utopia and so on

The Portrait of a New Yorker as a young dreamer (2)

2010-12-16T17:36:00.000-08:00

Miamo is a crazy Japanese character so in love with reggae music that he spends two weeks out of every year in Jamaica. He is known to be ready to sing a Japanese tune whenever he's challenged at any given time or place and he does it while dancing like a true Rastaman.

He has never had sushi in New York and he finds it impossible to describe Japanese New Years' food in English.

One of his hobbies is reading with a high degree of seriousness any English text including and especially grammar exercises. This is the only time when he becomes Japanesely solemn and that's when he's the funniest.

He's continuously looking for love in the very Italian way of the word.

His mind must be working in film images as his mouth speaks in screenplay cuts as follows:

"My ideal lover would be as ideal as a Coke when you're thirsty. She would love to cook for me, and sing for me and dance with me. After dinner she would wash dishes and I would wipe them thinking I am the happiest man alive."

The Portrait of a New Yorker as a young dreamer (1)

2010-12-15T17:16:00.000-08:00

Yaron born Israel has a master in Jazz music at the Conservatory in Haifa. Lived in Japan for three years working as a cook. He loves his wife, his jazz band and Sunday barbeque with friends.

He's my ipod's most reliable source of old, unbelievably hard to find music.

He married an Asian girl that my Albanian ex-co-worker thought to be black from a picture taken at their dream wedding in Hawaii despite his family discontent.

He was keeping this picture on his desk in the dusty warehouse he was managing. He was a warehouse manager that called himself a dispatcher studying to become a customs specialist while we were colleagues.

He has a Friday cult expressed in his favorite sayings:

"It's Friday and nobody can take that away from me"
"Every Wednesday morning while shaving I say to myself : This is the last time I am shaving before Friday"

One phrase musical treats!!

2010-07-02T13:28:00.001-07:00

The fact that I love all things Japanese is well known but seeing a 60 year old Japanese guy rocking a Lady Gaga song with an electric guitar in front of a cheering crowd of commuters on Brooklyn train station platform at 7.30 am is pure delight!

*******************************************
Late at night, when going back home after a tiring day, the best idea you can have is taking the longest way to the train, through Central Park, in the exactly the same night in which an obviously crazy guy thinks the best idea is to get his huge real size piano out in the center of the park for a short concert for friends. At night, Central Park is the center of universal cool...

Only in New York...

2010-06-25T06:40:00.000-07:00

By the time I first heard these words out loud, my mind must have screamed, whispered, sang them ever since I got here.
It was my first time at Tiffany's. I was never a big fan of formal earings and rings, I actually got there accidentally and sort of forced by a friend in need of an engagement ring ( yes, these kind of needs are considered normal to certain people).
I was impressed with the atmosphere and laughed a little too loud at some poor guys trying to get some piece of ring that will buy them a "yes".
However the unexpected part and the most unbelievable surprise came from the elevator attendant who was a one man show singing Dean Martin and Sinatra, reciting poems of love captivating us with a sort of magic power.
And when the doors opened, that's when he said "Only in New York, baby! Only in New York!!"

wonders from the days with no ipod

2010-05-23T17:07:00.000-07:00

A girl and a guy both probably somewhere in their late 20s were trying to arrange their hair in the train door glass at the same time.
The guy said to the girl: " Bad hair day, ha?"
The girl looks at him and smiles. " Thanks, I guess!" she said, still smiling an endless smile.
"Oh no", he said, "I meant... only for me. I wouldn't normally care but I have an interview in an hour."
"Don't worry you'll get it" she said not looking at him.
"It's funny" the guy said " I had the same conversation with my girlfriend an hour ago.She was mad I didn't tell her about the interview. And about the bad hair joke...I just don't get it... "
"Don't worry you'll get it" she said again looking straight at him as she rushed through the closing doors.

