the pieces of my life

I realize that I’ve been lame of late. Adam’s office party was simply disappointing. I mean, the party was great. But my general behavior was so good that it it was terrible. Then a few nights later, we went to a swanky 40th birthday party for an old friend of Adam’s. The whiskey sour was amazing. The wine was free-flowing. The potential was there for me to make a total ass of myself… and yet, I behaved like a grown-up. I know! So disappointing!

To make up for this dismaying lack of lack of decorum on my part (did you follow that?), this past weekend I hosted a special movie night for my movie night gang. I have five friends who come over once a month (it was six, but Sunrise decided that trivial things like children, community obligations, and a healthy spousal relationship took priority over our movie night; I know, we’re better off without her kind!) to watch a movie, eat popcorn with too much butter, devour buckets of Trader Joe’s chocolates, and consume gallons of red wine. It started after the New York trip when Sunrise declared she had never seen Heathers. As soon as we got back, we scheduled a movie screening. Movie night took on a life of its own and every month the next movie has just been something that made sense. Something we all agreed upon for whatever reason. We’ve watched Class (Andrew McCarthy!), Broadcast News, The Big Chill, St. Elmo’s Fire (more Andrew McCarthy!), the original Women (Jungle Red nails!).

I don’t know how it happened, but at our last movie night, the conversation somehow turned to Cougartown. Yes. The TV show. Here’s a secret about me. I am obsessed with this show. Obsessed. I am devastated that it hasn’t been on the air in just about forever (but it is coming back!). Hey, even Abed on Community can’t get enough of Cougartown. Turns out, two others of our sixsome also like Cougartown. So we decided on a Cougartown marathon for our next movie night. But somehow, things went wonky. I’m not sure if it was the chocolate or the butter or–could it be?–the red wine, but someone came up with the idea of making it a family event. Of subjecting our husbands to Cougartown as well.

And so it was written. And so it was done.

Sunday was our Cougartown marathon. Children were banished to the basement with juice boxes and Daddy Day Camp on DVD. To make the event a little more tolerable to the husbands, we combined our TV marathon with a bourbon tasting. Nothing makes Adam happier than bourbon. Except for perhaps lots of bourbon.

Of course, as anyone who watches the show knows, Jules has a love affair with her wine and her wine glass (is this the appeal of the show? A 40-something woman who drinks too much and gets snarky with her best friend? Naaahh. No resemblance here). Her first glass, Big Joe, comes to a sad end, and it replaced with Big Carl. Of course, we couldn’t have our Cougartown night without our own Big Joe’s, which are apparently called Big Bens:

We had pizza and wine and bourbon and popcorn and chocolate and birthday cake and non-birthday cake and screaming children and scheming children and not enough chairs and more wine and more bourbon and a happy time was had by all. Nothing too wild happened. Well, nothing that I’d ever share. Because what happens at Movie Night, stays at Movie Night. But I didn’t want you folks thinking I’d lost my edge. I’ve still got it. And it’s sharp!

Pancakes. Pancakes is where this story is going to end. (Every blog post reminds me of a song. This time, I’m humming the Sunday’s “Here’s Where the Story Ends.” I should figure out how to post a playlist on this blog so you can get the same damn tunes stuck in your head.)

Pancakes. But it’s not really about pancakes, of course. Leaving Sophie’s heading toward a major avenue to catch a cab, Sunrise declares that she really wants pancakes. Okay. I know a diner. Right around the corner. Open 24 hours. Let’s go take a look at the menu!

The diner is attached to a bar of the same name, and both have menus up. So I pause at the first menu. Attached to the bar. That’s closed. Shut up for the night. Because, by law, bars must serving alcohol at 4 a.m. It’s the law right? Except at just after 4 a.m., the door to this bar opens, and out walks one of the bartenders who says, “Come on it. First round is on us. You can get the next round.”

“There will be no ‘next round’ for us. One more is about all we have left in us.”

“Eh, come on in anyway,” he says.

What’s a gaggle of haus fraus to do, but go in for a round of beers? (Although by this point, both Sunrise and Scooby—proving that they don’t have the fortitude of us old time NYU girls—have switched to soda.)

