If a relationship is a sunny day, the breakup is a thunderstorm. Afterwards, the sky is cloudy, leaves and branches clutter the streets, and a cold wind blows. The clearing up of this scene can take some time; I’d give it a few months, or even, if it was a stormy story to start with, twice the length of the relationship itself. (It’s something to keep in mind.)
But eventually you get to a point of equilibrium. Your bittersweet – or just bitter – feelings have more or less been put to bed, your body adjusts to its renewed singleness (ahem), and you embrace your routine and daily life. It’s a peaceful place to be, actually. No one to answer to, and open possibilities.
But somewhere in the back of your head, there’s the nag. It won’t come at first. But if you haven’t found someone else a year (and there are lonely lapses throughout that year) after breaking up, the seeds of hysteria start to sprout. OK, I shouldn’t speak generally. Maybe just for those of us ladies who are approaching a certain age…
Anyway, in some ways, I’m now enjoying this calm between boyfriends. There’s some lonesomeness, but it’s a bit of space to refocus, think about my work and my future for a while. (As if I never stopped thinking about those things even ONCE when I was involved!) I’m just young enough to believe that I needn’t consign myself to spinsterhood, but old enough to know how to go about finding someone, and to understand my feelings.
I’ve learned that I know the kind of rapport I’ll have with a person the instant I lay eyes on them. I accepted a job two years ago even though I had a bad feeling about my boss-to-be. For the first eight months of the job I would be her punching bag. Many jobs ago I met my beautiful colleague, who didn’t return my smile. We wouldn’t work especially well together, but our friendship continues to this day. And a blinking young man with a classic haircut, whose eyes grew wide when he first saw me, he would be a lover for a while. Unfortunately, my clairvoyance has its limits, and seems particularly strong only in retrospect. That boss nearly killed me with stress, that boyfriend made me feel lower than low.
In a favorite short story of mine, the narrator describes the moment she meets the man who will change her life: “I haven't had this feeling in so long I don't even recognize it; at first I think it's fear. My hair follicles seem to individuate themselves and freeze; then it's like my whole body flushes.” Another woman wrote that within 15 minutes of meeting the man she would marry, she knew had found him.
I do believe I’ve had parts of this sort of moment over the years. Parts, but certainly not the whole.
Life in a city without a car is very public. Your walk to the train encounters neighbors, you stand with a crowd during the commute, and come across even more people on your way to work or school. As I did when I lived in New York, I find myself semi-hoping that Mr. Fantastic will sit next to me on the subway, open the door for me at Starbucks, or simply chat me up from out of the blue.
Occasionally these prayers are answered by an angel with a mischievous sense of humor.
In September, when the evenings were still long but the light was beginning to be honeyed by the sun, I sometimes sat in the public garden reading my New Yorker. Once, I sat on a bench, enjoying the company of Adam Gopnik and fatefully wearing a cute dress. The lanky shadow of a skinny man and his bike drew near. He asked me if I knew if there was a grocery store nearby. Is that a pickup line?? The garden is off of Newbury street, Boston’s Madison Avenue. I offered whatever advice I could, and he didn’t leave. He mentioned twice – with a shrug and a flail – that he was divorced, evidently bitter about it, and newly moved here from Texas. I decided not to bring up the fact that I am angry with all red-state residents. I noticed how short he was, and that he was probably in his mid-forties. He asked me what I do and where I lived. I told him I go to NEC and live in Brookline (lies, lies, lies), and tried to get back to my magazine.
“Say, do you want to exchange numbers, maybe get together sometime?”
Thank you Roman men who taught me how to say no!
“Oh really, are you sure, I mean, maybe just as friends?”
When a lady declines, Bubba, it does not mean that she needs more convincing. It means that you are too scrappy.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Health and Wellness
If the worst thing in the world is a sick child, the runner up must be a sick singer. (Christ, there are many, many worse things than that, but it’s all relative.) I’m in the cycle of sickness that appears to be my viral destiny nowadays: sore throat, congested chest, asthma symptoms, coughing spasms. In a latest twist, this has now turned itself to something that requires antibiotics. It really wouldn’t matter if I didn’t like to sing. I haven’t lost my voice, but before I start my practice I have to go through a coughing fit before I even sing a note. My sound is weaker and slightly breathier, especially in my treacherous middle range.
