Originally posted 10.22.2004
There are only 10 days left in October, which sort of breaks my heart. It’s hard to feel the seasons in New York, as they all seem to butt up impatiently against each other. You can feel the air change around you, the temperatures, the changes in humidity. But you don’t smell the earth thawing in spring, or the sweet decay of leaves in the fall, or winter’s melt water, the slush in the gutters.
Jen and I are both recovering from The Cold That’s Going Around. Hers has turned into a sinus infection bordering on bronchitis, and the doctor she broke down and saw prescribed a round of antibiotics. Mine, about 10 days old now, is little more than a bit of unnecessary phlegm adding a degree of thickness to my voice. It crippled me last weekend, though, during the Staten Island Half-Marathon. Or should I call it now, the Emerald Nuts Staten Island Half-Marathon. Gotta love corporate sponsorship, Teutonicly lengthening the name of any event. I was a human snot rag, emptying my nose onto the pavement every 15 yards. Wretchedly disgusting; very unladylike. And I finished miserably. Slowed down 15, 30, 45 seconds per mile in the last three for my worst half-marathon time ever. I felt like an island standing still in a current as hundreds of runners slogged past me.
Three weeks till the marathon, and I can’t wait for it to be over. My little freelance stint at the Road Runners has ended, but I’m still working on a couple of articles for them. The latest has me interviewing streakers: runners who have completed an extraordinary number of consecutive New York City Marathons. They’re a fun bunch to interview, competitive and coo-coo; some have been all but disabled by their sport. They can’t stop, just keep going. One hasn’t missed a daily run in 12 and ½ years. Me? I can’t wait to stop running. I’ve got a coupon for a Bikram yoga studio in the Slope, a decent flat rate for as much yoga as I can do in one week, and that’s what I’m gonna do. Screw the bottomless hunger, the tight hamstrings, the exhaustion, the two-hour runs that prevent me from doing anything else on the weekend. One marathon, and never again.
I had a lesson with Jenny last week, first one in two months. We picked up where we left off, trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing wrong with my left hand. It’s a little demoralizing to have spent 20-odd years kissing that fiddle’s tailpiece, only to keep starting over again and again. The more discouraged I get with my technique, the less I want to play. Right now I’m just doing about a half-hour a day, and whatever else I can tease in while waiting for my Internet connection to establish itself. Last week, Tony came over and the three of us worked up some vocal harmonies for You Are My Sunshine and Wreck on the Highway. I can hit the high tenor on the latter, not that I would do so a capella.
As for romance, what can I say? I’m on the verge of considering trying to date, but I don’t want to leave my neighborhood. Married Park Slope. Married Lesbian Park Slope. How do you date when “what do you do?” is a loaded question? I don’t want to date, I want to have been married five years already, to be loyal and a little bored. It’s hard to imagine I’ll ever feel that sweep of romantic desire again, that knee-buckling rush. A perfectly nice, good looking, charming and funny young man who cooks quite well managed to finagle me into a too-late-night post-jam interlude: a cab ride home. He tried to kiss me repeatedly outside my door and I acted like a cat that doesn’t want to be held. Truthfully, I felt so annoyed and, in a very small way, violated, that it was all I could do not to shove him off the curb.
I guess when it’s not right, it’s just not right.