It’s pretty much the two bartenders—whom we’ll call Chavez and Garfield—and a guy at the bar who will call Bullfrog. We perch on bar stools, and resume drinking. Well, I resume drinking. Scooby and Sunrise silently fret that this is all the beginning of some New York Post headline that reads, “Boston Haus Fraus Look for Beer, Find Death.” (At this point, when I told the story to Tweeds, she said, “Really? They gave you a beer after closing? At [name of bar]? That’s so illegal!” So out of respect for the so-illegal bar and the great time we had, I’ll skip naming it).

Chavez tried to pick up Scooby. Garfield and I discovered that we both moved into the city in 1986, so he let me dictate the songs on the iPod from that era of my early NYC years, starting of course with The Smiths’ Louder Than Bombs. The Bullfrog and I start up a conversation and he seems like a pretty cool guy, plays in a band with the kind of music I actually like, so I made him promise me, as soon as he’s over his ex, he’ll let me know so I can fix him up with yet another single friend in New York (I’ve got a bunch of them!).

Sunrise is still hungry, so Chavez kindly runs next door and buys her a plate of Fried Oreos. Seriously. Beer. Fried Oreos. After hours. I don’t know which is the most exciting for me.

Fried Oreos. Mmmmm....

5 a.m. My beer is done. My memories at this point are turning a little hazy. I think we finally have had enough adventures that I can tell Sunrise’s husband to take his “pedestrian tweets” and shove them up his….

We say our good-byes. We head out to the street. And we finally catch that cab back to the apartment. Daylight is starting to shine through the buildings.

See that sliver of bright sky through the buildings?

We’re back. (Later Beetle tells us she was mildly horrified when she looked at her watch when we came in, and she realized it was bright enough that she didn’t have to turn on the light to see it.)

Sleep for five hours. Bagel run to Murray’s. And then back home again. Needless to say, Sunrise, Scooby, and I all passed on doing any of the driving.

It took me a full week to catch up on my sleep. But it was well worth it. And the best part? We’ll do it again. Next year. Same time. New adventures. I’ll be sure to tell you all about them.

Max Fish. Site of many post-college nights that, frankly, they all blur into one drunken night. But Max Fish is where I spent much of my time, and I was eager to go with Scooby and Sunrise. So we walk down to Ludlow Street only to find…

… a line. A line? At Max Fish? Whaaaat? “Should we get in the line?” Sunrise asks. Um, no! No, we do not do lines and we certainly don’t do lines at Max Fish. That is wrong on too many levels to even think about.

Okay, so what to do next. It’s about 2:20 a.m. And, apparently, someone has to go to the bathroom (I saw someone because it was either Scooby or Sunrise, but I was too busy thinking about where to go next to pay any attention). “Fine,” I say. “We’ll go to Tweeds apartment and you can pee and we can figure out where to go next.”

“We can’t go to your sister’s apartment!” Sunrise says. “It’s 2:30 in the morning!”

“Yeah? So? She’s not far. Let’s go.”

We walk over to the Tweedle Twins’ apartment. “You’re not really going to buzz her, right?” Sunrise asks, looking for reassurance, I think, that on some level I’m a person respectful of my sister’s right to a peaceful night at home. “I mean, she’s probably asleep by now.”

I don’t bother answering. Instead, I hit the buzzer. “She’s never going to answer,” Sunrise said.

“Yes, she will,” I said, and sure enough, the buzz came.

Sunrise shook her head in shock the whole way up. “I cannot believe she let you in.”

Upstairs we were greeted by the Tweedle Twirp, who not only let us use her bathroom, but also gave us some of the Tweedle Twin’s birthday cake.

Sunrise & the Tweedle Twirp

At about 3 a.m., we were fortified to continue our bar crawl. “Sophie’s it is,” I said, Sophie’s being the bar I spent the absolute most time in during my underaged college years.

Sophie’s is exactly the same as it was in the late 1980s. The only difference is that someone is standing at the door, carding everyone. Including me! I was so happy, I about kissed the guy. He was so pleased that I was pleased that he let me card him. Yeah, writing that, it doesn’t make must sense, but in the moment, it was fabulous.

