a photo shoot from years back

He was the lifeguard at a local hotel pool where my family had a membership. 

I had just graduated high school and was looking forward to starting college. He had just completed his first year at the University of Rochester. He seemed so worldly. After all, he could quote Nietzche. Knew about existentialism. And drove a convertible sports car with a stick shift.

It was the summer of '69. I had tickets to Woodstock but never made it there. We watched the moon landing together. And I took a psychedelic drug with him for the first time ... among other memorable firsts.

When the summer ended, so too, did any kind of relationship we had. 

Still, sometime in the winter of my freshman year, I visited him at Rochester. He was into photography and I did some posing. It wasn't as memorable as the summer, as that is pretty much all I remember from my visit. That also may have been the last time we spoke.

But then, thanks to Facebook, a couple of years or so ago we reconnected. He had gone on to earn a PhD.  Married. Had kids. Moved to the West Coast.  And had a successful career in the sciences. 

Last week he sends me the photos I'd never seen from that long-ago photo shoot. When I first opened my email and saw this photo I honestly didn't recognize myself. I thought it was some ad for a horror movie where the heroine is screaming.

But when I saw the others I remembered.

Funny now to think that hair that long was pretty. Though I do miss the very long lashes and defined dark eyebrows I once had.

another little story of incompetence

One of the items on my post-vaccination to-do list is to get an Enhanced Driver's License.

I make an appointment and have to wait two months. When the date arrives, I follow the instructions mailed to me and bring my passport and current driver's license. 

I walk to a place in the West 30's.

It is clean and well-organized. And the wait is short. 

My number is called. I walk up to the window, hand over my completed forms and documentation, and am told that I also need my Social Security Card. That I did not bring. After some ineffective pleading on my part, I am told to come back when I have it. The very patient clerk gives me a green paper pass and tells me I can return the next day.

I do.

Armed now with the right documents, I have my picture taken, am asked if I want to add four years to my expiration date (sure, why not?), pay the $72.50, and am told I should receive my Enhanced License in about two weeks.

It arrives today. It is supposed to look something like this:

Instead, it looks like this:

It's an ID. 

An identification card. 

The most critical element of an ID is a clear and recognizable photo.

Didn't anyone at the DMV notice that the photo looks as if it were printed on a printer that had run out of toner? 

Or that there is no visible photo of me at all on the right?

Or maybe they just assumed I was a ghost. 

Imagine trying to board a plane with this as my ID. It's so bad it doesn't even look real.

So I call the DMV. Not an easy task.

20 or so endless prompts later, I am told the wait time is over 60 minutes. Or, I can leave my number and someone will call me back. Surprisingly they do.

I am told that unfortunately, I will have to go through the process again and have my photo retaken. The DMV rep assures me that I won't have to pay again. Well of course not I want to say.

 "I will connect you with someone now who can schedule you. Don't worry. It won't take long," he says.

Then he connects me to an automated voice and the whole process I originally went through starts again. A million prompts to get to a recording that tells me the wait is between 63 and 75 minutes. How does that fall into the category of it won't take long?

I leave my number and again, someone does call me back an hour later. At least that system works.

This time I speak to someone who gives me totally different information after she consults with her supervisor.  Now I'm told that the DMV rep cannot do any scheduling. Instead, I need to go to the DMV online site and email them explaining my problem and see what they recommend. UGH!

So I do that.

But then...

About ten minutes later I get a call back from the supervisor who originally had advised the clerk to tell me to write to the DMV. He is very nice and apologetic. He tells me that the information he previously gave was incorrect, and he, in fact, can schedule me. But, he cannot expedite things.

The next earliest appointment is June 23.

Addendum:

Called back today after my friend got an appointment for this week. And guess what? I now have an appointment for this Friday. 

a tiny love story

A modern love in miniature — that's what the New York Times calls its column. Submissions must be under a 100 words and can be about any type of love.

So I decide to submit. Not sure it'll get posted, but thought it was worth a try.

It was summer. A shared-house in Southampton. I met him there. He was 12 years younger. It didn’t matter. A summer fling, I thought. He was young, beautiful, and soulful. I should have anticipated the years of heartbreak that would follow. The acrimonious words we would have. The tears I would cry. But never would I have anticipated, nor traded, the meaningful relationship I would eventually develop with his parents. And his sister. Nor the magnificent son I would raise alone.

--------------------------------

The above photo was taken with Alexander on the Cape in 2015. 

The resemblance to his dad is strong.

another side of the city

When my nephew Jack was about 5, he visited NYC for the first time. Exiting the subway station at Times Square, Jack looked around and said, "This is what people think of when they think of New York."

Jack has always been an astute observer.

But there is a NY that people rarely think of when thinking of NY. 

Its beauty.

Its solitude.

And its relative serenity.

I am walking through the park and notice four young men. One is holding two cameras (a cell phone and a Nikon) and taking a photo of his three friends who are seated on a bench. They don't speak English all that well; tourists I think. I ask the one with the cameras if he wants to be in the picture too. He smiles, nods and hands me the cell phone.

