Mark Your Calendars
I managed to get through most of yesterday without realizing that it was Columbus Day, or as it has been renamed in South Dakota, Native American Day. So another benefit of not having a regular job is not caring a fig about so-called national holidays, what is open or closed, who’s having a long weekend and who is not. I may just declare my own holidays: National Family Pie Day, National Hopeful Baptist Day, National Bipedal Sinner Day, National When the Fuck is Bush Going to Stop Being President Day…
Marsh
I’ve hidden it in a place where it will be found, but not for some time. A few years, perhaps longer.
The landscape is being stripped and leveled all around where I live. Soon, the woods on the other side of the road will be replaced by houses. The corner and two other sites near me on Route 1 have been cleared for retail development. This is the way it is and has always been. I have no illusions about the purity of the land. This road was once a major artery between north and south; it has been bordered by farms and inns since the 17th century, more recently by barbeque stands and motels. But things wear down, are abandoned and removed, and the land returns for a while to its dissolute ways.
Still, some places are harder to tame, even with concrete and steel. They’ll figure out how to do this eventually, when it pays enough to try. In the meantime, I have hidden the doll for the little girl who knows where to find it.
The landscape is being stripped and leveled all around where I live. Soon, the woods on the other side of the road will be replaced by houses. The corner and two other sites near me on Route 1 have been cleared for retail development. This is the way it is and has always been. I have no illusions about the purity of the land. This road was once a major artery between north and south; it has been bordered by farms and inns since the 17th century, more recently by barbeque stands and motels. But things wear down, are abandoned and removed, and the land returns for a while to its dissolute ways.
Still, some places are harder to tame, even with concrete and steel. They’ll figure out how to do this eventually, when it pays enough to try. In the meantime, I have hidden the doll for the little girl who knows where to find it.
Logophilia
People think I know words, but it’s just that I went to Catholic school and lived with a classicist for many years. And, oh yeah, I read a lot.
In Catholic school you learned enough Latin to understand the mass (before it was in English, of course) and on Sundays you stared at your missal with Latin on one side and English on the other and saw over and over again how the words were connected. Plus, you had the nuns saying “Break it down, break it down” whenever you were confronted with a new word in class. We learned our roots and prefixes; no problem.
The classicist expanded the base, with some Greek thrown in, so that I could be pretentious about words in three languages, two of them dead. I would be teaching an anthropology class and put a technical term on the blackboard – ambilateral, or matrifocal -- and say, Come on, you know this. Just break it down. No breakdown ensued, just blank stares.
I gave up on that ploy and started putting random words on the board that I loved, telling students that they’d never need to know this but it would enrich their lives immeasurably if they ever saw the word “prelapsarian” in a book and understood what it meant. Yeah, right. That went over well.
A while back a little girl I know told me that there were cumulonimbus clouds in the sky and that this meant it would rain. “Nimbus” means rain, she said. I said no, that kind of cloud does mean that it will probably rain, but nimbus itself means cloud, or aura, the special quality that some people and things have surrounding them. Her mother took issue with me: the handout from the teacher said that nimbus means rain. I gave up on what “mean” means and went home to my OED, the middle-aged Catholic schoolgirl’s best friend.
In Catholic school you learned enough Latin to understand the mass (before it was in English, of course) and on Sundays you stared at your missal with Latin on one side and English on the other and saw over and over again how the words were connected. Plus, you had the nuns saying “Break it down, break it down” whenever you were confronted with a new word in class. We learned our roots and prefixes; no problem.
The classicist expanded the base, with some Greek thrown in, so that I could be pretentious about words in three languages, two of them dead. I would be teaching an anthropology class and put a technical term on the blackboard – ambilateral, or matrifocal -- and say, Come on, you know this. Just break it down. No breakdown ensued, just blank stares.
I gave up on that ploy and started putting random words on the board that I loved, telling students that they’d never need to know this but it would enrich their lives immeasurably if they ever saw the word “prelapsarian” in a book and understood what it meant. Yeah, right. That went over well.
