Quirks, How Could One Have Any More?

There are so many little details of one's life that has to be accounted for when you move 3,000 miles. Perhaps the changes might have been of little consequence if we'd ended up in a bedroom community outside the city, replacing one suburban life for another. However, with life so dramatically altered, it is the little things that make this transition all the more startling. The search for doctors in a city teeming with medical professionals has been almost as arduous as the recent rigors of trying to get our son into a private school--I did preface by saying 'almost'. I have asked others for references, finding that sometimes those who are friends may not be the best judge of doctors. Or rather, we may have different criterias for what we look for in our medical provider. Being intensely phobic of needles, doctor's offices, dentists, and just general health facilities, my needs, or requirements, are, I'm discovering, quite different from those who are much more sanguine about going to a doctor's office.

My recent search for a dentist has been a trial of patience (on the dentist's part) and a trial of all of my worst phobias for me. I am a bad dental patient. There is no other way to describe the acute panic that I have to fight while in that chair. My dental experiences weren't any more horrific than anyone else's, despite the three and a half years of braces. But the helplessness and vulnerability of lying on those reclining chairs is enough for me to self prescribe an extra dose of Xanax before any visit. My fears were so bad that for years I'd had laughing gas just to have my teeth cleaned. Thankfully, my old dentist, whom I adored, had convinced me that I didn't need to be so doped up to have the hygienist clean my teeth. He was a very patient and kind man.

Trying to find his replacement, a tall order for anyone, but excruciating for me, has been unsuccessful, thus far. My first visit with a young dentist, who appeared overly aggressive in the things he wanted to do, had me in such a panic that I was near tears when I left his office. I know, I know, I'm a mess. It's amazing my husband doesn't just laugh out loud whenever he receives those calls of distress. Thankfully, I'd met and fell in love with my new orthodontist, to replace the one I'd left behind. His calm, gentle bedside manner had me confident my old orthodontist had made the right choice for me. So, now I'm on going to interview the two other dentists referred by my new orthodontist, given my phobic predilection.

It is these small, or in my case, not so small details of remaking one's life that poses challenges that you hadn't foreseen when you were pining for this exact thing to happen. Even me on the worst day of neuroses wouldn't have foreseen the patience required to find the right doctors.
So, I have an appointment with another dentist, who will charge me a small fortune for me to interview him, to insure he wouldn't scare me half to death in his zeal to make sure I don't end up with a full set of dentures by the age of 50. It is such challenges that makes me almost nostalgic for my old doctors. I did say almost, right?

The Great American Bake Off

This weekend was the Great American Bake Off in our house, otherwise known as Cookie Hell. I attempted in my small, galley-size kitchen to replicate the pandemonium that ensued for days on end in Los Angeles. As I measured cup after cup of flour, whipped enough butter to single-handedly raise anyone's cholesterol score by a few hundred points, and measured out copious amounts of granulated sugar, I became nostalgic about Los Angeles for the very first time since arriving in the city. Of course when I say this, I mean I became nostalgic about my neighbors, our charming, drafty house, and especially, my son's Tia, not the city at large. Performing the rituals of this holiday, decorating, baking, wrapping gifts, made the absences of those individuals who'd been a part of our lives for so many years so acute. Our Tia, who grew to delight in these tradition as much as I did, had been my stalwart right-hand woman in most of these endeavors, except the baking. So, going through these acts, albeit on a minor, scaled down version has made me miss her so very much.

As sugary confection after another came out of the oven, I did as I'd always done, placing them on cooling racks until they were cool enough to be stored into large storage bins. I thought about all the Christmases where these treats would be bagged, gift cards attached, all distributed by our son and his Tia as they made their way down our street. I learned from more than one neighbor that these bags of home made goodies had become and expectation for them during this season of giving and receiving. I suppose that is what brought on this sentimental nostalgia as I sifted flour and measured out baking soda, that this ritual would not be taken up by anyone else, that each of these neighbors, some who live alone, will feel the lack of these bags more than I could ever know.

My son and I attempted the same tradition as we walked up and down our apartment building's hallway, distributing these delicacies to neighbors, who seemed taken aback by such a sign of neighborliness.