I take a few pictures of the four men, then ask the original photographer if he wants me to take some photos of him and his friends with the other camera, the Nikon. He eagerly hands me that camera too.

I take a few shots. They appreciate the effort. I hand back the camera and continue my walk.

On my return, I pass the same four men in the same place, and near them is a couple.

"Excuse me," says the woman. "Are you a famous photographer?"

I laugh and tell her I'm not. "But I'm curious," I say. "Why would you ask that?" 

"You just looked so comfortable handling those cameras," she replies.

Maybe next walk I'll take my Nikon. I haven't used it in a while. 

And there's a lot of beauty coming back to the city these days.

young men

A wise principal at my son's elementary school was giving a talk. In it, she said something about being a parent. "It's forever like having your heart walk around outside your body."

When Alexander lived at home, I could never fall asleep until he was back at home safely. He never understood that my wanting him home at a reasonable hour had more to do with my being able to get a decent night's sleep than with setting some arbitrary curfew.

When my son decided to play football in high school I was more than a little grateful that his football team was not very good. And, he played cornerback so he rarely (if ever) got tackled.

When my son went off to college I no longer had that worry, though many other ones replaced it. 

And when Alexander decided to buy a car this past summer, I found a brand new big worry. Forget the fact that he never really drove before, despite getting his license in 2011. Will he be focused? Will he be smart? Will he ignore his phone? And what about all those other drivers? Even writing about all the unpleasant possibilities makes me anxious.

Recently two good friends of mine lost their twenty-something-year-old sons. Utterly heartbreaking. It is a vulnerable time in a young man's life, and all the decisions they make can, and sometimes do, have dire consequences.

There are so many things that can go wrong. Freak accidents. Close calls. Poor outcomes of questionable actions. Bad luck. Risky behavior. I look back on my own life and think of all the stupid things I've done, and feel lucky that the results were never that grave.

A few weeks ago, unbeknownst to me, Alexander and a good friend make plans to go South Beach for a few days. Yes, that South Beach. In Miami.

Did I want him to go? Of course not. Does he listen to me? Of course not.

He arrives home safely early this morning. So no arrests, at least. Now I have to worry for two weeks to see if he brought back with him any unwanted virus.

But Alexander had a great time. "Maybe the best four days of my life," he tells me. My son is happy. So of course I'm happy too.

a new post office strategy

With trepidation I write this post; here's why. 

In talking to a friend recently, he said, "I don't think you realize how entertaining your blog is." And I knew, from the way he said it, that this was not a compliment. 

He went on, "You're like an east coast female Larry David." 

Don't get me wrong, I love Larry David. But he is a cranky, curmudgeon-like person who continually annoys everyone around him.

"No, really," my friend continued. "It's not a bad thing. You just see something wrong and say something, while most people just think it."

So that's the background to today's little story about my local post office.

I am at the PO a couple of weeks ago and see that they have created two lines. All lead to the same row of two to three postal clerks. Kind of like most banks. But the addition of a second line is different from the one-line system that has been in effect forever.

I can't remember what line #1 is even supposed to be for, since lIne #2 covers every possible scenario of postal services. As a result, everyone is in one line.

Some random woman walks in and boldly goes to the line where no one is waiting. She is there to mail a package — same as everyone in the line I am in.  When I point this out to her, she ignores me and is called next.

I ask the sullen PO clerk the rationale for the new two-line system since the two signs are totally unclear.  She gives me an answer that is also unclear.  It is too early in the day to argue.

So this week when I go to the PO I see they are back to one line. Except it's labeled line #2 and there is no line #1.

When I finally get to a window I ask. "Why have a line #2  if there is no line #1?"

"Because we might bring line #1 back." That's the answer I get. 

I silently wonder what services are offered for line #1 since it looks like line #2 has them all covered.

Some things just aren't worth trying to figure out, and this has to be one of them.

finally, dinner out in NYC

February 24, 2020. 

A group of us meet to have dinner in celebration of Shari's birthday. I had no idea at the time that this would be my last dinner out, in NYC, for a very long time. 

Tonight, 13 months later, I meet a couple of friends for dinner at a real restaurant.  It's going to be a mini-birthday celebration. I feel as excited as Jimmy Fallon was last night, when he performed for the first time in over a year in front of a small, live audience.

My friends choose Quality Bistro because they know I love steak. They even do some fact-finding before we meet to insure that the outdoor dining set-up, and the restaurant overall, meet our unspoken criteria for staying safe. We are all vaccinated, but still uber cautious. 

Not only is this my first time out in forever, it's the first time I've worn shoes (ankle boots) other than sneakers in a very long time too. Or makeup. Or a non-T-shirt or sweatshirt. 

I am the first to arrive and am so impressed. I hope these kind of individualized structures are still up when COVID is something we are remembering and not still living.

Each sitting area feels like being in a private room of a nice restaurant.

The weather complies. No coats are needed.  And the heaters hidden under the benches we are sitting on keep us pleasantly warm. The food (snails and steak frites), the drinks, the service, the dessert, the company... all of it. Just perfect.