A Home for Alice

I'd forgotten how hard it is to rent an apartment in Manhattan. It's been almost a decade since I've had to. But recently, my friend Alice has been put in the position of having to find a place.

We've had several dinners together recently - half of them being to celebrate "Alice's new studio". A studio is Manhattan for "bed-sit" which is English for a room with sleeping and eating accommodation.

"Cheers," we'll say and clink glasses. "I'm so excited," says Alice. "I can hardly wait to have my own place". Up till now Alice has been sharing two-room apartments with transient Australians.

The next day she'll call me. The same story every time. "I didn't get it after all, woe is me what shall I do?" "But you said that the agent said it was yours, definitely", I'll comment. "But he now has someone else better", "It isn't really available yet after all", "Someone else was higher up on the list". Or all of the above.

She's bound to strike it lucky eventually. Her area of choice extends from 100th Street in the north east right down to lower Tribeca in the south west of the island. "Pick one area and concentrate on that," I'll advise her. "I am I am," she'll argue. And mention one of, "The East Village", "Chelsea","Gramercy Park", "Kips Bay", "Murray Hill", "SoHo", "NoHo", Yorkville, "Upper East Side", "West Village", "Clinton", "Midtown East", Midtown West". Or all of the above.

I like it best when she does not mention the Upper East Side. That is where I live. And it's not that I don't want her living close by, but because when the inevitable happens and she doesn't get her latest "find" she'll say, "I am SO glad I didn't get that place on the Upper East Side! The people there are so OLD. It is such a boring area. How could anyone live there?" At such times I am inclined to forget that I have a friend called Alice.

Last week when we were dining out but not celebrating, I glimpsed a sign on the apartment block opposite the restaurant. "Look, Alice, " I said, "there are studios for rent in the building opposite." "Great let's go there and ask!" she replied, grabbing at her hand-bag and ignoring my glass half-full of Malbec. I explained that at ten o'clock on a Saturday night it'd be extremely unlikely that there'd be anyone there to show us an apartment. Besides we'd had a few wines and were likely to bump into each other as we crossed the ostentatiously large foyer of Rupert Towers.

You see, I know the building as I pass it daily on my way to my bus stop. It is inhabited largely by elderly people who get around in wheelchairs or by pushing walkers. About once a week a coach bus come to take residents to bingo joints or perhaps to an art gallery with wheelchair access. And every morning there are Access-A-Ride mini buses waiting outside to take residents to their medical appointments. "HaHa. Up You Alice!" I was thinking. "I'll give you 'OLD'".

Needless to say I didn't tell Alice about the residents and went with her to ask about the accommodation. As we were crossing the lobby, we passed a large notice board crammed with posters with large type advertising excursions for seniors, wheelchair stores and the American equivalent of "Meals on Wheels". Alice didn't seem to notice and I hurried past. A bored concierge sitting behind a large curved desk pointed at the sign "Call 1800 999 XXX for all accommodation enquiries" when Alice asked about availability. I asked a few questions and he was slightly more forthcoming. This seemed to enrage Alice, and as we walked out she commented that he actually SPOKE to me but not to her. "Must be 'cos I'm Asian," she muttered. "Must because I'm old," I thought.

I've tried to give Alice some pointers for success in finding a place to rent. "Flirt," I told her when she popped in last weekend after being shown three windowless shoeboxes. "But then you'd need a man agent," she countered. No so I told her, don't you know about lesbians? She looked down her nose. Sometimes I suspect Alice is a bit of a prude. "But it's easier with men," I prattled on. "Smile a lot and look sexy. Say you'll celebrate over a bottle of wine when you move in. Then don't. That's what I did"

She looked aghast. Obviously she just couldn't believe I was ever young enough to get a man interested. Or sexy enough. Or brave enough to have such chutzpah. Or all of the above.

"Well you have to do something Alice; you need a place". She looked dubious.