The other drag is that even limited physical activity is hard to take. Just running for the train or cooking dinner in my tiny kitchen gets me winded. Exercise is out of the question, so I now feel like a sluggish blob. But even a mild illness affects my mind just as much as my body. Since my asthma came back a couple of years ago, every sniffle or bout of allergies goes straight to my chest. Despite frequent frantic trips to my pulmonologist, maintenance meds, and Advair, it seems that every time it comes back, I feel worse. If these problems were elsewhere – my stomach, skin, feet, whatever – my brain might be spared as well. But it’s my lungs that suffer, and with every cough and wheeze, and every time I need to slow down, I’m reminded of my life’s breath, which is only on loan to me for so long. (OK, time to stop freaking out, the antibiotics are making me better…)
When I’ve been down lately – especially with the disappointments I’ve had with school, and the financial shock that comes with writing just one check in the amount of half your life savings – I’ve perked myself up with a trip to the gym. In fact, I think of my entire tuition bill as just the price that comes with upgrading to a fabulous gym membership.
And boy, what a gym. Coming from my cheap-o ghetto experience in NYC, the BU gym is the second coming. A space so beautiful you want to give concerts there or hang some artwork. The elliptical machines and treadmills face out onto enormous circular windows, or you can watch the numerous TVs with good sight-lines. For those of us with no TV to go home to, this is a treat. The ceilings are high and the climate is always just right. There’s plenty of equipment, a bunch of classes (none of which I’ve taken….) and best of all, the music is either unobtrusive or turned off entirely.
But best of all, there’s the pool. Belonging to a gym with a pool was just too much of a luxury for me in New York. But now, my gym has two pools! In Rome, I was tickled by the idea of having a Roman bath in the marble pool I found in Trastevere, but the water was the temperature of sweat and I had to share a lane with grannies and hairy fat men who kept bumping into me. In New York I would drag myself to the morning swims at the Carmine Recreation Center in the West Village. It made me feel self-righteous, waking up at six to get there for the 7:00-8:30 window of time they gave you in the frigid outdoor pool. The perk was the Keith Haring mural along the wall, which I used to spot myself. But the leather-skinned head lifeguard forbid me from doing the backstroke – someone apparently sued the city when they were bumped into by a backstroker, it is now illegal in New York City pools.
But my pool at BU is a sheer delight. I usually end up there in the evenings, when it’s less busy. The lanes are marked slow, fast, medium…. and Amanda. I often have a lane to myself, or else I get to share with some strapping undergraduate. (Nothing to make you swim faster than trying to stay ahead of some muscular young thing, unless you’d prefer to get bumped into by him….) I walk into the water as if I’m stepping onto dry land; I know how an ice cream cone feels when it’s dipped in chocolate sauce.
I’ll swim for 45 minutes or so, crawl going up and backstroke coming back. Being buoyed by water must be one of the best human experiences. My breathing falls into rhythm, and when the water covers up my ears, I find the peace I need to collect my thoughts. I also feel my muscles coming back to life, after a long hiatus from this spring, the last time I worked out regularly. (Though my numerous romps around Rome must have done something for my thigh muscles, the lifting of copious gelati and my digital camera didn’t do much for the biceps.)
After a while, I’ll walk past the synchronized swimmers (no joke!) in the other pool and go over to the “spa,” where the hot tub is. They also have what’s called a lazy river: a meandering loop with a current. I swim against it for a bit – it’s hard! – then bob along with the flow. I end my night in the whirlpool, positioning a water jet to massage my back, keeping just my chin and eyes above water, like a frog.