This season has been such a strange mix of delight and wistfulness. Giddiness hits me as I walk around the city, going into stores as go about the business of shopping for family and friends. At the same time, the wistfulness of missing those that had been such a fabric of my time in Los Angeles presses down upon my chest, serving as a reminder of what had to be lost in order for what we've gained. Aha, c'est la vie!

I know, in the end, I continue these traditions as much for my son as for anyone else. It will, hopefully, be for him the touchstones of what this holiday season meant, and will continue to mean to him as he goes on with his life, creating new traditions of his own. How does the world benefit, you wonder? Well, for one, the dairy industry should be grateful that so many pounds of their precious commodity gets purchased and used during this season. Gyms should be eternally blissed since membership rates should jump within the new year after the caloric intake of this season--of which the cookies are no small portion. All in all, my little 'tradition' of baking and distributing cookies should make many more people, other than those who are the recipients, quite content by my largess.

Bah Humbug

This holiday season careened toward us too rapidly, making it impossible for me to comprehend it's here, yet, again. Perhaps it is the life altering changes we've made in our family, but I am five steps behind, it feels, in all the preparations for this season. The pressure is even more intense since I am juggling working, desperately attempting to stay on schedule, and taking care of my son--full time. My mind is on such overload it will only be a matter of time before I leave the house forgetting to brush my teeth, or worse, forgetting to pick my son up. This happened once before in grad school, not forgetting to pick up my son, but leaving the house without brushing my teeth. It was one of those 'uh-oh' moments when a vacation is seriously recommended.

In the midst of all this stress, a package arrived yesterday from one of my writer friends. I couldn't imagine what she would be sending me since we've never exchanged gifts of any kind. Our relationship's boundaries are firmly defined to the internet and the yearly retreat we all take together. After ripping open the thick envelope, I was stunned to discover an antique cook book, one of those regional books put together by church groups, that I love and collect. Her note said she'd found this in a second hand book store, and thought of me. It was one of those thoughtful gestures that will linger in my mind for months. And it is a gesture that is rare, and seems to become rarer in our world.

I'd always said your friends teach you how to be a friend to others. And one hopes in a lifetime you've had enough such teachers. I'm grateful for those that I can call my friend. Even during this short time here, I've made a friend, who will phone me from a dive shop, putting aside the remaining wet suits in the shop, insuring I get the right one for my son. Now, sitting so many miles away from those I'd long considered 'friends,' the tenuousness of all relationships becomes more apparent.

As we brace for snow, I am tucked inside, hard at work, grateful to be able to work. The work day will end with a cup of tea and my new cookbook in hand as scour recipes that reveal a history of the region the book comes from. It will be a perfect end to a hard day.

Sample Sales---Full Time Job

I was told by a good friend, who shares in the joys of shopping, that New York is the mecca of the Sample Sale. Most of us forget the entire American fashion industry is, for the most part, centered in this city, namely between 36th and 30th. It makes sense all these designers would sell their wares at prices just above wholesale before shipping off the leftovers to the discount designer stores where patience is a must when shopping.

Since coming to the city, I've combed the New York Magazine for upcoming sales, imaging all the beautiful items to hang in my teeny closet. Shopping, for most women, is an activity that seems to release a special endorphin of pleasure. I know so few women who claim, notice the use of the word claim, to not enjoy shopping. When they make such a claim, they might mean they don't draw pleasure in shopping for clothes, shoes, bags, but instead spend their time shopping for the many other items that are purchasable. So, to claim they didn't get the same high from an outing to Target as some of us experience at Bergdorf's is a false claim, indeed. The same act of selecting, your imagination heightened as you picture, said, item in your cabinet or on your body, and then handing over credit card, ATM card, or cash for the item is all the same. The same hormones get released whether you've just purchased the perfect Chanel bag or a bunch of household items at Target.

For me, and some of my friends, shopping is more sport than anything else. There is an element of the endurance training involved in becoming an expert shopper. I was, even in LA, a fast, expert shopper. I would trod off to sales, collecting bargains as expertly as finding the shoe of the season, which I would buy at full price. To be an expert shopper is to know when some things will go on sale and when certain items will not, thereby enabling you to make decisions prudently. Lord knows what a crisis it is when you've been eying a pair of perfect sumptuous pumps, only to find your size is gone because you'd deliberated just a tad too long. That, of course, would mean hours spent scouring websites, of which there are so many now, rooting out these perfect shoes.

