Posted 6:58 PM by Michelle
When I was all of thirteen years old, my mom picked me up from somewhere- maybe school, more likely a friend's house since it was night, and she had a perm. Lots of spiraling hair, since all of us women in the family have lots of hair. I was a little shocked, but it looked great on her. I asked her how much it cost, and when she told me, I absolutely freaked. I remember raising my voice, detailing all of the things that I needed, and she went and blew money on a perm. And she got mad right back. I will never forget her words: "I never do anything for myself! This was for me! For once for me!" And I was shamed. I didn't admit it in the moment, but she was so incredibly right. She went with so little, in order for us to just have tie-dyed shirts on our backs and frozen meals in the fridge. I remember feeling so selfish. And that was at a point where there was no such thing as admitting a parent was right, so rather than recant, I sulked.

My mom still buys nothing for herself. In the last ten years, I am willing to bet that she has spent less money on clothes than I did on my bike. She feels like she's really busting the bank when she buys herself ANYTHING- even things she can easily afford, and I think this is because, for so long, she had to sell her valuables piece by piece just to pay the rent. I think this still stays with her, and will color her life forever. Make no mistake. We were poor. We were as poor and down and out and skid row as much of poor America.

Here's the kicker. My next memory linked to this event? Me sitting in a chair in a salon, getting a perm. Not a week after my mom did. She was so right, so deserving to do this small thing for herself, and yet I obviously was a pain in the ass enough to get the same thing for myself. That is where my shame kicks right back in. Although I don't recall how it all happened, I know my mom offered to give me what she had given herself, and I accepted. I mean, you know, they say that the only revenge for being a teenager is having one yourself. I don't know if I'll ever have teenagers, but I think I already know.

I feel as though I've sinned, if you'll pardon the imperfect phrase, against every member of my family, and everyone else I've ever loved. Perhaps that is what comes with being human, but it's difficult to reckon with, to justify. I suffer a little for some of my actions towards my Dad, my Mom, my brothers, my lovers, and my friends. I'm a little tired of the idea that we lash out and hurt the ones we love most... particularly when we are young and living through a divorce. I try, by ye gods, I try, to do better now, but I sometimes fail. I guess I'm just acknowledging that. I fail. Sometimes I fail.

By the by, my perm looked terrible.

Posted 8:14 AM by Michelle
I'm trying very hard to have some degree of contentment in my life. I'm trying to find satisfaction and actualization in the small things I accomplish. It's difficult. But I'm trying. Today, for instance- it's not quite 11 AM, and yet I've already had a full day. I dragged myself out of bed at 6:30, rode into the city for a 7:30 yoga class, did some errands around town, and rode home. I'm trying to feel satisfied but mostly I just feel like a big noodle.

Zooey now lives in the cage, or as Ian likes to call it, the old folks' home. He's out when I'm out, and at night when all he does is lie like a lump next to my head, but when I even go for groceries he's right back in. He doesn't seem to mind too much, although the minute I walk back in the door he's howling to get out. And then he wants to put his butt all over my pillows. Yuck. When he was sick he completely destroyed my best sheet set- the set was like a billion thread count and super soft and white and, well, no amount of washing could cure it. Ah well- yet another lesson in impermanence.

I'm having a meeting at one of our sister restaurants today to try to set up a time to do a show. The restaurant has a jazz club which is dark on many Monday nights, and I've been trying to get a date there on a dark night for months. Turns out they have been incredibly busy, too much so to listen to the demo I sent them, so I'm trying a new angle. I want to put on a show, with my brother, as a benefit for the AIDSRide I'm doing in September. If I do it through the restaurant, it will go in the newsletter, which reaches some 50,000 people, and they will open the bar and the kitchen for the show. It's a crazy busy summer, with Ian and Tessa's wedding, and hopefully the Fringe Festival for Sean, but I really hope we can get a spot. Having a date would be really helpful in making ourselves work towards getting this show put together.

My whole block is blooming- the trees, the tulips, the dogs, the people. We deserve a terrific spring.

Posted 5:53 PM by Michelle
Today I’m going to tell you about my first heartbreak. It is the fall of 1986, and I am in Junior High in Morristown, NJ. We had moved there less than a year before, and I quickly made many friends since I was foreign to this little school. I was dating, as seriously as one can in the 8th grade, a guy named Joe. Joe was, to date, the best man I’ve ever loved. He was kind, funny, thoughtful, smart, and respectful. I remember the first time he told me he loved me- it was such an intense moment that neither of us could breathe. But- and there is always a but- there was this other guy, Eddie. Eddie did not possess the same qualities as Joe. But Eddie was an artist, a cartoonist and painter, and he played the drums. He was the first of my long line of big, hulky loves, tall, imposing, and manly. Eddie was in homeroom with me and my best friend Cheri, who was also best friends with Eddie. Cheri also knew Joe well, and knew our relationship well, and also knew that I was secretly in love with Eddie. But I believed that not only could I never leave Joe, but that Eddie had no feelings for me.

Eddie sat behind me in homeroom, and was also a big fan of the Police. The band, not the force. We discussed Steward Copeland’s drumming and Sting’s bass playing at length, and occasionally he would cartoon little pictures of the band for me. We laughed, we joked, we helped each other with homework, but we never actually flirted.