I tried to cheer her up. "I once had a place on York Avenue." I describe a dingy studio I once rented, and how when the agent called to have the promised wine I'd just laughed and said ASIF. "I could never get a decent night's sleep there," I went on. "There was always someone making orgasm noises in the next room, every two hours or so. I noticed the tenants changed on almost a daily basis and later found out that it was in a red-light area." Alice just fiddled with crumbs on her plate and didn't answer. Unperturbed I continued, "So I'd make loud sex noises myself and that'd shut them up!" Still no response.

Oh well, I'm hardly Miss Sunshine myself. It's been raining everyday here in Manhattan for the last month, and weird things have been happening on the Upper East Side recently.

Firemen Outside Rupert Towers 17th June

A few weeks ago there was an explosion outside a Starbucks a block away from our apartment. And a few day's later the nearby building developing a lean like the Tower of Pisa. But most apt was the curious incident of the fire engines in the night on Second Avenue and Ninety First. They woke everyone up. I phoned our doorman. What's with the fire engines I asked. "Oh there was a fire at Rupert Towers, " he told me.

"Really?" And yes, so there was. On my way to work I saw what must have been twenty fire engines and scores of New York's bravest hanging around outside the very building Alice and I had been inquiring about just three days ago.

Elderly ladies in wheelchairs and on walkers were everywhere. I even took a photo or two.

I can't WAIT to tell Alice!

The Joy of Parenthood

"Are you trying to throw me into deep depression?" I asked my realtor Michael when he answered my call. I was referring to several photos I'd just received in my inbox. Well, it wasn't just the photos, but more of that later.

He laughed. So did I. Better to laugh than to cry.

"Have you received the bill for the replacement appliances?" I asked. "Not yet." It didn't really matter. I could try to work it out. One new fridge plus one new stove plus one new range hood, plus repairs to fire-damage, plus one new microwave plus one new dishwasher plus one new garbage disposal ... Stay tuned, as the story gets better.

At least she cleaned the sink

"The cleaning bill was better than expected," I said to Michael. "Only $987.00, I was expecting more. But what about the carpet?" "We might be able to salvage that," he told me. "But there's a fair bit of fire damage to be fixed".

I'm in New York. The apartment is in Melbourne, Australia. I'm trying to remember the cost of white goods back in OZ. I KNOW they were never as cheap as in America. Maybe they've become cheaper. Perhaps I can get a bulk deal. It can't be all bad.

I close my computer down and sit on the balcony. My Manhattan balcony. I try to lighten up. But into my mind creeps the thought - how does one trash a FRIDGE for god's sake? I remember my student days when I was more or less irresponsible. I remember fridges in terrace houses - small narrow things we got on the cheap with little freezers - ones that were attached to the fridge's ceiling and did not span the fridge's width. You could never see them, they were always covered with 10 inches of ice. But did we trash them? We wouldn't have known how.

I am snapped out of my reverie by the sound of fire engines. More than normal. God! What's going on? They are all slowing down as they get close. I look down over my balcony. No they aren't coming here but they aren't far off. I go inside and call a friend to blot out the noise. But she can hear them over the phone. The noise is reminding me of how it was on 9/11.

"I don't know what they are doing so close," I tell her. Don't you read the newspapers she snaps at me (she's a New Yorker). Well I've been busy I explain. I'm SORRY I don't read the papers! What has happened?

She explains. Not to worry. The City is building a tunnel down Second Avenue and a six storey building is developing a Tower of Pisa type lean. Oh well, that saves me a trip to Italy. I am learning to look for silver linings.

We finish our chat. I keep glancing at my laptop, wondering what scary surprises are lying in wait in my inbox. I resist the masochistic temptation to turn it on, and I go to bed.

I dream of a little girl. I am in the Australian countryside, making a daisy chain for her to wear in her hair. She's so pretty. We cuddle. "Let's go home and make a gingerbread man," I say. I dream of an Australian sky and of a baby hand in mine. "The wheels on the bus go round and round .." I am singing. The sun is shining. My child smiles at me. I wake up.

There's no sun. I'm in New York. Where's the gingerbread man? I'm confused. Is this the start of Alzheimer's? I panic.

It's OK. I remember my name. I drag myself out of bed. But OH NO! I haven't remembered everything! I turn on the computer! I open my email!

I shut it down.