A while back a little girl I know told me that there were cumulonimbus clouds in the sky and that this meant it would rain. “Nimbus” means rain, she said. I said no, that kind of cloud does mean that it will probably rain, but nimbus itself means cloud, or aura, the special quality that some people and things have surrounding them. Her mother took issue with me: the handout from the teacher said that nimbus means rain. I gave up on what “mean” means and went home to my OED, the middle-aged Catholic schoolgirl’s best friend.
Mandates
Unfunded mandates – that’s who I’ve gone out with most of my life. Or if my mandates got funded, it was about twenty minutes after we split up. Now I’m not one of those wives who put hubby through law school and got left in the lurch when he made partner. I should live so long as to fight over who gets the weekend cottage. I’m just one of those ordinary women in a series of long-term relationships where sometimes I paid the rent, sometimes he did. No problem, no complaint. No money.
At this point in my life, however, I’d like to find a funded mandate. I’m not talking diamond earrings and private jets. I mean someone who could buy me what I want most after decades of hard work: a little free time. Someone who’d say, “That’s okay, honey. You stay home and lie on the couch reading back issues of The New Yorker. I’ll take care of everything.” That kind of mandate.
But funded mandates are hard to find, even if you are as ravishing and witty as I. Funded mandates my age are drawn to womendates who were born sometime during the Reagan administration and who are fierce advocates of trickle-down economics. I’m more of the property-is-theft school of thought, which helps explain my series of unfunded mandates.
My therapist says “Fund your own mandate.” I tell her, that’s what I’ve been doing all this time. It’s not working.
Maybe what I really need is an unmanned fundate, a nice eunuch with a good sense of humor and a healthy bank account. The two of us can lie on the couch reading old magazines and eating chocolate chip cookies, and never go looking for mandates, funded or otherwise, again.
At this point in my life, however, I’d like to find a funded mandate. I’m not talking diamond earrings and private jets. I mean someone who could buy me what I want most after decades of hard work: a little free time. Someone who’d say, “That’s okay, honey. You stay home and lie on the couch reading back issues of The New Yorker. I’ll take care of everything.” That kind of mandate.
But funded mandates are hard to find, even if you are as ravishing and witty as I. Funded mandates my age are drawn to womendates who were born sometime during the Reagan administration and who are fierce advocates of trickle-down economics. I’m more of the property-is-theft school of thought, which helps explain my series of unfunded mandates.
My therapist says “Fund your own mandate.” I tell her, that’s what I’ve been doing all this time. It’s not working.
Maybe what I really need is an unmanned fundate, a nice eunuch with a good sense of humor and a healthy bank account. The two of us can lie on the couch reading old magazines and eating chocolate chip cookies, and never go looking for mandates, funded or otherwise, again.
Cookbook Review
What Fresh Hell: Quick ‘n’ Easy Dinners for Unexpected Guests. Bootsy Barnes Boxwood. 112 pages. Homemaker Press. $19.95.
Break out the cooking sherry! That’s the first piece of advice we get from Bootsy Barnes Boxwood, author of Drinking Alone While Cooking for Two, in her new book, What Fresh Hell: Quick ‘n’ Easy Dinners for Unexpected Guests. A self-described “cordon blah chef,” Boxwood now gives us her guide to fine dining at the last minute – after hubby’s called to say he’s bringing the boss home for supper, the Eagle Scouts have just camped in your living room, and the mother-in-law who said she’d never darken your door again shows up.
Ever since the days of Mrs. Beeton, women have looked for time and labor saving ways to run their kitchens. As that eminent Victorian advised in her Book of Household Management (1861), when it comes to cooking, “all terms of indecision should be banished.” Boxwood is the modern Beeton, minus the scullery maid – a woman who is not afraid to wield a can opener and a bottle of ketchup. Let others embrace their James Beard and Julia Child; my choice is Boxwood’s back-to-basics approach to getting dinner over with. It’s not rocket science – but a little fuel sure helps!