Romantic era

2010-01-30T09:39:00.000-08:00

I had one of the first Jane Austen moments that I can remember when I was about twelve.
My parents were building a house in the countryside and the living room was the only room with the wood floors installed so far. The floor was not even polished yet but my cousin and I thought it would be a good idea to transform the room into a ballroom. She brought in the cassette player with a very treasured cassette from Strauss the father and we danced waltz all afternoon, spinning around the room without even feeling any dizziness. I, for one, remember this as a very happy moment of my life. It was a time when there were no computers, the TV remote could only switch between two channels and we were spending our days reading Dumas. In those times all girls my age wanted to marry a prince and all boys our age wanted to build a rock fortress in the playground.
Few more than few years later, I hear young girls want to get bitten by vampires. Make no mistake though, it's not Bram Stoker's type of vampire, but a classy gentlemen no-fangs type of vampire that practices abstinence and reads Emily Bronte.Now that's scary!!!
All these thoughts were crossing my mind while I was in the subway few weeks ago. To my left an asian ten year old boy wearing cute glasses was reading Jane Austen's Perssuasion and to my right a forty-five year old woman was reading a novel called "Do me twice".I tried to figure out what would be the book that I should be reading to gain my right of staying in the middle of the time line between them. Sandra Brown maybe?Alain de Botton? Fowles?
Every now and then I go back and think of the fact that we are all chasing our childhood images over and over again and then I take a book I used to read back then and read it again. This time I took Persuasion as a first read trying to picture it as the little boy did...He may be laughed at by all his schoolmates but I might be on my way to discover what the "prince" really wants and where is he hiding when we grow to read the book that the lady was reading on the subway...

top chef

2009-10-24T12:38:00.000-07:00

I am not the world's worst cook!

I am the world's worst cook that's still trying perseveringly, getting worse every time while preparing elaborated dishes from Chinese non-cuisine to French pastry.

This would not make me feel so much on the "worst" side if my boyfriend were not this great creative genuine cook.
And if my mother would not literally be the greatest baking master of all times, while a perfect traditional cook as well.

Don't get me wrong, I can pull a soup or some other type of food anybody can get right.
It's just that I love cooking so much that my imagination is pushing me to attack all these mixtures that make sense in my mind but my execution is so amateurish and the result so bad that I cannot even force myself to eat it in my stubborn pursuit to show my boyfriend that it's a matter of taste.

Last night my boyfriend told me that my food was good (not delicious, just good) and asked me the chicken recipe.

It was not the first time hearing that but this time my soul felt that the most appropriate reaction would be a smile. It came out to be a wide one and he must have felt like he'd said something funny.

It all seemed to me like my father was telling my mother "I love you!" in an ancient way and I smiled again remembering... how my mother would always ask if the food was good and my sister and I would never understand why the food critique is so important. Only my father would say the food was good while watching my mother's reaction.

I may have over the top culinary ambitions because of my love for cooking but it's not all that it is...I feel now that it's all related to my struggle of becoming the woman that was implanted in me while I was a child.

And I know that next time I'll eat my mother's food I'll say it's good out loud.

School Small Talk

2009-09-23T06:31:00.000-07:00

Charles, the English Teacher Ambassador of School Advisers is the master of small talk.He tries his tricks on students that come to see him for schedule adjustment after vacation.
He looks me in the eye but he seems disturbed by the object in my hands:
" What book is that?" he starts his "talk" show.
I show him the cover, he tries to read.
" Dostoievski!" he whispers in perfect astonishment."You read Dostoievski in English?!? he asks and his British poisoned voice raises in some sort of disapproval. " I didn't read Dostoievski, always planned to start of course but never got to it..."
"Ok, let me see what classes are available for you" he continues visibly disturbed by the defeat his troops suffered on my territory. "I was planning to put you in Creative Writing, but not this time. What about some Grammar classes?"he asks enjoying every little sound of the G word knowing that my troops got stuck with "If clauses" instead of answering "What If " essay questions.
"And I thought I was insecure"I couldn't help but whisper."About Grammar!"I added for damage control when he looked at me and I felt that worse than Grammar is only 18 weeks of Grammar, the triple lethal dose prescribed for hopeless cases that dare to read books advisers didn't get to.