But it IS Friday. Obama is our President. I don't have Alzheimer's. I am employed. There are funny people in this world - people like Eddie Izzard. The forecast for the weekend is warm, sunny and clear. I have friends. Well sort of friends.

And as for the Melbourne apartment, it is fixable. And perhaps one day the ex tenant will also be. Fixable, that is. The little girl of my dream. The daisy-chained girl. Who is now thirty seven, and living I know not where.

The Wheels on the People Mover go Round and Round, Round and Round, Round ...

Billboard advertising the "People Mover"

"We have a monorail but it doesn't really go anywhere", the owner of a downtown Detroit coffee shop explained with a sad face. "It sort of just goes round and round and if you want to exactly go anywhere you don't get on it." Exactly...

He was referring to Detroit's "People Mover". There's something very American in the choice of "People Mover" for Detroit's elevated monorail. Direct and primitive - in a Grandma Moses kind of way.

But we got on the Mover anyway - after all, we had nowhere to go and having come a long way for our "Michigan Vacation", we didn't want to miss anything. It was fun. We got on at Broadway Station and got off at Broadway Station. We passed through places with names like "Greek Town Station" (where the Greeks are), The Financial District Station (where the banks are), "Bricktown Station" (where there were lots of houses made of brick) and "Michigan Station" (where no one could figure out what was uniquely there).

Kindergarten names for a definitely un-kindergarten city.

We'd stayed the night at a hotel opposite General Motors headquarters. Fittingly we arrived in Detroit on the day that GM revealed it may file for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11.

The Riverside - In Better Days

The crumbling facade of the Riverside Hotel was nothing like the photo displayed on the hotel's website. Inside a few workers were hanging around the reception desk in the huge and deserted hotel lobby - on duty to explain even before we had time to speak, that we didn't HAVE TO stay, that we'd get our money back. That there was no A/C but "maintenance was working on it". Sure ...

We stayed nevertheless. Who would have the heart to go elsewhere? After all, as we were later to learn, the few remaining staff hadn't been paid for weeks and couldn't leave as they would not get unemployment if they did as you can only get unemployment benefits if you don't leave voluntarily.

The next day having "done Detroit" we travelled across country to Grand Rapids. I've heard that name many times in my life and am sure it is a famous place but don't know for what. So we drove through its downtown twice and then left. It is fun being an American. You are spared the effort of thinking of words and you can see places very efficiently. Having "done" Grand Rapids we proceeded to the Great Lake, "Lake Michigan", appropriately named in a Grandma Moses kind of way.

Lake Michigan is magnificent. It's like an ocean. Miles and miles of water, or as a real American would say, a "big bunch of water". The third largest of the Great Lakes (Lake Superior,Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario), Lake Michigan has a combined surface area larger than the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire.

Taken from car using Google's G1 - not bad!

By the time we got to where Lake Michigan joins Lake Huron, connected by the Mackinac Bridge (the third longest suspension bridge in the world) we were laked-out, and so after only four days on the road, we drove back across the bridge towards Detroit on the lake (Huron) coastal road.

The lake landscape changed from being Lake Michigan on the left to Lake Huron on the left.

Jo commented on the barns, which coming from Australia and Europe, he'd never seen. We have "sheds" in OZ, and in Europe the barns have a different shape. I love the American barns. They are straight out of the comic books of my childhood. I always expect to see Huey, Dewy and Louie quacking out of them, in their Disney kind of way.

We'd seen plenty of red barns and lakes, inlets and lakes and bays, orchards, blueberry bushes, and had eaten well.

Fish Take Out and Market, Michigan

Our last dinner meal was a take-out and I can vouch that there's nothing like this in Manhattan! Jo bought some smoked fish. I stayed in the car and took some photos.

We had our last Michigan breakfast in a diner. It was a Sunday and the place was packed with Midwestern churchgoers.

"Why did you choose to vacation in Michigan?" one of the friendlier ones asked, obviously bemused.

"Oh," my husband answered. "It's my wife you see. She does things in an odd way. Last trip she chose Galveston and when I asked her why, she told me it was because of the song. This time she heard about the unemployment in Michigan and thought it's be a good place to go to."