Boxwood’s recipes call for an uncommon amount of brandy and vermouth, but that just adds to the warmth around the dinner table as guests enjoy her Casserole à la Colonel and Chili con Corn Flakes. Tuna and minute rice are mainstays, and if you have canned peas, you are ready to entertain. But don’t think this is just another add-mushroom-soup-and-stir cookbook. Boxwood combines convenience with elegance to serve up tasty meals with a truly eclectic range of ingredients -- in fact, whatever’s in the house when the panic sets in. One might quibble with her approach to writing recipes; for those of us who are not natural cooks, a “dash” of this and a “slosh” of that will not be sufficient guidance, but Boxwood allays our anxiety, and hers, with frequent reminders to “sip” -- surely the best way to face down dinner.
No cookbook author can afford to ignore the interest in healthy eating that has swept the nation in recent years. Boxwood avoids artery-clogging corn oil, recommending extra virgin (“at least it was when I bought it!” she quips) olive oil for her Titanic Salad, a clever combination of iceberg lettuce and blue cheese (“at least it was when I bought it!” – Boxwood knows just how far to stretch a joke). She thoughtfully provides the calorie count for the most popular before, during, and after dinner drinks, but her bottom line is this: never mix the grape and the grain. That’s good advice, although a little hard to follow in a book so filled with “good cheer.”
A creative dessert will crown any meal, and here Boxwood excels. Did you know that leftover candy corn makes a great ice cream topping, with or without the ice cream? Boxwood also provides simple centerpiece ideas to suit the season: a pine cone in an ashtray for the winter holidays, a bunny slipper filled with dried-up marshmallow chicks for a festive Easter look; the list goes on.
We look forward to Boxwood’s upcoming Dining after Divorce, a cookbook for women facing re-entry into the job market and a vicious custody battle. In the meantime, have a friend drive you to the bookstore to pick up a copy of What Fresh Hell and then toast yourself for being smart – and “loaded” with great new ideas!
Margaret Burnside
Food Editor
Break out the cooking sherry! That’s the first piece of advice we get from Bootsy Barnes Boxwood, author of Drinking Alone While Cooking for Two, in her new book, What Fresh Hell: Quick ‘n’ Easy Dinners for Unexpected Guests. A self-described “cordon blah chef,” Boxwood now gives us her guide to fine dining at the last minute – after hubby’s called to say he’s bringing the boss home for supper, the Eagle Scouts have just camped in your living room, and the mother-in-law who said she’d never darken your door again shows up.
Ever since the days of Mrs. Beeton, women have looked for time and labor saving ways to run their kitchens. As that eminent Victorian advised in her Book of Household Management (1861), when it comes to cooking, “all terms of indecision should be banished.” Boxwood is the modern Beeton, minus the scullery maid – a woman who is not afraid to wield a can opener and a bottle of ketchup. Let others embrace their James Beard and Julia Child; my choice is Boxwood’s back-to-basics approach to getting dinner over with. It’s not rocket science – but a little fuel sure helps!
Boxwood’s recipes call for an uncommon amount of brandy and vermouth, but that just adds to the warmth around the dinner table as guests enjoy her Casserole à la Colonel and Chili con Corn Flakes. Tuna and minute rice are mainstays, and if you have canned peas, you are ready to entertain. But don’t think this is just another add-mushroom-soup-and-stir cookbook. Boxwood combines convenience with elegance to serve up tasty meals with a truly eclectic range of ingredients -- in fact, whatever’s in the house when the panic sets in. One might quibble with her approach to writing recipes; for those of us who are not natural cooks, a “dash” of this and a “slosh” of that will not be sufficient guidance, but Boxwood allays our anxiety, and hers, with frequent reminders to “sip” -- surely the best way to face down dinner.