We got our beers (by this point, Scooby was drinking Sprites), and sat at the back table, where an artist who was going to be as famous as Jackson Pollack (or maybe he said painted like Jackson Pollack? I really wasn’t paying that close attention) started hitting on Sunrise. Sunrise was quite pleased. He offered us all weed, but then rescinded the offer when he heard we all had children. Never mind that he looked young enough to be one of our children. Somewhere in my Twitter feed it says that Sunrise spanked a man. Must have happened at Sophie’s. I really don’t remember it.

At about 3:40, I was ready to go, but both Scooby and Sunrise mentioned they had never made it to last call. So we stayed. And we had last call. And they were happy. And then they said that they had never been kicked out of a bar at closing. So we stayed. And we got kicked out after Sunrise tried planking on the bar stools (yeah, I had never heard of planking, either, but this is what real suburban haus fraus apparently do for fun). And they were happy.

It’s 4 a.m. The bars in NYC are now closed. Time for everyone to crawl drunkenly into bed and pray that the hangover doesn’t hit. Except. Except. Except this is NYC. The city that doesn’t sleep. The city where anything can happen. And so our night yet continues on….

My friend, Angela, thought I was going to give you the finale (I’m not sure if anyone other than Angela is reading this, but I’m happy writing just for you, Angela!). Little does she understand that one blog post cannot contain the hours of 1 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. adequately. So we’ll call this Finale, Part 1.

Continuing right along…

Just to set the tone for our night, a group of kids was trying to buy tickets for Bridesmaids. “But I am 17!” the girl was protesting.

“Doesn’t matter,” the ticket seller said. “Your friends aren’t and they need someone 25 or older to accompany them.”

What’s a heroine to do?

Villain: “You can’t buy the tickets!”
Minor in Distress: “I must buy the tickets!”
Villain: “You can’t buy the tickets!”
Minor in Distress: “I must buy the tickets!”
Me: “I’ll buy the tickets!”
Minor in Distress: “My heroine!”
Villain: “Curses! Foiled again!”

Look, it was a freakin’ R-rated movie, not a bottle of vodka. I hope someday someone does the same for my children.

Anyway, the five of us very tired haus fraus went yawning into Bridesmaids. And we loved it. I woke us up, rejuvenated us, and made me ready to take on Sunrise’s husband. Pedestrian tweets, did he say? Oh, I’ll give him some tweets!

Sunrise and Scooby took no convincing. Beetle and Keaton weren’t up for a wild night so they went back to the apartment. I immediately began texting my sister. “Where should we go? Where are you going to meet us?”

She called me within minutes. “I just put my pajamas on! I’m in for the night.”

“I don’t think so,” I told her. “You are a late night person. I’m not allowed to call you before noon. It’s 1 a.m. These are your prime hours.”

Scooby wanted a fruity drink. Sunrise wanted a non-naked bar. I remembered the sign I had seen at the Howl Festival (the one I told you to keep in mind?). “Let’s hop a cab,” I said. “First Street and Second Avenue.” I texted Tweeds: “Meet us at Mars Bar.”

Ah, Mars Bar. Mars Bar is a bar from my wanton youth, a stretch of counter, cheap drinks, and a questionable—in the best of ways—clientele. I didn’t get any good pics, except for Sunrise looking boozy (and out of respect for her suburban haus frau ways, I won’t post it here), but others have (here’s a photo of a n*aked man at the bar). New York magazine wrote of Mars Bar, “This dark, scarred hall full of stiff drinks and crazy regulars is great because it’s legitimately terrifying. If you care to look up from your drink, the glass-brick walls facing Second Avenue provide decent people-watching.”

This, my friends, is where I took my haus frau friends. And, dear readers, I don’t need to tell you, that Sunrise and Scooby loved it (or at least they got boozy enough to pretend they loved it). Mars Bar is going to be knocked down (for condos, I think?) in July, so I felt it was my duty to expose my friends to a piece of New York history.