I thought sales, like Neiman's First Call and Ron Herman's, were top notch. But since being in New York, I've now realized what I'd been missing out on. Sample Sales are a whole subcategory of sales and shopping. I've now attended four such sales, each one more surprising in what was available at discount prices. The perception that such sales are attended only by those who can't afford these designer goods at full prices is what is most delightful about all of this. Each time I arrive at a sale, finding the line of women snaking its way around a city block, I notice how each woman is someone who can afford to go to Barney's or Bergdorf's and hand over their Platinum card for whatever their heart desires. Each woman is perfectly coiffed--a whole blog could be devoted to the art of dressing in this city--from head to toe, a beautiful hand bag slung over their shoulder, their cell phone pressed to their ear as they give their girlfriend a run down of what the scene looks like, all ravenous in their pursuit of a bargain.

Once you enter the sale, you see racks and racks of clothing, no different than what's available at any of the top notch department stores. It is as if you've entered Bergdorf's 5th Floor without the music, the solicitous sales help, the mannequins styled just so. It is just clothes on metal racks. After a few of these sales, I've become expert in figuring out how to maneuver it all to maximize my time.

It is as you lug your findings in the nondescript black plastic bag that the endorphin settles in your brain, shutting out all the realities of sires wailing and the crush of people on the city streets. I've now come to accept it is as much about the hopefulness of each purchase that brings me such pleasure. Each new item is a signal to events attended, dinner dates out with your husband, lunches with girlfriends, an outing the excuse to play dress up, hoping to transform your every day blahness to something memorable. Sometimes for me, making that extra effort makes me reconnect to the woman I was before I became a mother when my life was full of so much expectation. Whatever the reasons, like most of my female peers, the art of getting dressed is something that becomes another aspect of the expression of self. A scarf tied just so can make another woman eye your efforts appreciatively. That is the way of the world of women, something my husband finds baffling. So, onward and upward as more designers put out notices for their sample sales, and I fit in an hour or two out of my work day to stand in line along with all the others, each of us searching for that intangible thing that will transform us into swans. Or simply a great deal on a cashmere sweater or designer handbag.

Keebler Cookie Elf

It was usually at this time of the year when I would start buying quantities of butter only fit for the "Two Fat Ladies." See, the Keebler Cookie Factory of Ambrose Avenue would be churning to get ready for the bonanza, otherwise known as the holiday cookie frenzy. I don't know when I started this tradition that had devolved into sheer spectacle. As I bought pounds of butter and quantities of sugar reserved for most restaurateurs, the swell of the holiday spirit would propel me from one humongous warehouse store to another. This spirit of giving would last as I set up my kitchen for endless hours of butter being whipped in my stand mixer. I would, of course, have purchased an endless array of tins, scoured in, yet another, discount store that requires much patience. All this preparation usually took over a week, the break or the 'quiet before the storm,' as the cliche goes.

Once the imminent day arrived, I would wait until my kitchen cleared of kid and husband, getting dressed in sweats and t-shirt. The Ipod, the ever trusty companion, would be cranked on 10, the oven on to 350 degrees, butter on the counter for it to be room temperature, and all other accouterments on the ready. I usually started the day by baking an easier cookie like chocolate chip. But since this is me, I would bake five dozen chocolate chip cookies, so that by the time I was finished with this particular kind of cookie, I had enough storage boxes stacked full of cookies to start resembling a Mrs. Field's outpost. I would then move through my repertoire, honed over many years of this madness, baking for a full 8 hours.

The first day was always cheery--this living of some domestic fantasy I must have harbored underneath all that feminist outrage. My son would arrive home happy the house was full of aromas that would always be the stamp of the holiday season. He would be only too happy to sample a cookie or two before eating the takeout Chinese dinner I ordered since cooking a meal in my factory was out of the question. My churlishness and outright antagonism didn't start until about day three of this lunacy. It was usually the last day of baking, or let me say, the last night as I scrambled to finish the last batch of nut balls that my rage about having started this ridiculous tradition started to spill out into my French country kitchen. My husband, thankfully with a sense of humor, would note that the angry elf was now in residence, having replaced the earlier happy elf.

Once the factory was officially closed, every stick of butter used in one recipe or another, I would count the large plastic containers laden with cookies--a number that is too embarrassing to write down for public consumption. All of this hard work, truly inexplicable, would result in the fun part of packaging cookies into the tins for distribution to neighbors and friends, some of whom counted on the arrival of these tins as surely as watching the rerun of "Frosty the Snowman" on ABC.

