson wasn't cool anymore and ripped yours down. And no, I'm not sorry, dammit!

Wait, did you rip mine down too as retaliation? We were mean.

Jenifer Golec Bement at 9:00pm June 25
LMAO.

Lauren Garfield-Herrin at 9:02pm June 25
That may be the funniest thing I have ever heard. How come this story has not been shared yet?

I am a terrible, terrible cook.

Just terrible.

The good news is, I've officially given up, so I don't have to worry about cooking anymore. Mazel tov, Josh, you have won the battle over our kitchen — and you are a wonderful cook — but please add some new dishes to your repertoire because, since I'm no longer attempting to cook and it's all up to you now, I can't eat tomato sauce every night for the rest of my life or I'll get The Scurvy.

The road to my acceptance went thusly:

I had some time off work this week. It's gone by incredibly fast for two main reasons: I made a list a mile long of things I wanted to do that were more chore-like than fun-like, but if I completed them I'd feel I made some real progress in my life and finally — finally! — be a whole person; and I managed to do barely none of them while I sat on my couch and read magazines and thought about all the things I should be doing and watched season three of Gilmore Girls on DVD. I did buy four pairs of shoes, so that's personal growth. I am shod.

One thing on my list was cooking. My goal was to cook one meal every day. I really want to be a good cook. I really want to find it cathartic and I want it to be a creative, sensory outlet. I want to build an instinct for spices and timing and color. I want to know that, if I have a family one day and they might be, I don't know, hungry, I can whip up a tasty something for them that won't repel them from the kitchen forevermore.

That is not likely to happen.

Cooking Disaster #1: Eggs

I'm usually pretty good with eggs. I'm decent at baking, and baking involves eggs. There was nothing in my refrigerator except for a half carton of eggs, a package of Kraft fat-free shredded mozzarella, and half of a jar of Newman's Own tomato and basil pasta sauce. A normal person might feel nauseous and go to the grocery store for some actual ingredients. I am not a normal person, because to me it spelled breakfast. (Oh, come on: People put ketchup on eggs all the time. How far is spaghetti sauce? You know what? I've heard enough out of you today already.)

Basically, what followed was a horror movie of: too much melted butter that caused the egg whites (which had some yolk in them, as I was clearly not enjoying any kind of rhythm) to sort of slither and float around the pan, not really touching the bottom; an ill-executed egg-flipping that resulted in half the whites smacking onto the floor; and a pathetic rescue mission of adding one more egg — without separating yolk from whites — and just plunking the whole thing in the pan, scrambling the yolk with the rest of the mostly cooked whites. And then I added the cheese. And then I added the Newman's sauce when I plated the eggs. It was so barfily vile I wanted to apologize to both Paul Newman himself and the chickens whose eggs were wasted for this catastrophe.

Cooking Disasters #2 and #3: Chicken Tagine with Apricots; Sicilian Barbecued Chicken

These went pretty much the same way as each other. Thursday night's tagine was tasteless, the chicken was overcooked, and I didn't make enough rice. Friday night's barbecued chicken was an exercise in overcompensation: The chicken was overcooked again, but to make up for the previous night's tastelessness, I overdid every single spice and juice — including freshly squeezed lemon and orange — and it was so overwhelmingly citrusy that it was totally inedible. Also, I made enough rice to feed a medium-size country. The entire dinner (except for the rice) went into the trash. I don't think I can eat fruit for a week.

I'm disappointed. I thought that having some time off work would wake me up a bit and I could discover my inner Ina Garten and my house would suddenly become a delightful Hamptons hideaway and Jeffrey would be sitting on my couch, ready to rub my feet. But I wasn't relaxed. I was putting too much pressure on myself to get through that freakin' list. (On that note: Should you ever have time off from work when you're sticking close to home, DO NOT MAKE A TO-DO LIST. YOU WILL PSYCH YOURSELF OUT. You will waste your week thinking about onerous chores instead of seeing The Hangover. Learn from this. I would have had so much more fun if I'd woken up every day and just hung out. Bleh, Type-A.) Food-wise, maybe I should have started with something more basic. So at the moment, I'm totally discouraged and don't have any desire to find out if I'm Ina Garten. That's so sad! She has the nicest friends!