Movies in my head

2009-09-02T13:26:00.000-07:00

Yes, Dear Mr. young over-fitted Abercrombie model wearing over- elaborated jeans almost glamorous in their casualness, we know you might be thinking in your presumable over the board childish-over-complex mind that your fine innocent looks will sell the organic pecans you're trying to sell.
Oh no, my dear, you're wrong, I'll come closer only to taste the organic taste of your perfume...and maybe a pecan, it's organic! It tastes bitter but I'll find a way to forgive you because you're young and still from the Country of Bliss and you don't know the knowings that I know...
Later on, when you'll own an empire, in a seminar about Sales Techniques, when asked about your beginnings, you'll smile and wonder why your first pitches brought you nowhere although your looks were highly articulate.The audience will laugh. You'll go on telling them about a sad woman (yes, you'll say I was sad, of that I'm sure) with a pessimistic eastern accent that you will try to imitate. The audience will laugh again.
You'll think you still got it. That charisma of your first pitch.
My son will be in the audience, worshiping you, dreaming about pecans.He will make plans and give them names and cut their wings with his fears. He'd had been taught that life is hard and risk is risky.
He'll be tormented with the same disease you've infected me with just now. With that dream we know it's a dream with no wings to fly...
You'll be still young and still from the Country of Bliss...

Mon amour

2009-08-18T08:30:00.000-07:00

Yes. That much I love coffee. Just walked 4 blocks in the killing humid heat to get a coffee.Hot coffee. Real coffee.French.
Don't get me wrong, there is coffee everywhere in New York. Americana. Watery.Iced.
I drink it if I have to. Running coffee makes life sprint. Fast coffee for everyone. That's coffee in America - a drink more common than water with an over roasted caffeine diluted milk taste that's so sweet it might wake you up.For about one or two hours.By that time, you need your second gallon of diluted sweet coffee not because you miss the caffeine but because the sugar calls you back where you belong, in the "Slave for Sweet" land.
Now, where I come from, coffee takes a little bit more time to do, a whole lot of time to drink and it makes life flow easily, carelessly, creamily...
That's why I went for real coffee to the french coffee shop, where the french guy that makes my cappuccino knows almost no English but he makes a tiny cup of creamy wonder that contains about thirty minutes of my personal happiness. I do not have money for his tip - they make expensive things, this French magicians- but I have my amazingly broken French in the pocket.
I tell him how my boyfriend lately spoils me with French music in the car when we return from work on Friday nights. I tell him about Charles Aznavour and Mireille Mathieu and Notre Damme de Paris musical.He's young. He might not know any of these.
I get a feeling that I would really seem annoying to him if we were in Paris in the same circumstances but here he smiles a wide smile of gratitude. He says "Thank you" I say "Merci".
Coffee beats globalization!

prophets will be p(r)o(ph)ets

2009-08-14T08:21:00.000-07:00

Last winter, I was still a "happy"-go-lucky New Jersey commuter.
I remember I used to see Jose every morning in front of the train station exercising his sales skills while handing us the "Metro".
"Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the most beautiful train station in the world.
My name is Jose and I ask you to remember:
you are not where you are! you are in Hawaii, on the beach, on vacation! Enjoy your day dreaming!!!"
And he would add on Mondays:" today is not Monday because Friday is running to replace it. Friday's around the corner, madam!
And people would smile and forget they're freezing and take the paper and go be happy as advised.
This character that weirdly enjoyed his small money job deserves a best salesmen prize only because of putting effort into "selling" a product that was not for sale.
One of those street people that carry life metaphors in their pockets.
Jose disappeared on a Monday when I was probably too cold to notice. I only realized he's gone one day in spring when a sad lady came to replace him. The "sales" didn't drop for sure but I couldn't help but wonder in which part of NY was Jose exercising his pitch now.
Yesterday I saw Jose in the train giving a speech in Spanish to a young lady, most probably his 13 yo daughter: "Margarita, la vida no es como un sueno, mi vida! La vida es un carnaval triste que te hace llorar...".He said more but faster and in a low voice and it all seemed to me like an encouragement more than an advice but the girl kept her eyes set on the ground.
Few more phrases and she raised her head, put on the i-pod earplugs and let the tears come out of her beautiful eyes...
It seems to me that Jose's philosophy says that happiness can only be promoted and injected into large groups by the poetry of fantasy.
Sadness remains to be given individually, portioned in slow tears and needs to be tasted as bitter piece of advice in loneliness.