The other drag is that even limited physical activity is hard to take. Just running for the train or cooking dinner in my tiny kitchen gets me winded. Exercise is out of the question, so I now feel like a sluggish blob. But even a mild illness affects my mind just as much as my body. Since my asthma came back a couple of years ago, every sniffle or bout of allergies goes straight to my chest. Despite frequent frantic trips to my pulmonologist, maintenance meds, and Advair, it seems that every time it comes back, I feel worse. If these problems were elsewhere – my stomach, skin, feet, whatever – my brain might be spared as well. But it’s my lungs that suffer, and with every cough and wheeze, and every time I need to slow down, I’m reminded of my life’s breath, which is only on loan to me for so long. (OK, time to stop freaking out, the antibiotics are making me better…)
When I’ve been down lately – especially with the disappointments I’ve had with school, and the financial shock that comes with writing just one check in the amount of half your life savings – I’ve perked myself up with a trip to the gym. In fact, I think of my entire tuition bill as just the price that comes with upgrading to a fabulous gym membership.
And boy, what a gym. Coming from my cheap-o ghetto experience in NYC, the BU gym is the second coming. A space so beautiful you want to give concerts there or hang some artwork. The elliptical machines and treadmills face out onto enormous circular windows, or you can watch the numerous TVs with good sight-lines. For those of us with no TV to go home to, this is a treat. The ceilings are high and the climate is always just right. There’s plenty of equipment, a bunch of classes (none of which I’ve taken….) and best of all, the music is either unobtrusive or turned off entirely.
But best of all, there’s the pool. Belonging to a gym with a pool was just too much of a luxury for me in New York. But now, my gym has two pools! In Rome, I was tickled by the idea of having a Roman bath in the marble pool I found in Trastevere, but the water was the temperature of sweat and I had to share a lane with grannies and hairy fat men who kept bumping into me. In New York I would drag myself to the morning swims at the Carmine Recreation Center in the West Village. It made me feel self-righteous, waking up at six to get there for the 7:00-8:30 window of time they gave you in the frigid outdoor pool. The perk was the Keith Haring mural along the wall, which I used to spot myself. But the leather-skinned head lifeguard forbid me from doing the backstroke – someone apparently sued the city when they were bumped into by a backstroker, it is now illegal in New York City pools.
But my pool at BU is a sheer delight. I usually end up there in the evenings, when it’s less busy. The lanes are marked slow, fast, medium…. and Amanda. I often have a lane to myself, or else I get to share with some strapping undergraduate. (Nothing to make you swim faster than trying to stay ahead of some muscular young thing, unless you’d prefer to get bumped into by him….) I walk into the water as if I’m stepping onto dry land; I know how an ice cream cone feels when it’s dipped in chocolate sauce.
I’ll swim for 45 minutes or so, crawl going up and backstroke coming back. Being buoyed by water must be one of the best human experiences. My breathing falls into rhythm, and when the water covers up my ears, I find the peace I need to collect my thoughts. I also feel my muscles coming back to life, after a long hiatus from this spring, the last time I worked out regularly. (Though my numerous romps around Rome must have done something for my thigh muscles, the lifting of copious gelati and my digital camera didn’t do much for the biceps.)
After a while, I’ll walk past the synchronized swimmers (no joke!) in the other pool and go over to the “spa,” where the hot tub is. They also have what’s called a lazy river: a meandering loop with a current. I swim against it for a bit – it’s hard! – then bob along with the flow. I end my night in the whirlpool, positioning a water jet to massage my back, keeping just my chin and eyes above water, like a frog.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
So You Want to Open a Conservatory?
Congratulations! This investment is a bold step forward towards your personal financial stability! Despite long-standing rumors of the death of classical music (one if its outstanding features), music conservatories are actually cash producing powerhouses, supported by countless young WASPS with money to burn. (In other words, there’s a sucker born every minute!!)
In order to build name recognition and tap into a pre-existing market, make your conservatory part of an enormous university. This will guarantee cash flow for you (all that undergraduate revenue!), and bestow a modicum of class on whatever school you find. Charge the undergraduates upwards of $35,000 annually. Trumpet the fact that grad students have it easy when they only pay $20,000 per year. For decoration, populate the university with gaggles of young women. Give them looks that only money can buy. The girls should have nicely highlighted hair, perfectly tweezed brows, tiny waists and enormous breasts. They should be so large, that if the girl is running late, at least the front half of her will arrive on time. Contain the knockers in skimpy tank tops, preferably with the midriff exposed. The wearing of sparkly flip-flops is to be strictly enforced.