Here's what I'm good at in the way of the domestic arts:

1. I'm awesome at cleaning. I'm so OCD that you can lick off my floor right now. I vacuumed the couches.
2. Organizing papers. Another thing on my to-do list this week that I haven't done is tackle this giant cardboard box of papers on my bedroom floor. Some people fantasize about their unrequited crushes or those Twilight kids; I fantasize about getting a filing cabinet.
3. I can fold a fitted sheet.
4. I can bake an apple pie like nobody's business.
5. I'm unbelievably anal about separating recyclables. Never say I haven't done my part for our planet.

But I want to be able to cook. Gah.

Something that I did do was call Sears to come fix a bald spot on my treadmill before I slip and break my ass. I also need a lock for the thing: When we bought the treadmill six years ago, they never brought one of those thingy-things that holds the folded-up part of the treadmill so it doesn't collapse and crush your pets. Despite my efforts to encourage Sears to fix this oversight, I've had a shoelace tied from arm to arm in place of the lock since 2003. So I asked them to bring that when they bring the new runner. So I blocked out a good four hours of a morning, the guy showed up with just a toolbox, he looked at the treadmill, turned it on, and got ready to leave. I said, "Aren't you going to fix it?" He said that they have to order the parts, have them shipped to me, and then I have to make another appointment for them to come and install them.

!!!!!

OK, so even though you know what model I have and I told you what I need, you still had me block out a whole morning so you could send a guy to confirm what I've already told you, as if I'm lying and just want Sears to eat up my day for fun because what else would I do with my day you big loser who can't cook, and then I have to schlep the equipment home from work where it'll be shipped (I don't have a doorman to get big packages — dirty), and then I have to block out a whole morning again? Fuck you, Sears. I remember when we got our dishwasher, it took three appointments: one in which someone came to disconnect the old dishwasher and leave it in the middle of our kitchen, one in which someone came to deliver the new one and play with the electrical bits, and one in which someone came to take away the old dishwasher. So our old dishwasher was sitting in the middle of our kitchen for two weeks because that's how Sears operates. It's a miracle Sears can tie its shoes in the morning.

Also, while I've been home I've learned that NoraBanks spends a great deal of her day standing in the bathroom sink and meowing at the ceiling.

So: Please help me. Please share either — or both:

1. Your no-fail recipes that even someone as cheffily deficient as me can do;
2. Your favorite, most embarrassing kitchen disasters. I feel so alone.

On that note, I hate the word knapsack.

I've been cleaning out my work e-mail, which is taking forever because there are literally thousands of them, both personal and work-related. The good thing is, they are in large part hysterical, and they also serve as a journal of my life so I don't have to keep one on its own. The bad thing is, there are thousands of them.

I found this one, which I enjoyed and thought I'd share with you. I sent it to myself on October 23, 2007, just after I'd gotten off the train and came into the office. The subject line is "Oogy couple." For very obvious reasons, I wanted to remember these people.

She has a long skirt on and is carrying an oversize orange leather shoulder bag, one that doesn't look like there's much in it. He's wearing a leather jacket slung over his shoulders, but his arms aren't in it. He's wearing black and blue checked cotton wrestler pants, but he's slight and older, and he's carrying a backpack. She asks him, "Do you want to hold this?" He asks her to repeat. She holds out her jacket. "This is heavy. Do you want to hold this? Do you want to put it in your knapsack?"

Um, duh.

He says, "Well, no, I don't want to, but you're asking me to, so I will." He keeps saying he doesn't want to but he will. She passes it over. I look up. It's a jean jacket. She's carrying a giant heavy shoulder bag but won't carry her jean jacket. He seems to despise her.

We get on the train. There are only single seats scattered here and there. She sits in an end seat, and he sits next to me across the way. There's plenty of room, but he sits practically on top of me, and his leather jacket is poking me. He crosses his legs and starts grading English essays. He smells like glue.

Cereal Killer

In the vestibule of our building, there's a table upon which we leave ignored newspapers and yet-to-be-claimed packages and magazines that won't fit into the wee mailboxes. Last week, somebody left a box of cereal on the table for anyone to take, with a Post-it stating they didn't like it and maybe someone else would.

The cereal box was very colorful, with what appeared to be cartoony fronds on it.

The cereal was made by a company called EnviroKidz. (Don't even get me started on the "z." I have rage.) It is gluten-free, organic cereal.