As I organized our move, I packed enough baking utensils to do a mini-version of the cookie baking bonanza. It is inconceivable for my son that I wouldn't bake for the holidays. I don't know if subconsciously I've done some number insuring he, my son, would forever be looking for some nouveau, postmodern, Martha Stewart in a future spouse. If so, I offer my mea culpa ahead to all the possible candidates--this from the French, Deconstructionist, Marxist, Feminist, and cookie elf.

Fasting---Holiday overdone

This year's holiday was especially fraught with anticipation since it was our first Thanksgiving with my entire extended family in a long, long time. In actuality, it was my husband's first sojourn to my family home. What can one say about the terrible deeds family exact on each other? It is as if blood, or rather, the sharing of blood gives you license to behave in ways that would be unheard of with strangers. This family gathering was, to say the least, highly charged. And since this is my family, that meant lots of wine, probably enough wine to have cleaned out an entire winery.

The emotional toil on my husband and me was overwhelming, which meant we dealt with it by laughing at ourselves, the situation, and my family. The best part of the weekend was my son's first meeting of his half-cousins. So, after so many years, we are now part of my entire family--the dysfunctions, the rivalries, the grudges, and the guilt. It was easier to manage this part of our history when we were so far away. I could ignore I was part of this family that is a bit like the Sopranos in drama and emotionality, if the Korean version. But now that we are here, so close to it all, we are now fully enmeshed. Whether I will regret this move is still to be determined after a few more holiday gatherings where we go out of our way to be as crazy, eccentric, and emotional as a family of mental institution patients.

My son said he had a great time, and wanted to come often to his grandparent's. This declaration more than made up for the emotional baggage adults carry from their past, present, and future. If I can't provide him nothing beyond these family experiences, most of which will surely end up with him spending ample time on a couch, then I've done my job as a mother. Isn't that what life is about? The passing of the torch, so to speak, except the torch is laden, not only with flames of hope, but the pain of each family's secrets and their past?

Travel Day

After another tour of, yet, another school for next year, I'm headed to Penn Station to hop on an Amtrack train bound for Philadelphia. This year, our first, will be spent at my family's home where the rituals of families torturing one another, all in the name of love, will be begin in earnest tomorrow. I know every family in this country can outdo one another on the chart of dysfunction and family love. My family, I'm afraid, is no better or worse than the rest.

I am relieved to be heading home, or rather, heading away from our apartment for the next three days. It seems our neighbors, who share a wall the entire length of the apartment with us, has somehow managed to stuff four more people into their apartment. Aside from the sheer feat of such a thing, there is the mind numbing noises of kids (theirs) screaming and banging about that is making me long for the suffocating attention and adoration of my parents.

I know each part of the travel will be full of stress as everyone else along the eastern corridor heads to a train station or airport. I'm so grateful to not have to get on an airplane to get somewhere. This was the time of year when we would head to LAX for the five hour flight to DC. This year's shindig at my parents is sure to be filled with Feliniesque moments for my husband. But that is the joy of living so close to your family.

Phobias

It's no secret I'm riddled with phobias, some which are so acute but are not classified since they are so uniquely my own. Out of those that are classified, there's my aichmophobia, coulrophobia, and ondontophobia. This weekend's trip to D.C., or rather, the suburb of D.C., where my in-laws reside, brought my amaxaphobia to light.

D.C. and Los Angeles are more similar than people realize. Both are one industry towns. And power is the name of the game. Both are cities that can't shake its parochialism, no matter how hard its desperate attempts. And each suffers from the debilitating, mind numbing traffic snares of the urban-suburban sprawl. True, D.C. has a much better public transportation system, but that's not saying much since LA's is a joke. Again, LA is the only city where the bus riders are unionized. They're the only riders in the country, if not the world, where they filed a lawsuit against the MTA, and won.

We arrived at Dulles where we picked up the rental car we were going to use for the weekend. And that's when my anxieties about driving, now cemented into a full-blown phobia during these two months of being car less, came to light. D.C.'s myriad of freeways was what made my husband realize my fear had taken on a new form. This new phobia's not at the stage where I am debilitated, yet. But I can see how this will turn into a big deal in my life, where I will spend an inordinate amount of time figuring out ways to get to places without having to spend much time in a car, particularly on freeways.