Friendly Midwesterners in Diner

The Midwesterners just smiled in their Midwestern kind of way. I gave my husband a mean look, in my New York kind of way...

The following day we awoke to news of GM filing for bankruptcy. A fitting end to our Michigan adventure. It sort of sewed it up into a bundle with a beginning and a middle and an end.

My English teachers at school always insisted that a good story is composed of a beginning, a middle and an end.

I started this Letter from New York with a comment about the American English language and so, Mrs Rascha, if you are still of this world, please note. I am ending with a comment on American English - AND a picture.

The vacation was truly awesome - in a Grandma Moses American kind of way.

The Charlie Brown Syndrome

Peter: Wendy? One girl's worth more than 20 boys.
Wendy: You really think so?
Peter: I live with boys, the lost boys, they are well named!
Wendy: Who are they?
Peter: Children who fall out of their prams when the nurse is not looking. If they are not claimed in seven days, they are sent to the Neverland.
Wendy: Are there girls too?
Peter: Girls are much to clever to fall out of their prams.
- Movie script, Peter Pan (2003)

At the beginning of Lisa Genova's excellent novel Still Alice the husband of Alice, the protagonist cannot find his reading glasses. Alice finds them.

"He stood in the doorway, looking at the glasses in her hand but not at her.

'Next time try pretending a you're a woman while you look,' said Alice, smiling.

'I'll wear one of your skirts, Ali, please, I'm really late.'" (Still Alice)

I wonder - is it true that women are innately better at multi-tasking than men? Or is it a learned ability, learned during our child-raising days when we breast feed while reading while working out what to cook for dinner?

Certainly it is the common perception by women, that the females of our species are superior multi-taskers. And along with the idea that male humans can only concentrate on one thing at a time, is the image of the male child as being more innocent and trusting than his sisters. Just look at Charlie Brown. And Linus. And their tormentor, Lucy van Pelt.

The little girl in the photo (above) is one of the many Lucys I've come across. Look at the way she's peering at the small boy, her very stance shouts condescension, it is as if he's not quite human. She regards him as she would a cute puppy.

Are we women responsible for men's comparative naivety? Do men escape to man-places like "Home Depot" and man-caves as places of refuge from the sharp tongues and wily ways of women? Do DIY home renovation supply stores owe their success to the Wendys', the Lucys', the Alices' and Tinkerbells' influences on the Lost Boys, Charlie Browns, Christopher Robins and Peter Pans of this world? I think so.

When my son was very small I tried to see the world from his little boy view. It was a scary place, populated by an older sister ("I'm glad she's not a twin!" he told me when he was barely two), witches and super heroes. Perhaps the real problem with the fantasy creatures that populate a child's imagination, is that the female ones are all too believable, whereas the male ones - the super heros are completely over-the-top and obviously "pretend".

This was brought home when at two and a half my son suddenly took a stand and refused to visit his grandmother. When the car would come to a stop outside her house he'd cling frantically to his car seat and scream. We didn't have the heart to take him inside and we'd turn the car around and leave. It took many weeks before I got to the bottom of his dread. He'd recently heard the story of Snow White and because my mother had been in the habit of giving the grandchildren shiny polished red apples he'd become convinced that she was a witch.

I, of course, took great pleasure in informing her of this discovery. "It is because he thinks you are a witch," I explained straight-faced on the phone.

Ah! The joys of being a grown-up daughter! I smiled my Lucy smile ...

Tot-mom, Octomom and now the Beer Mat Mum

Americans are so creative when it comes to English; they don't have the British hang-ups of grammar and accepted usage. Personally I find it refreshing.

If there isn't an existing single word for something, they just make one up. Take the relatively recent '-mom' suffix for example.

With recent spate of newsworthy mothers or 'moms', the media has taken to circumvent describing the mother in question by her name (too forgettable) or by a clause (too hard), by suffixing "mom" to the object of her notoriety.

So instead of 'Casey Anthony, mother of murdered toddler Caylee', we have "tot-mom". See the Google results for tot mom and Nancy Grace who I think coined the term.