No cookbook author can afford to ignore the interest in healthy eating that has swept the nation in recent years. Boxwood avoids artery-clogging corn oil, recommending extra virgin (“at least it was when I bought it!” she quips) olive oil for her Titanic Salad, a clever combination of iceberg lettuce and blue cheese (“at least it was when I bought it!” – Boxwood knows just how far to stretch a joke). She thoughtfully provides the calorie count for the most popular before, during, and after dinner drinks, but her bottom line is this: never mix the grape and the grain. That’s good advice, although a little hard to follow in a book so filled with “good cheer.”
A creative dessert will crown any meal, and here Boxwood excels. Did you know that leftover candy corn makes a great ice cream topping, with or without the ice cream? Boxwood also provides simple centerpiece ideas to suit the season: a pine cone in an ashtray for the winter holidays, a bunny slipper filled with dried-up marshmallow chicks for a festive Easter look; the list goes on.
We look forward to Boxwood’s upcoming Dining after Divorce, a cookbook for women facing re-entry into the job market and a vicious custody battle. In the meantime, have a friend drive you to the bookstore to pick up a copy of What Fresh Hell and then toast yourself for being smart – and “loaded” with great new ideas!
Margaret Burnside
Food Editor
Manhattan, Fall
Dear Dad,
Do you miss the city?
You walked it all your life, and took me with you
through catacombs of schist and gneiss.
You showed me where the dead lie.
For what is this island
but the grave of those who came before
and lay down to make room for the new,
Lenape and Dutchman, free man and slave,
the immigrant and arriviste?
Like a coffin, lined by rivers.
I read about a woman who stood and
felt her husband’s body press against hers
in a rain of ash as the towers fell.
He was a fireman, a hero.
This was after you. You did not see this.
The dust settles, forms a new layer
on city fathers in famous churchyards and
long-lost slaves buried with their cowrie shells,
their babies tucked aside them.
I know there will be others.
A backhoe will find them and work will stop
for a day, a month. The potters field, the family plot –
it makes no difference.
The gap will close. New ghosts will join us.
Dear Dad, are you a ghost?
Do you walk the streets at night,
and scare late travelers and drunks against the wall?
Do you look for me?
Do you miss the city?
You walked it all your life, and took me with you
through catacombs of schist and gneiss.
You showed me where the dead lie.
For what is this island
but the grave of those who came before
and lay down to make room for the new,
Lenape and Dutchman, free man and slave,
the immigrant and arriviste?
Like a coffin, lined by rivers.
I read about a woman who stood and
felt her husband’s body press against hers
in a rain of ash as the towers fell.
He was a fireman, a hero.
This was after you. You did not see this.
The dust settles, forms a new layer
on city fathers in famous churchyards and
long-lost slaves buried with their cowrie shells,
their babies tucked aside them.
I know there will be others.
A backhoe will find them and work will stop
for a day, a month. The potters field, the family plot –
it makes no difference.
The gap will close. New ghosts will join us.
Dear Dad, are you a ghost?
Do you walk the streets at night,
and scare late travelers and drunks against the wall?
Do you look for me?
Perfume
I have worn five perfumes in my life, or rather, “scents,” the preferred industry term. The first was My Sin, by Lanvin, which someone gave me a tiny bottle of when I was nineteen. I loved it: My Sin. It smelled of dried roses rising from ancient velvet. I carried the bottle around with me long after it was empty, like a Victorian lady’s smelling salts.
Then a friend introduced me to Anaïs Anaïs, by Cacharel, one of the signature scents of the seventies. (Another was Brut, but let’s not go there.) AA was the tempermental opposite of My Sin – powdery, girlish, spring-like. I wore it for many years and still love it, but my body chemistry changed, or Cacharel changed the formula, and now it does not last on me more than a few minutes.
One of those irritating scented ads led me to Truth, by Calvin Klein. You must always say it that way: Truth, by Calvin Klein, lowering your voice on the “Calvin Klein” part. I wore it for about four years, until Calvin Klein stopped making it. For a while I could find end-of-stock bottles on random websites – I once ordered it from Wal-Mart – but eventually even those sources dried up. Betrayal, by Calvin Klein.