It is called Peanut Butter Panda Puffs.

Here's my question: Of all the cereals in the grocery store, with all the options of getting-better-tasting organic foods, how did it happen that this was the one that was considered potentially delicious? And it's not even so much because it's organic or fun-free, which I do not frown upon under any circumstances: It's because it's peanut butter cereal.

I love peanut butter in pretty much any form. I love cereal in pretty much any form. Even when it's soggy (and, in the case of Froot Loops and — controversial! — Raisin Bran, I prefer it soggy). I will eat a peanut butter sandwich for pretty much any meal, and I will eat cereal for pretty much any meal. If your desert-island food is cereal, you can't go wrong and you can live a long, happy life — I guess assuming you don't need milk, because the refrigeration logistics on a desert island are not favorable to dairy products. And you might die of loneliness. Anyway. I digress.

However:

Peanut butter is not good in cereal. No exceptions. I wanted to write "Duh" on the Post-it.

Other food combinations I do not understand, despite the fact that I love one or more elements of these partnerships, but not together:

Hot sauce on eggs
Mayonnaise on fries
Vinegar- or ketchup-flavored chips
Three-cheese anything
Dried fruit that is infused with the flavor of another fruit
Coffee-flavored cake
Champagne-flavored soda (this was a very, very, very unsuccessful experiment, probably because on the bottle, cola was spelled kola)

What about you? What will you refuse to eat together? Or, like, in a sandwich?

Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.

Two weekends ago, Josh and I cleaned up our garden to prep for spring. It's not huge, just an urban brownstone garden, and while I know I'm lucky to have it, I'll be honest with you:

I hate it.

I hate it I hate it I hate it. I should love it but I hate it.

I hate gardening. I hate planting. I hate pulling weeds, and we get tons and tons of weeds. I hate figuring out what goes where. I hate maintaining it. I have so little free time, and I don't want to spend what free time I have cleaning up and maintaining my garden. If the weather is nice enough to be outside fixing up the garden, I'd rather be somewhere else outside, not doing ... that. It is not cathartic. It stresses me out. Bleh.

I would perhaps love it if there were a place to sit and gather, but the couple who owned the apartment before Josh bought it were botanists, so there are just giant green plants (many of them prickly, so you try pruning them) everywhere, very little color, and a lame path of broken slate slabs that are uneven and cracked. There is no patio, no flat surface, no place to put a table and chairs. I would love for HGTV to magically show up at my door and tear out the whole thing and start it from scratch, with a grassy area and planters and brick entertaining space. I know exactly what I want to do with it, which makes me hate it even more because I don't have the wherewithal or funds to do it myself. Bleh.

Anyway.

I was clearing away some of last season's leaves when I found a weathered cat collar. The best part of the garden by far is that we get tons of the neighborhood cats hanging out. They're fun and friendly and they come up to our back door and flirt with Nora and Tallulah. I picked up the collar (which, praise jebus, was not attached to its owner) and read the tag. Clearly etched in it were its address, its phone number and its name.

Its name.

Whitey.

"I think I'm offended," I told Josh.

"This is why you don't let your kids name your pets," he said.

"That's like if we named one of our cats Heeb. Heeb Banks."

In any case, it's now my intention to take pictures of the garden and finally send them to HGTV to beg for a sprucing. I shall also include photos of my cluttered living room, my falling-apart kitchen and my depressingly drab bedroom for good measure.

After I cleared away all the dry and dead stuff, I sprinkled Preen onto the soil. Preen is a product that looks a bit like bird food that activates your soil in such a way that it prevents weeds from growing but doesn't kill your existing plants. Preen is also much like Happy Fun Ball in that it will kill and/or maim any living thing that comes into contact with it. This product is the furthest thing from organic I think I've ever bought, and that includes Shrinky Dinks. I sprinkled it around my garden, desperate to solve my weed problem, watered it to activate it, and Josh poured some soil over it to protect the critters. I spent two days watching the garden with the hope that no neighborhood wildlife die in my backyard — that Whitey would soon follow his collar, for example — and so far so good. It's now been raining for eight days straight — like Chanukah, but different — and whatever Preen is made of, it appears to be working. After more than a weeklong drenching, I can count three weeds to pull once it dries out. Three. I have joy in my heart for a pesticide. I don't know how to feel about this. It is certainly not in keeping with the fact that I just bought Seventh Generation toilet paper.