Then there's "Octomom" for Nadia Suleman who recently gave birth to octuplets, giving her a total of 14 children to raise single-handedly.

To have the suffix "-mom" applied is obviously a BAD THING. And until this week it was an AMERICAN BAD THING.

But now Australians have their own suffix of -mom, or -mum to give the Australian spelling.

Suddenly I am a proud Aussie! Australia, land of (and what other country could lay claim to such fame?) the Beer-Mat-Mum.

Crickey! And yes Crickey has hit the nail on the head when it describes Beer-Mat-Mum - Annice Smoel's - publicity seeking over an incident in Thailand. As Crickey put it, the Australian media had a field day with the story of Annice Smoel's arrest in Thailand for allegedly stealing a beer mat in a bar in the tourist resort of Phuket. After she was caught red-handed she tried to bribe the policeman and later verbally abused the local police chief. Or so the story goes ...

Suddenly Ms Smoel was everyone's idea of an Aussie mum. One could almost see her in a Meadow Lea margarine ad, giving her four cute Aussie kids a wholesome after school snack. An innocent abroad, a traumatized Ms Smoel - now identifies with drug-runner Schapelle Corby. I suppose she has a point. After all, they both claimed that the items in question (in Corby's case, Marijuana) were placed in their bags by others.

Ms. Smoel is out of jail now. She ended up getting a $40 fine and has left Thailand. But that's not enough. She intends to get her revenge. She'll not be eating Thai food at her homecoming dinner. That'll show those nasty Thais. How dare they have their own laws and refuse bribes!

Beer-Mat-Mum obviously thinks it's just fine to travel abroad to a sovereign nation, to disrespect its laws and to attempt to bribe it's police. That the Australian media encourages such bad manners is lamentable.

Does Beer-Mat-Mum really think she behaved well? Would the press have been so sympathetic had she not been white blond and reasonably attractive? Would the Prime Minister of Australia offered comments if the misdemeanor had occurred in the United States?

I've seen ugly Australians abroad in Asian counties. I've seen Australian women boast about going into Balinese temples when they are menstruating. I've seen how Australian oafs treat Asian women. I've also seen ugly Americans and ugly French. And no doubt, ugly Thais. But the fact is that I am Australian and I can't help feeling in some way accountable.

Shame on you Beer-Mat-Mum. You have disgraced your country. Yep Ms Beer Mat, you certainly f*cked up in Phuket.

On dropping out of trees

About one hundred years ago I knew a young woman in Australia who, amongst other things, used to drop out of trees.

Her name was Zen - well that was the name she called herself - her real name being something traditional like Heather or Susan. Zen did other things apart from dropping out of trees. Like posing on a stage in a deserted RSL hall, a stage empty of all props except for three shiny river stones, and Zen herself of course. Standing next to the rocks Zen would pose, adopting a Japanese Geisha posture, face powdered white with a little red mouth lipsticked over her generous Australian one. Zen had long bright red hair. The effect was unnerving. But then, there'd be only one or two of us in the audience, the rest of the world being blissfully oblivious to Zen's performance art.

The falling-out-of-a-tree thing involved a different costume - that of a Raggedy Anne doll. Zen's hair would be done up in two red plaits tied at the ends with pink and yellow polka-dotted bows. She'd wear a blue dress with a big red sash tied at the pack by another bow. There were bows on her patent leather shoes and bows on the white organdy apron. Zen truly looked like a rag doll.

Zen chose her venues with a caution that was somewhat out of character compared with the persona that she perceived herself to be. She chose university campuses rather than public parks. Undergraduates being more likely to forgive being given the fright of their lives when an apparently lifeless body dressed in ribbons and bows drops from above in front of them.

Because of course, having dropped, Zen would just lie there, perfectly still, limbs akimbo, eyes wide open staring lifelessly straight ahead.

Man leaning on tree, 2nd Avenue

I've lost contact with Zen. I never even hear about her. She appears to have dropped off the face of the earth. Perhaps literally, making one giant Zen-step forward, graduating from trees to our very own planet Earth. These days I rarely think of her, remembering her today for the first time in years, when I passed this sorry fellow on my way to breakfast. I circled him twice, trying to work out what the matter with him was. He didn't seem drunk, and I wondered why he didn't go and lie down on one of the many benches in the square.