At first, when we were accosted by a bald man who drunkenly hit on Sunrise, they were wary. But once we got inside… well, they were still wary, but they at least they were game. I ordered a screwdriver for Scooby (because that’s as “fruity drink” as Mars Bar gets) and Rolling Rocks for me and Sunrise, because I was feeling nostalgic. Of course, the beers arrived and Sunrise said, “What? Beer? Aren’t we going to do tequila shots or something?” Cue tequila shots. Sunrise had never actually done one before, so I had to get the salt (no cute shakers here–I was handed a canister of Morton’s) and show Sunrise how it was done. The bald guy from outside offered to buy us another round, but we demurred. Another bald guy—let’s call him J1—struck up with a conversation with us, but as he was nice and he didn’t smell, we went with it. In fact, the yenta in me came out, and I ended up giving him the e-mail of a beautiful, single New York friend of mine. I love that I can still pick up men… even if I’m doing it for someone else.

Meanwhile, I’m harassing Tweeds. I’m phoning her every five minutes.
Call 1:
Me: I don’t see you here!
Tweeds: You’re not looking hard enough. I’m there.

Call 2:
Me: Why aren’t you here?
Tweeds: The Tweedle Twin has already brushed his teeth.
Me: He can brush again!
The Tweedle Twin, heard in the distance: No! No, I can’t!

Call 3:
Me: Get your a*ss down here.
Tweeds: Sure, I’ll be right there.

Call 4:
Me: If you don’t come here, we’re going to come to you!
Tweeds: That’s fine! I just don’t want to get out of my pajamas.

Around 2:30 a.m., we decided it was time to say good-bye to J1. After all, one of my favorite other college haunts, Max Fish, is also scheduled to be closed.

Call 5:
Me: We’re moving to Max Fish. Meet us there.
Tweeds: Yep, no problem.

Time to move on to Ludlow Street…

Saturday morning. Keep in mind, I had half a bottle of Prosecco (because no way could Tweeds and my friend keep up with me) and three lemon drop martinis the night before.

So what the’s only logical thing to do on a Saturday morning? Why, go for a six-mile run with Beetle and Keaton, of course! Running in New York is one of my favorite things—we headed across the High Line, down the Hudson River Park, around the tip of Manhattan, and 3/4 of the way across the Brooklyn Bridge. When we got back on terra firma, we decided to take a subway back, stopping at the Union Square Farmers’ Market for fruit and coffees.

Back at the apartment, Sunrise and Scooby were waiting for us, and after a quick shower and a leisurely breakfast at Markt (where the host was only mildly snarky at us! They’re softening there), I suggested a flea market. “A flea market? Really?” Sunrise protested. As I think I’ve mentioned before, my next novel is to take place in the 1930s, so I’m doing research, looking for old magazines, jewelry, postcards, whatever! to inspire me and to give me insight into my characters. I dragged Sunrise (the rest were willing participants) to one of these huge garages of a flea market.

I walked through it. I was done in about 15 minutes. Bought a pretty (non 1930s) ring. All good.

An hour later we dragged Sunrise out. She was pretty hard to drag, though, as she was laden with purses, jewelry, and god knows what else she found. “This is awesome!” she was heard to mutter a few times and she practically ran when she saw the next flea market one block over.

By this time, the half bottle of Prosecco, the three lemon drop martinis, and the six-mile run were catching up with me, and I headed back to the apartment for some, let’s call it, “alone time.” The rest headed to Fishs Eddy. About an hour later I was ready to join them again. So I called to find out where they were. Still at Fishs Eddy. Uh, really?

We headed back to the Strand, where this time, I stocked up on books for me! I’m not as ideologically against e-readers as some would have you believe, but the simple fact that it doesn’t allow you to spend hours on end leafing through books at the Strand is enough reason for me to turn my nose up at them.

By this time, Tweeds had joined us and she lead us to an ice cream store that had the most marvelous waffle cones that I could have eaten twelve more. We sat by St. Mark’s Church and had our ice cream and rested our toesies. We lost Keaton at that point who wanted a nap, so the rest of us headed to the Howl Festival in Tompkins Square Park (passing my old apartment!), and after listening to bad music and eating good pierogi, we walked to the Hester Street Craft Fair.