Unfortunately, the end of the Truth era coincided with the beginning of my Self-Loathing era, and I could not bring myself to go hunting in department stores for another perfume. I was not worthy. I could drag myself into the local Rite-Aid, but the featured perfumes there were inspired by celebrities like Christina, Jessica, and Sarah Jessica. I was too low for J-Lo. I did consider buying one of the Olsen twins’ perfumes, but decided Mary-Kate’s bag lady persona was too close to home while Ashley’s All-American classic was too much of a stretch.
Close to desperation, I started using a perfume sample that a friend had given me -- J’Adore, by Dior. When I had first tried it, I disliked it. It was dark and lugubrious. I still disliked it, but anything was better than the stink of failure and you couldn’t say it was cheap. I was also kind of fascinated by the fact that Charlize Theron was the perfume’s celebrity rep. I had last seen her as an overweight prostitute serial killer, and that did kind of fit my mood, so I sucked up the smell for Aileen’s sake. Wuornos, by Christian Dior.
Don’t worry. I’m in therapy.
Which is how I finally gathered the courage to take a shower and head out to Macy’s to buy my next “real” scent, one that might bear some relation to who I am and might yet be. I knew what I wanted and would not be deterred. I looked like hell and I think the saleswoman felt sorry for me. It did not help that my debit card didn’t go through and my first credit card was turned down. Christ, I thought, it just gets better and better. The second card worked, and I was able to slink out of the store only mildly abashed by the clerk’s solicitous comment: “We all need a little something special sometimes, don’t we?”
Yes we do. And I have gone back to the source, the ur-scent of the modern era, to nurse my battered ego: Chanel No. 5, my parfum nombre cinq.
Then a friend introduced me to Anaïs Anaïs, by Cacharel, one of the signature scents of the seventies. (Another was Brut, but let’s not go there.) AA was the tempermental opposite of My Sin – powdery, girlish, spring-like. I wore it for many years and still love it, but my body chemistry changed, or Cacharel changed the formula, and now it does not last on me more than a few minutes.
One of those irritating scented ads led me to Truth, by Calvin Klein. You must always say it that way: Truth, by Calvin Klein, lowering your voice on the “Calvin Klein” part. I wore it for about four years, until Calvin Klein stopped making it. For a while I could find end-of-stock bottles on random websites – I once ordered it from Wal-Mart – but eventually even those sources dried up. Betrayal, by Calvin Klein.
Unfortunately, the end of the Truth era coincided with the beginning of my Self-Loathing era, and I could not bring myself to go hunting in department stores for another perfume. I was not worthy. I could drag myself into the local Rite-Aid, but the featured perfumes there were inspired by celebrities like Christina, Jessica, and Sarah Jessica. I was too low for J-Lo. I did consider buying one of the Olsen twins’ perfumes, but decided Mary-Kate’s bag lady persona was too close to home while Ashley’s All-American classic was too much of a stretch.
Close to desperation, I started using a perfume sample that a friend had given me -- J’Adore, by Dior. When I had first tried it, I disliked it. It was dark and lugubrious. I still disliked it, but anything was better than the stink of failure and you couldn’t say it was cheap. I was also kind of fascinated by the fact that Charlize Theron was the perfume’s celebrity rep. I had last seen her as an overweight prostitute serial killer, and that did kind of fit my mood, so I sucked up the smell for Aileen’s sake. Wuornos, by Christian Dior.
Don’t worry. I’m in therapy.
Which is how I finally gathered the courage to take a shower and head out to Macy’s to buy my next “real” scent, one that might bear some relation to who I am and might yet be. I knew what I wanted and would not be deterred. I looked like hell and I think the saleswoman felt sorry for me. It did not help that my debit card didn’t go through and my first credit card was turned down. Christ, I thought, it just gets better and better. The second card worked, and I was able to slink out of the store only mildly abashed by the clerk’s solicitous comment: “We all need a little something special sometimes, don’t we?”
Yes we do. And I have gone back to the source, the ur-scent of the modern era, to nurse my battered ego: Chanel No. 5, my parfum nombre cinq.
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