Skateboarder with peal necklace, 2nd Avenue

Of course there are many strange sights to be seen in New York. Just a few weeks ago, not one hundred metres from where the man was leaning against the tree this morning, a skateboarder happily posed for me in his happy tshirt. And lest you think ho-hum, what's so odd about that, note that he is wearing a pearl necklace. And last night on my way home from work, a man got on the Second Avenue bus wearing fishnet stockings and shorts made out of gold lurex, a hounds tooth jacket - the sort one imagines being worn by Welsh English professors sitting in armchairs in front of wood fires in stone cottages, and a top hat. Such bizarre sights are commonplace here - and hence the saying, "Only in New York".

But it isn't true. It isn't only in New York. Well maybe it is, but then the people who say that have never been dropped on from above by a girl named Zen.

The Three of Us

I'm planning a trip to Sweden.

It's fun. It's been years since I've ventured abroad and this trip has fallen in my lap, so to speak. My friend Alice invited me. Alice in New York.

An apartment-bound Sunday. "Wanna go to Sweden?", asked Alice, "Great", I replied. And we worked it all out. Continental Airlines. Sometime in July.

"Where shall we stay?" I asked Alice. "Oh,with my sister", she answered. Alice's family is Chinese and Alice is Australian, though like me she lives in New York. Her sister is married to a Swede, hence the trip.

Two days later and I'm in my office. The phone rings. I pick up. "It's me, Alice", comes the caller's answer. "Oh hi", I begin, only to be drowned out by Musak. I'm on hold.

Now I've called companies and been put on hold, but I've never had someone call ME and put me on hold.

Intrigued, I wait. At last I hear a sound. But not a sound I expected. The sound of giggling girls. What was this?

"Oh hello", I hear. Two voices in unison. Two Chinese voices. Memories of ... "We are Siamese if you please; we are Siamese if you don't please". But these are Chinese voices - if you please. Images of young Chinese girls giggling behind fans.

"Excuse me," I say. "I've been put on hold before but ... " And the giggles increase. Obviously something is extremely hilarious. I picture Chinese girls, eyes peeping out over delicate 'King and I" fans of 50 years ago. "Excuse me", I say again, feeling rather large and Western. "This is me and who are you?"

Shrieks of tinsely laughter. "Hello", they answer in unison. "Can we help you?"

"You called me!!!" I explain - losing it.

And suddenly the conversation takes on a tone of reality.

"You come to Sweden? I am Alice! Yes", one titters - "Alice told me. tee-hee-tee" (memories of Pearl Buck and "The Good Earth" - or ...)

It turns out that both sisters are called Alice.

"This is confusing," I murmur, forgetting where I was and searching for the shiraz.

"Oh no", they chorus. "Please call me Fay". "Which one?" I ask, "The laughter and the giggles stifle any response.

Alice, Fay, whoever. I am sure we'll have a lot of fun in Sweden. I just have to work out my own name.

I'm inclining to "Pearl", but who knows

Half a Glass of Poison

"You are a cynical crapehanger who always sees the glass half-empty!"
"No, you're wrong. I see the glass half full, but of poison."
- Woody Allen, Scoop 2008

There are few things as annoying to me as the eternal optimist. "She'll grow out of it." "Things are looking up." "Look at the butterflies."

Throughout my life - at every stage, I've had to live with inane comments - from optimists.

When I was young, it didn't really worry me. Things don't really "matter" when one is young. "It'll be better when you have a job," maiden aunts would tell me when I'd had to give up university because my mother couldn't pay the fees and my dad was an alcoholic non wage-earner Trotskyite in New Zealand. Sure. I went with it.

But I was so much older then", as Bob Zimmerman explains. "I'm younger than that now."

And so now, I'm sorry, but I'm not so tolerant when it comes to dealing with optimists. Or ... let me qualify that ... with selective optimists. For it seems to me that the so-called optimists are not optimistic about everything - only about things that effect others.