My old apartment:

Street art at the Howl Festival (pay attention to this! It will come back to haunt this story later):

We took the subway up, got all prettied up to see a show, and then headed out for dinner. We couldn’t decide on a place, and ended up at a pub that was okay, but not worth writing about. Then we saw Desperate Writers at the Union Street Theater. The play was cute, with some funny moments, but overall, it didn’t float our boats. We were in the front row, so we had to crane our necks up, and I was too aware that the top of my underwear was rolling down and cutting into my belly. Never the sign of an engrossing play.

We left, yawning. It was about 10 p.m. I texted Tweeds to see what she was up to, but we were really all pretty tired and pretty much done for the night. But then, two things happened: 1) As we were walking home, Sunrise spotted that Bridesmaids was playing in just a half an hour and 2) Sunrise’s husband had the audacity to tempt us into trouble by e-mailing me: “I’m not going to say your tweets have been pedestrian but… actually, yes I will. No nudity and very little alcohol.”

So at 10:35 on Saturday night, we started all over….

My friend, D., has twin girls who are about three months older than Doodles. We met when Doodles was about 13 months old and they were 16 months, so I’ve known them awhile.

The girls are, let’s call them, Mimi and Nevada, because the first initial thing just gets old.  Mimi has been in Doodles’s class at school for two years now. But the thing is, Mimi is a girly girl. Which means Doodles isn’t that into her. But Pie is nuts about her. Her sister, Nevada, is more Doodles’s type, and while he professes to “not like girls,” whenever he’s with her, he has fun.

I don’t think it was long after meeting the girls that I pegged them. I do that to people. Are you reading this? Do I know you? Then I have you pigeonholed in some little corner of my mind. I like to do that, to make sense of all you people. And, yes, I do mean you. Anyway, in my pigeonholing, I decided that Nevada is destined for Yale, and that Mimi is going to be an NYU kind of girl. And it wasn’t too long after that that I decided not only is Mimi going to be an NYU girl, but Pie will be her roommate. Because those two are peas in a pod and they are going to rage in the City. Mark my words, those two will be hanging out till 2 a.m. at the 2023 equivalent of Sophie’s or Horseshoe Bar, allowing those poor boys to buy them drinks and then letting those same poor  boys suffer, getting stoned in the whatever the equivalent of 1987 Tompkins Square Park is, before heading to the after-hour haunts, all the while doing amazingly cool and artistic things in their daylight hours. I’m just guessing of course. Because I, of course, never did anything like this myself. Sure I may have attended film school at NYU, but I can only make these assumptions based on other people, because I am a long-suffering suburban haus frau who had no existence before that of my children. That’s my story. And I’m sticking to it.

I’m all the more sure of it today. D.’s husband is in a band. But I never get to hear that band. Because they always play at band-ish hours, like 11 p.m. 11 p.m.=sleep. Or dealing with a child. Or sleeping. Or ignoring a child. Or sleeping. Something like that. Whatever it is, 11 p.m. is right out.

But today, the band was playing at 3 p.m. 3 p.m.! That’s like merely getting-ready-for-bed time! I can push back my pajama and toothbrushing for some music. Doodles had T ball, so it was a no-brainer: Pie and I would go to see the band. They were playing in Cambridge, at a club I hadn’t been to since Adam was in grad school and I actually went to places like clubs (well, at least for the three months he was in grad school before he knocked me up).

We walked in. Pie shyly clung to me. For 2.4 minutes. At which point Nevada came up to her and said, “Do you want to go up front with me?” and Pie nodded. She took Nevada’s hand and disappeared into the crowd. The next I saw her, Mimi had her arm around her and they were shaking their hips. And I’m pretty sure if I hadn’t given those junior high school boys a good glare, they would have been offering to buy Pie and Mimi some seltzers. I had to stop that. Those poor boys don’t deserve to have their hearts broken so young. Because you know Pie and Mimi would destroy them.

The volume was ridiculous. Pie refused ear plugs. She just stood at the front of the stage mesmerized, Mimi watching over her. Pie had a blue hair extension in her hair, her frilly homemade summer dress on, and a knitted necklace that Doodles had made for her. And oddly enough she fit right in, except for the fact that she was about two and a half feet too short. We had to leave right after the band’s set. Pie would have happily stayed.

You know what’s going to happen right? My NYU-going Pie is going to come home some spring break. And a friend from high school, some boy, will say, “Hey, wanna go see a show at the Middle East?” And Pie is going to look down her nose at him and scoff, “The Middle East? Please. I’ve been going there since I was like four.”