And then Christmastime came. Joe and I exchanged gifts early (a gold rope chain for him, a fluorescent sweater for me- do you remember that unfortunate fashion?). Before school let out for the holidays, Eddie gave me a card he had cartooned himself. The front, if memory serves, was a terrific rendering of Sting, but the words inside have stayed with me forever:

Everyone I know is lonely
And God’s so far away
And my heart belongs to no one
So now sometimes I pray
Take the space between us
Fill it up some way
Take the space between us
Fill it up
Fill it up

These words were penned by Sting, from the song "Oh My God" (which has one of my favorite bass licks). I read it, and the meaning was completely lost on me. I figured he was just quoting to, I don’t know, remind me that we had a common favorite band or something. So I took the card to Cheri, simply because I was thrilled that my secret crush had given me anything at all. She read it, and looked up at me with surprise, excitement, fear, and relief. I swear to you that all four emotions filled her face. "What?" I said. And she just looked at me until I figured it all out on my own. Eddie was in love with me. I was in love with Eddie. Eddie refused to disrespect me or Joe. Cheri had known the whole time, listening to both of us lament the other, and had kept silent in order to respect both of us. Amazing. The card was a reaching out, a hunting of possibility. I was beside myself.

I hardly remember what happened next. Within a week, I had broken up with Joe, and had taken up with Eddie, and it was bliss. I was brilliantly happy. I remember our first kiss. I had gone to one of his wrestling matches, and afterwards, had met him in the hallway. We were alone, under the ugly, bright, greenish-hued tube lights, and he reached down and planted a very soft kiss on my lips. We were both trembling. I remember thinking that this is how I wanted to feel about a kiss, this is what should happen every time I was kissed for the rest of my life.

And then… well. Eddie and I wrote notes to each other, about five or six a day, and we jokingly wrote, "To my mad love kinky sex slave" or something to that effect in greeting. Joking because we’d only shared that one kiss. Well. His father found one, and didn’t get the joke. Eddie was told never to see me again. I was crushed, and then destroyed when the next day I found out that the story about his dad was true, but that he was glad it had happened because he didn’t know how to end it with me. He wrote a note to Cheri, which was foolish, because he should have known that it would end up in my hands:

Dear Cheri,

What’s up? So here’s the thing with Michelle. My dad found a note (blah blah, whole story here). But there was something else. She, I don’t know, changed somehow when we finally got together. She just wasn’t the same. I know it’s beat and all (if I may jump in here, "beat" meant cruel or unkind) but I just didn’t like her as much anymore. I feel bad but I can’t lie, y’ know?

Anyways what are you doing tonight? Write me back.

Eddie

I got this note maybe an hour after he wrote it. And I tell you, it stings to this day. I guess he liked the brooding, angry, dark Michelle of those times than the happy, fulfilled Michelle that emerged in his company. Really, I don’t know.

Joe, who was devastated, had started seeing a girl named Lynne, and they stayed together long after I left New Jersey. Who knows, they could have married. She was a really wonderful girl and I didn’t begrudge either of them- they were really happy together. I don’t know where Eddie is now. I didn’t recover from the heartbreak and loss of those weeks for a long time. That was the last time anyone broke my heart until Valentine’s Day 2000, when my boyfriend of almost six years ended our relationship with a two minute phone call, never to contact me again.

So that is my story of heartbreaks. Really, I knew before both relationships, the first that began when I was thirteen, the second when I was twenty-two, that both of them were bad ideas. This is the mistake I intend to not make again.

Posted 7:33 PM by Michelle
I'm lying across a bed in Hillsdale, NY, with a Tofutti Strawberry Cookie bar melting beside me. I'm letting it melt because I just ate one that was mostly frozen and I'm pretty sure this one will taste better. It's been a magical few days. 20 degrees warmer than forecasted- 70's rather than 50's- and long lovely days filled with bike rides and Rook games and wine and friends. The rest of the world stands still for me when I'm here. Even heated political discussions don't leave me feeling as hopeless as when I'm in the city, in the thick of it. I called this afternoon and asked a friend to work for me tomorrow night- I'll make up the shift later in the week- just to have one more full day here. Sean and Jordi had to leave this afternoon, but my mom is still here, and she and Ian and Tessa are working on the film score down in the living room. I'm debating between reading one of three books, taking a bath, or just going to bed early.

I can't really complain, not about much right now.

On the way up, Ian, Tessa, my mom and I mapped out our plan if something were to happen in our beloved city. We've been talking about it for months, and as Tessa says, nothing may ever happen, but if it did and we had all this time and never planned anything, I'd be really annoyed. We needed to find a spot outside of the city, one that is accessible by car, bike and foot, and that would be easily remembered. We settled on the first spot we found- a "comfort station", or set of bathrooms, that borders a park on 242 St. and Broadway. No matter where you are on the island, start heading north and eventually you will run in to it. If something were to happen in the city, and cell phones are down like they were on 9/11, we will all head for this spot, and then find our way up here to Hillsdale. It's not a perfect plan, but it's a plan. I hope to never have to use it.

I'd like to thank the powers that be for two things: the Harlem Valley Rail Trail and Tofutti soy ice cream products.

Hey, Dad, I don't have your number in the desert so Happy Easter! And a happy Easter to the rest of you. May you all hunt many eggs and eat lots of chocolate.