In other news, I recently saw a documentary about a New York City sex club that was famous during the growing popularity of the swingers' movement, and I discovered I know a woman who used to go there. This is more unsettling than Whitey, Heeb and having love in my heart for a gardening chemical combined.

Happy Anniversary to Me

I moved to New York 11 years ago today, so I'm having a moment right now. Please bear with me.

The day I moved to New York, I had two large suitcases, a backpack, and a structured messenger bag for my résumés that turned out to be the biggest piece of shit bag I've ever owned. I did not have a job to go to or an apartment to move into. I had $5,000 and my best friend's couch.

I packed through the night and almost missed my plane, so the goodbyes with my family at the airport terminal curb were brief — an unexpected blessing, as I'm horrible with both goodbyes and change.

On the plane, I wrote very, very, very, very bad poetry because I thought I was supposed to. I was 23. I don't particularly like poetry, and I'm clearly terrible at it. Here are some of the better (read: worse) excerpts from that plane ride, some bits of pathetic verse and random thoughts:

Freckles dotting
Light but heavy
Fingers spotting
Paints

***

Repressing emotions
Testing out lotions
My heart has stopped beating
But my body's in motion

***

Mikhail Baryshnikov's dentist

[This was the only doctor's name I had, an old schoolmate of my dad's.]

***

I'm feeling ornery
Ornate
Oral
12:20 arrival time I can't believe I'm doing this
I hate the change
the stress
the distance
I love my dream
my guff
No certainty
No comfort
No security
No communication

***

Now I have to go do all the things I've been saying I want to do. Oy vey. Can I do it?

***

They say go west
But I'm going east
I'm pretty depressed
The nature of the beast

***

turbulence

***

[thoughts on an unrequited crush I left behind and — thank god — eventually got over]

If I'm never going to get over someone, I at least want to make them feel bad from time to time — I want to feel that, on occasion, say every 11 years or so, I've made them think of what they missed.

***

Stacy was in law school in Brooklyn, living in a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn Heights with her now-husband, Mark. She sent me a key and offered me her sofabed for my first 10 days until she had to hunker down undistracted and study for exams. I planned to get off the plane, take a taxi to her apartment, dump my stuff, and head into Manhattan so I could walk around, get my bearings and take the edge off.

When I got to her place, I couldn't open the door. Could not get the key to turn in the knob. After 15 minutes of trying, I sat on my luggage in the stairwell, forlorn, and thought I'd have to wait for her to get home from work several hours later. I couldn't lug around my incredibly heavy bags, I had no idea where I was and, it being 1998, I did not have a cell phone. I was emotional and exhausted and scared and overwhelmed. A neighbor finally walked by and asked if I needed help. I was convinced he'd steal the key and break in because this is New York after all, but I gave it to him. With one click, he opened the door, looked at me like I was a fish, put the key in my palm and went on his way.

I dragged my stuff into Stacy's empty apartment and, save for the rumble of the subway that ran directly underneath her building, took in the quiet. I still remember what I was wearing, this unfortunate ill-fitting shiny sweater that wasn't quite taupe. I sat on the couch, stared straight ahead, and actually said aloud, "What the fuck did I just do?" And instead of getting my bearings and taking the edge off by going for that long-intended walk, I cried in panic for five minutes and then fell asleep for five hours.

When she and Mark came home, they took one look at me, pulled me up and said, "We're going to the bar." They got me nice and tipsy, which is no difficult feat despite the fact I went to Michigan State, but this lightweight appreciated it just the same.

Stacy let me use her computer, and for the next 10 days, I furiously sent out résumés, made phone calls, panicked, went for walks and ate all of her Ben & Jerry's Blackberry Cobbler ice cream. I then moved with my stuff to Manhattan, into my friend Josh's apartment, where he let me house-sit for the next 10 days while he was in Israel. Josh — who will always and forever be referred to as Josh 1, much to the chagrin of my husband, Josh 3 (don't ask about Josh 2) — was my prom date, childhood neighbor and one of the best people I've ever known. While I was crashing at his place, I got my first temp job, and my mom flew out to cosign the apartment where I lived for the next year and a half.

All these people got me started. I came with no promises, but $5,000 and my friends' couches turned out to be more than enough.