I have a friend of over one quarter of a century. When I met her I was wandering in a park. The park was not far from where I lived. The locals called it "MacArthur Park". But no one left any cake out in the rain. We were too poor to eat cake and Eddie Izzard of Izzard of "Cake or Death" was merely a future glint in his daddy's eye.

The would-be-friend saw me in the park and invited me to her house for afternoon tea. I accepted and crossed the road to her place, where upon I was led into her dining room. Of sorts. There I saw a number of people (12?) arranged around long table. Visions of da Vinci's "Last Supper". On the table was an impeccably starched and ironed linen table-cloth. Later I was to discover she was Ukrainian.

In the centre of the table-cloth was a very small silver tea-pot. It would have held perhaps, one cup. I didn't turn it over, for obvious reasons. But had I, I am certain it would have read, "Property of Victorian Railways". Seated at the table there were 12 people, 12 cups. And matching saucers..

I sat down and stared. As impractical as I was, and how much more impractical can one be, than an Arts student in 1968 at the University of Melbourne? - I could not imagine how that little silver teacup could serve 12+ people.

My to-be-friend however, was not to be defeated. She, in her Annie Hall clothes (several years before Annie Hall ever walked upon the silver screen), shrugged, looked innocent, held the tiny teapot up, and with a Marilyn Monroe smile, looked convincingly helpless.

It was on that day that I learned how to be a woman.

Decades have passed and we are in another century. The optimism of the tea cup has paled. I think of those dreadful books and films - the YaYa Sisterhood, the Denim Pants Society , the Traveling T-shirt Pumpkin Letter Writers. My god. But at the core of their assinity there's a certain - je ne sais quoi. And I'm not going there.

The teacup. The optimism. The impracticality.

Thing have changed. My friend and I have moved on. But I've not mastered the art of pessimistic optimism. To me the tea-cup is neither full or empty. It's just a tea cup.

But my friend... Well, there's the rub.

"Hello", I'll say on the phone. "How's things?"

"Oh", she'll answer. "My daughter, well blah, blah, blah... She had a headache and dropped a pen What will I do?"

"Half yer luck", I might respond. "Mine's on heroin and ice and has overdosed. She's preggers, has no $$ and her boyfriend is a wife basher. Plus all her teeth were knocked out and she's been arrested".

"Oh, but she's smart and she'll grow out of it I'm sure," says my friend. "But my daughter X my God her boyfriend just won film producer of the year and she's jealous. So neurotic. What shall I do?"

"Have a cup of tea out of that silver teacup", I want to say. But I can't.

Instead I commiserate. "Yes that's SO bad. How long has this been going on?" I ask. "How DO you cope. Blah blah".

And pour myself a cup of tea.

The poison can come later.

Smile, You're on Second Avenue

Store front, Upper East Side

Let's see a smile on your face", he said in the way of New Yorkers; friendly but remote, intimate yet distant. You can say almost anything to a fellow New Yorker. No need of introduction. We are all family here. And like members of a real family, we keep our distance. People sitting next to each other on a New York bus, might chat about a movie they've both seen, the joys of grand-motherhood, the stockmarket, only to alight stops apart, never to see each other again.

So I answered my fellow New Yorker with smile, and he smiled back.

"Now where was I? Oh yes, on the place marked "B" on the map to the right. I'd just had a rather late brunch at our excellent neighborhood restaurant Nina's, and was walking north along Second Avenue about 300 meters to the local UPS store.

Before setting out for brunch, I'd decided to take a few photos. The weather was warm, verging on a muggy hot. It'd be good to take some pics before summer set in. So instead of walking along in a Mahattan daze, I was looking at the stores, or more correctly, at the places where the stores used to be, as my latest fad in photography is shop facades. When I get the urge to photograph it's always in themes. A few years ago it was billboards and I recently started manhole covers.

Now I know that times are hard, but I hadn't realized how depressed our neighbourhood had become. From B to A on the Google map clip above - in less than 0.2 miles - a desolation row ... storefront upon storefront of closed-up businesses.I dont remember what stores used to be here ...