Dropping Pie at preschool today, I fully expected a completely meltdown. She bawled for an hour on the flight home last night because she wanted the Nana. Her first words upon waking this morning were, “I want Nana!” But it’s when you most expect anything from children that it least happens and vice-versa, isn’t it? She gave me a smooch and ran off to her classroom. I, on the other hand, am ready to crawl back into bed and not come back out till the tulips do. Readjustment after the Miami Beach trip is always hardest on me.

Spa day at the Standard. More martinis and cafe con leches than I could count. Movies–first run!–in a theater, on a big screen. Boat rides. New Year’s party. Breakfast outside on Ocean Drive. Ice cream. Shorts. Walking to dinners out. Swimming for the kids. Family. Friends. I so don’t want to be back in Arlington.

However, there are a few pluses. I will say that I do enjoy an excuse for hot chocolate and we have that in spades. I whipped up another batch of homemade marshmallows this morning. Boy do I love me them homemade marshmallows. They melt so much better in a cup of hot chocolate. And our friends up here are amazing. Our plane got in a few minutes late and out the window we were greeted by a world of white. We rushed out, got luggage, and the car. We went straight from the airport to drop Doodles and Adam’s off at a cub scout meeting. Pie and I went home to shovel… only Beetle and her husband had already shoveled us out! Can you ask for better friends than that? While Pie was mildly disappointed, I was quite thrilled.

And now it’s time for some new year’s reflections, I suppose, but that will have to wait for a later post, as one of my resolutions is to get back into the swing of writing, and since I’m off soon to get Pie for gymnastics, I better get a few pages written.

Welcome back to real life!

Most of you know that I won’t run Boston until I can qualify. I always support my friends when they run for charities, but fund raising is so not my thing. I won’t do it.

Okay, disclaimer aside, here’s a little fund raising pitch for a friend of mine. Not for a charity, though.

My friend Geoff is making a film. Not just any film. A really cool film. He’s trying to personally reunite the Kinks. He’s got most of the film done, but he needs to raise funds for editing. I encourage you to watch the clip of his film, and then send him $10 or $20 (or more) to get this film completed. Folks will say to you, “Hey, have you seen that really cool new film, Do It Again?” and you’ll be able to say, “Know it? I was an original investor in it!”

In his own words: “I need to raise just $3,500 to finish the editing. (That’s after already raising about $65,000 to make the film, in addition to what I’ve put in from my now deceased bank account.) My hope is that you view this request as you might one from for the local fire department’s fund or friends raising money for charity – minus the altruistic mission, of course. Because anything ($10, $25, $100) will be used wisely and prudently on pure Kinks film work.

“I don’t have much to offer beyond thank yous. I will do my best to organize informal screenings in Boston, New York and Raleigh in the fall for folks who helped me along the way.

“The film, as you probably know, features interviews with Paul McCartney, Sting, Zooey Deschanel, Brian Wilson, Paul Weller, Robyn Hitchcock and Clive Davis, among others. How about the Kinks? You’ll just have to wait and see…”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mosQ3dp0pUY]

Pretty cool, huh? Go ahead and Paypal him at gedgers@mac.com or e-mail me (or him) for his address if you want to send him a check. Tell him I sent you.

Pam and Tim are engaged! Yeah, yeah, yeah! That was the best news I’ve heard in a long, long time. Was so excited when she called, even in my exhausted, blurry state.

Other than that, just trying to make it till next Wednesday morning. Saw Monsters, Inc. again last night (didn’t have a whole lot of movie choices). There going to start adding in outtakes to the film on December 7th, which I find pretty annoying. But I’ll see them all when they’re put on the DVD. That’s definitely one to own. Anyway, been doing a bit o’ gambling–I’m down about $5. Not too shabby for how many hours of entertainment it’s given me (and the free drinks; have I mentioned the free drinks?). Bowled tonight over at the Hilton, but I was so beat I only stayed for one game. A nap revived me and now I’m getting ready to go downstairs and hit the black jack tables again. Digging those black jack tables!

Only five more days. I can do this for five more days. Can’t I?