on getting drunk and moving furniture

2009-08-10T11:04:00.000-07:00

Last week on Wed, my bf and I drank almost two bottles of Shiraz in between arguments on politics, history, cultural differences a.s.o. My head was spinning while my mind was fighting arguments. Mind connection makes soul passion-full.
Love is when having an argument is better than watching TV.
Try this, after all, friendship is still the highest level of longtime love.
I also recommend to give yourselves a love project: try to move together a ridiculously big piece of furniture out of the room and of the house through the stairs, in front of the building.
Screaming, crying, yelling, laughing, abusive use of words with bad fame are all allowed.
Sure side effects: serious back pain.
Possible outcome: the piece of furniture will be destroyed at parts
Probable outcome: a funny memory of something that you hope to never have to do again
Things to reflect upon: Why don't they move furniture in the movies?

Street pick up lines

2009-08-03T06:36:00.000-07:00

9 am this morning, 36th st and 7 Ave, Manhattan.
Tall beautiful women walks agitated heading probably to her work place.
Hispanic construction worker tries to walk next to her at the same speed while munching on his bagel.
"Mi vida, you are bonita like a movie star!" he says in her direction.
She tries to walk faster but silent rejection doesn't really seem to work on him.
"So, you think you're better than me, ha?"and he stops right in front of her.
"Actually" she says"I am better than you because when I look in the mirror I know I could never have Brad Pitt or this guy" and she pointed to a man in his late 30s, the Wall Street business man type.
The Wall Street guy smiles. I think to myself "Here is how the fairy-tale starts in the land of opportunity. He's a successful guy, she's a beautiful women- destiny! ".
And he says, without stopping, to the construction guy:
"She has a point, man!"
His "point" was pointed to somebody else...

technology knows coincidence and fate

2009-08-01T16:01:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time I had my Yahoo password set up as "pointless".
One sunny day I entered the Yahoo site to see my email and a question in big bold letters was asking: "Is your Yahoo password pointless?"
My heart stopped for a second or two and then I laughed for a second or two and then I said "yes" to myself and clicked the question.
I read the article and decided not to change the password.
Later on, I did changed it with a word they advised that the password should be like.
Just to see how much coincidence is there, in e-life...
Further on to check: fate!

The real trouble with being 30

2009-08-01T12:41:00.000-07:00

So I heard that it is expected of women when turning 30 to become more confident, less irresponsible , a little bit sexier when annoyed and very frank on maternal and material issues if I may...

And I heard that if you are a single woman turning 30, you should prepare yourself to come up with smart answers when mother asks that annoying " why aren't you married like Lucy" whoever Lucy might be and to come up with smart lines when you dare ( mind : "dare" not "dream"!) to ask a guy out, whoever that guy might be even if you know too well that he's gonna let you down because your expectations are higher than what's expected of you and so on...

I am not quite single although that doesn't really save me from my mother and not yet thirty although I cannot turn and say "Ooops I barely missed the age group so I don't care" and this is the way I wellcome number 30 of my years:
I am almost 30 and I still read 16 on the others' faces when I enter the meeting room at work or at any other conference work related thing.
I am almost 30 and I still hear that "Oh she is so educated and highly professional for her age!" which by their faces sets me to the under 23 ignorant bliss.
I am almost 30 and even though I show my ID to the Big Man at the Deli, I still have to beg for the Corona that's not for me, it is not a to die for drink and let's face it now: how drunk could I get from that if I were 21?
I am almost 30 and when I look in the mirror it feels as if I were a gray haired 21 yo drinking a Corona.But that's only for a second because I pretend to know myself better, fortunatelly....

I'll be 30 in 3 days and never had time ((to) thank God!!!) or blog to dramatize about it but if I am not going to laugh at myself who will (not).