I came to New York to work in magazines. Here are some of the things I've done since the night Stacy pulled my freaked-out self off her couch and got me drunk:

* I've worked at three magazines, and my first full-time job was as the assistant to the man who started New York magazine.
* I answered phones for a man named Stanley Licker.
* I got a lap dance from a bikini-wearing drag queen on my 24th birthday.
* I've traveled to, among other destinations, Denmark, Norway, England, New Zealand, Curaçao, Jamaica, Maine, Oregon, and the Louisville Slugger Museum.
* I walked the wrong way down the stairs inside the Statue of Liberty.
* I walked downtown and across the Manhattan Bridge on 9/11 while shocked men and women coated in dust walked uptown, away from the destruction.
* I wound up on June Allyson's speed-dial.
* I met the love of my life online.
* I got married.
* I willingly had cats.
* I kept my head down while I had an allergic reaction to medication on the subway, while other riders looked at me terrified, thinking I was tripping.
* I ice-skated in Central Park and bowled at midnight at Chelsea Piers.
* I saw Brian Dennehy play Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman on Broadway and cried for the next three days, and after seeing Tony Danza perform in The Iceman Cometh, I got him to autograph a rubber duckie I just so happened to have on me.
* I buried three grandparents and three pets.
* I saw the New York Philharmonic perform in Central Park on a perfect summer night.
* I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge on the Fourth of July and watched the fireworks reflected against the windows of the World Trade Center.
* I learned that one of the best feelings is standing in my parents' backyard in Michigan with my feet in the grass.
* I smoked from a hookah on Stacy's balcony while eating her home-baked pumpkin cookies.
* I've read some really brilliant books and I've read some really horrible books.
* I was in a cooking club, a book club, and found my membership folder from when I joined the Corey Hart fan club in 1986.
* I wanted a bunny.
* I let a guy I was dating (Josh 2) feel me up like a high-schooler while we were in a packed movie theater seeing Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.
* I took mambo lessons.

When I came home from work last night — or, more specifically, at 4:35 this morning after being driven home in a car that reeked of smelt until the driver farted, and then it reeked of smelt and farts — I found the most recent issue of New York magazine on the kitchen counter. The theme of the issue is "My First New York": people's tales of moving to this great city that has given us even greater opportunities. On the cover are photos of people who came here and made it big, photos taken the years they arrived. And Jann Wenner is on the cover, a photo of him in 1977. And now I work for the guy who is on the cover of "My First New York," published by the magazine started by the man who gave me my first job here. And I feel it's all come full circle, so now, just like the day I moved here, I'm sitting on the couch crying, but not because I'm scared; I'm crying because I'm proud of myself and so grateful for how things have turned out. I'm aware this whole post sounds like I'm bragging, but maybe I am. I've accomplished a lot, building a life in a place where it's often difficult to do that, and I did it with the assistance, love and support of a lot of wonderful people, and with a force inside myself I never knew I had. I often forget about this, especially when I'm feeling unproductive, so having these moments is necessary and comforting.

It's not to say it hasn't been difficult — these last 11 years have been the most challenging, emotional, testing years, because that's life and growth and change — but it's been worth every second. Every penniless, insecure, angry, support-grouped second. I wouldn't do it any differently.

I sent Josh 3 an e-mail to that effect, and this is what he wrote back:

I am very proud of you too. With the risk of sounding rather ethnocentric, the old cliche "if you can make it here you can make it anywhere" does have a certain validity. Of course its relative (ie i would have no idea what to do in Iowa). But it does take a certain constitution to thrive here (and yes that means you). Even us natives can feel overwhelmed by it all. But those "I love New York" moments you get when walking past the Chrysler (ironic for you, isn't it) or entering Grand Central that very first time (when I think about it-I was probably three-even I get teary) make it all so worthwhile don't they? In a way, I'm kind of envious. Since I grew up here, I've never seen my city through such eyes. I can pinpoint times of wonder of seeing the city for the first time as I grew old enough to form memories. Just thinking of them makes me cry. But I never had that point of reference you have, coming from such a distant background. But then again, I have to admit, the thought of being from somewhere else makes by body spasm. Maybe that's what your wonder is all about.
You should be very proud of yourself.
Happy anniversary.

I'm so lucky.