It's not fair to blame my phobia on LA. The euphoria of this new found freedom of being 16 and a driver was short lived for me. I was involved in two car wrecks in high school, both where the recklessness of the other drive caused the crash. The sound of metal on metal, the thundering roar of broken glass are sounds hard to shake from one's memory. Each crash was probably the start of a tiny fissure in the youthful immortality and invincibility you feel when behind the wheel of a car. The brand new Jetta, a high school gift from my parents, sat unused while I attended college in D.C. Unlike some of my peers, the thought of living in Chevy Chase or Crystal City where a car was necessary simply didn't enter my mind. I stayed all three years in Foggy Bottom and happily used the zoned cabs of D.C. My junior year in London was an extension of this life where a car was unnecessary to living since I chose London and the University of London instead of any of the other universities outside London.

Yet, my fears hadn't gotten the best of me. I was the woman, fearless enough to whip down I-95 from New Haven to D.C. for quick weekends when I was working at Yale University Press. And the same woman who drove cross country across the expanse of 3000 miles in her new Acura, feeding the cassette player with the mixed tapes of my college life since all the radio stations east of the Mississippi played the honky tonk country of 20 years ago. How this woman morphed into the woman, having a full blown panic attack in the car as my husband maneuvered the traffic of D.C.'s 495, is hard for me to reconcile.

Yes, I'd grown to detest, on a level unlike anything I'd experience, getting behind the wheel for every minute of my life in Los Angeles. And I'd put a ban on freeways at some point. Yes, driving with me to any destination far enough where freeways were a necessity was always interesting, to say the least. And true, I'd had two other car accidents in LA, both where I was the victim--I was at a red light and an old man decided the red light was not red, and the other was, ironically enough, in a cab on a rain-slicked road--. Perhaps it is this sense of control, or the lack of it when you are driving, that has made this new phobia the most acute. It does not help that people view driving as not a primary act, but secondary, if not tertiary to their phone conversation, paper reading, coffee guzzling, and bites of their sandwich.

The paralysis and chest pounding occurs when I'm in a vehicle on those long stretches of road, cars racing at speeds where stopping in time to avoid a crash is impossible, a split second rewriting your life story in ways never envisioned. See, I'm not afraid of dying. But rather, it's the fear of surviving a life altering crash, where you end up debilitated for the rest of your life that makes my hands clammy, my chest tight, my throat closing up. It is this thought, which makes me shrill as I clutch at the hand rail, pleading with my husband to slow down. And in fairness to my dear husband, he does not drive recklessly, no more than any other driver out there. No, my phobia is such that Mother Theresa could be driving the car at the speed of a horse drawn buggy and I would still be screeching at her to slow down.

This weekend's trip has made me think about the rest of my life, and how this phobia will change the way I live my life. I know cars are a necessary evil to our existence. And perhaps living in Manhattan, the easiest city to avoid driving, is not helping me to overcome this phobia, but is in fact making it more acute. When I lived in LA, each car ride was a chore, but I kept my fears in check enough so that I wasn't debilitated by the thought of getting behind the wheel. How could I since I had to drive every single day, every time I needed to get anywhere? But now, my life is such I can avoid cars for many days on end. Strangely enough, I don't feel the panic when in the cab since I've discovered the one way boulevards that cabs travel to be controlled chaos. Yes, my cab could be blind sided by a drunk driver, barreling his or her car through a red light. But I don't let myself think about that too much when I'm sitting in the back of a cab, watching the cityscape passing in a blur outside my window.

Phobias make for an interesting life where you are constantly monitoring your world, your hyper vigilance all in an effort to keep at bay those things that are at the root of your phobia. It can seem, for those blissfully free of phobias, stifling or claustrophobic--a phobia I do have, but not acutely enough since I have no interest in scuba diving or being a magician's assistant. But a fear of cars is one that may be the most challenging. Many therapists over the years have suggested therapies to address my phobias. And I've had no reason to undergo any of these treatments since most of my other phobias are not constant, not in a way a phobia of a car can become. This new one may be the start of me facing down these irrational fears for good. Or not. I may end up the eccentric person who arrives at any destination via train, if available, or plane, or horse drawn buggy whenever possible.