Or here

But this used to be a pub - "The Big Easy"

"They're selling postcards of the hanging They're painting the passports brown The beauty parlor is filled with sailors The circus is in town" (Dylan)

"Here comes the blind commissioner They've got him in a trance One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker The other is in his pants And the riot squad theyre restless They need somewhere to go As lady and I look out tonight From desolation row" (Dylan)

There used to be a trendy deli here; baskets of shiny red apples and tables and chairs for the coffee drinkers ... I must have a photo of it ... somewhere.

At least this looks a bit artistic ... images of Mondrian?

And now we are back to where we started.


I've come to the end of my 300 metre walk.

Yes it looks as if New York is falling down. But it's not, you know. Far from it. And that is one of the many things I love about New York. And New Yorkers.

We might be down, but we are never out. And as my weekend draws to a close, I'll remember my friend from this afternoon; I'll put a smile on my face.

Saturday Solitude

Construction on 2nd Avenue

This minute it is Saturday in Manhattan. It is almost Sunday in England, and it is Easter Sunday in Australia. I sit quietly at my desk, alone in an apartment on the Upper East Side. Many would envy me. Or would imagine that they should. Don't get me wrong. I love my apartment. And I love Manhattan. And often, I enjoy being alone. But at times it can be alienating. The aloneness. The New Yorkness. The empty weekendness. I live on the Upper East Side. Walking distance from Central Park, but not close enough to experience its serenity.

And for the past year and a half there's been construction going on around the apartment building. The City is building a Second Avenue subway and it will pass directly under 245 East 93rd Street where I live. The air outside is alive with the sounds of jack-hammers, drills, cranes, motors and the honkings of car-horns as impatient New York motorists express their frustration at the detours and disruptions.

Inside the apartment it's peaceful. Back from shopping I put flowers on a bookshelf, in an attempt to brighten the weekend. In doing so I remember a line from a book I'm reading. "When you live alone, your furnishings, your possessions, are always confronting you with the thinness of your existence. You know with painful accuracy the provenance of of everything you touched and the last time you touched it." - Zoe Heller's What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal. I've seen the movie but only just started reading the novel, and that is because I recently chanced upon the excellent writings of Zoe Heller.

Last week I read Heller's The Believers which unlike Notes on a Scandal is uplifting as well as droll.

But back to Heller's "thinness" of experience. Is my existence "thin"? I don't think so. And unlike the protaganist of "Notes on a Scandal", I don't exactly live alone. In a few weeks jps will be back, the apartment will be strewn with papers, the place will light up with smells of real food being cooked with care, and there'll be a comforting disorder to contend with.

Sometimes I envy people who have equilibrium in their lives. People who live in houses full of people coming and going at a consistent pace. An evenness to their lives. On Sundays the rellies come over. On Saturdays shopping with the daughter-in-law. Pottery classes on Thursdays. Saturday evenings, dinner with friends. Timetabled diversity.

My life has never been even. It's either one thing or the other. Noisy construction or daffodils on bookshelves. Chaotic work weeks interspersed with weekends of solitude. Life as a single woman periodically interrupted by a noisy husband flying in from life on a ship in a cyclone ravished sea.

Once I was married to a hermit with eclectic taste in music. The eclecticism was fair enough, but his weekly selection of albums to play was disconcerting to put it mildly. Looking back I should have probably have seen a danger signal the first time I found him "planning" the next week's music ...

Every Sunday night he'd compose a list of what to play the following week. He had some weird system involving random numbers used to sequence the various albums based on their ISBN numbers. Whenever he was home there was music. I'd hear Lou Reed's heroin angst Transformer followed by Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major. "Why don't you just play what you feel like?" I'd ask. "Then it wouldn't seem so disjointed and unnerving". His reply - "Oh but all the albums need their turn. Otherwise it wouldn't be fair."

We didn't say "Whatever" in the seventies, or I'm sure I would have. I don't remember what my reply was to his ridiculous explanation. And anyway, it was all my fault as my mother never tired of telling me. After all, I married him.

I recall the random record playing on days like today. As I sit in quiet and solitude, knowing that outside the air is full of that ever-present New York hum, and that in less than 48 hours my peace and aloneness will be abruptly and inevitably
shattered.

By another working week in New York.