Music students will require a place to practice. For every 10 students, there should be one practice room. Walls should be as paper-thin as possible. The rooms should be sweltering hot, ill-ventilated, filthy, and stink of multiple human bodies. If this final condition is not met, a product known as Fart Spray is available from novelty stores. The practice rooms themselves can be bought for pennies on the dollar from former dictatorships that used them as interrogation rooms: Cambodia, Argentina, and former Soviet satellites are all good places to start!
Music students themselves should be a mixed bunch. To lend even further validation to your conservatory, operate a militant overseas recruitment initiative. The international presence will add a certain quel que chose to the atmosphere, making the students feel even more self-important than they already do. Foreign girls should be slender and beautiful, and chat in their mysterious languages in groups. Other students should look as young as high school students, garnished with acne and clothed in rags. Many should smoke.
Staff your conservatory with cute, young administrators. Provide ample training to make sure they are well-equipped to disperse misinformation and bad advice. Tell students to address their problems to them, providing a first line of defense. A quick study of the Byzantine empire will provide a model for your bureaucratic set-up. Each administrator will have two assistants, who will have a nursery of work-study students to assist them. Make them all seem so busy that students who actually need their help will feel guilty even walking into their office.
If a student should express interest in studying with a particular faculty member, just remember your mantra: it’s not about the students. It’s about money. And paperwork, and marketing and brand imaging and profitability. Think of your students as stock futures, such as copper, textiles, or sides of beef. Does it matter if one of those sides of beef has an opinion?? Noooo. Once they buy into your conservatory you’ve got them over a barrel! If they’d like to graduate, they’ll do it by your rules and pay your price. You call the shots!
So go start a conservatory, start recruiting them cash cows, and count your moo, moo, moolah all the way to the bank!
In order to build name recognition and tap into a pre-existing market, make your conservatory part of an enormous university. This will guarantee cash flow for you (all that undergraduate revenue!), and bestow a modicum of class on whatever school you find. Charge the undergraduates upwards of $35,000 annually. Trumpet the fact that grad students have it easy when they only pay $20,000 per year. For decoration, populate the university with gaggles of young women. Give them looks that only money can buy. The girls should have nicely highlighted hair, perfectly tweezed brows, tiny waists and enormous breasts. They should be so large, that if the girl is running late, at least the front half of her will arrive on time. Contain the knockers in skimpy tank tops, preferably with the midriff exposed. The wearing of sparkly flip-flops is to be strictly enforced.
Music students will require a place to practice. For every 10 students, there should be one practice room. Walls should be as paper-thin as possible. The rooms should be sweltering hot, ill-ventilated, filthy, and stink of multiple human bodies. If this final condition is not met, a product known as Fart Spray is available from novelty stores. The practice rooms themselves can be bought for pennies on the dollar from former dictatorships that used them as interrogation rooms: Cambodia, Argentina, and former Soviet satellites are all good places to start!
Music students themselves should be a mixed bunch. To lend even further validation to your conservatory, operate a militant overseas recruitment initiative. The international presence will add a certain quel que chose to the atmosphere, making the students feel even more self-important than they already do. Foreign girls should be slender and beautiful, and chat in their mysterious languages in groups. Other students should look as young as high school students, garnished with acne and clothed in rags. Many should smoke.
Staff your conservatory with cute, young administrators. Provide ample training to make sure they are well-equipped to disperse misinformation and bad advice. Tell students to address their problems to them, providing a first line of defense. A quick study of the Byzantine empire will provide a model for your bureaucratic set-up. Each administrator will have two assistants, who will have a nursery of work-study students to assist them. Make them all seem so busy that students who actually need their help will feel guilty even walking into their office.
If a student should express interest in studying with a particular faculty member, just remember your mantra: it’s not about the students. It’s about money. And paperwork, and marketing and brand imaging and profitability. Think of your students as stock futures, such as copper, textiles, or sides of beef. Does it matter if one of those sides of beef has an opinion?? Noooo. Once they buy into your conservatory you’ve got them over a barrel! If they’d like to graduate, they’ll do it by your rules and pay your price. You call the shots!
So go start a conservatory, start recruiting them cash cows, and count your moo, moo, moolah all the way to the bank!
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