If you have regular dinner parties, yes. If you have kids, maybe. If not, you know that your dining room is a glorified mail room anyway so why not declutter and retrofit.
 
One of my friends converted her dining room into a mini-work out studio. My cousin converted hers to a sewing room.
 
How about a game room? Play on-demand ping pong or pool or even foosball like Joey and Chandler of Friends fame.
 
How about a cocktail lounge?  Comfy chairs. Tiny tables. A player piano.
 
Or how about a performance space? Guitars on the wall. A karaoke machine. A stage.
 
Spin, people. Spin. Think outside the dining table.    
 
Art: Still Life with Herring, Bread, and Cheese, 1858. Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps (French, 1803-1860) The Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access Collection.

I’m still journaling about the same shit. Men and food.
 
Trying to decipher his words and to adapt to his mood. Blabbing about Lays Potato Chips and my big belly.
 
Maybe I’ll make my journal man-free and food-free. But then how will I get to the good stuff? But maybe I’ll lose weight?
 
Art: Mary Cassatt at the Louvre: The Paintings Gallery, 1879-1880. Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917). The Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access Collection.
 

After a stay in an Airbnb dwelling, the owner reviews you and you review the owner. And it’s all very civilized. “Lora even makes the bed!” “Such a delightfully decorated place.” Staying in other people’s home might be wearing thin on my psyche because this is what I really want to write this time…
 
Though the house is sparkling clean, there’s an undercurrent aroma of sweat. Those reed diffusers mask nothing. Are you a grandma disguised as a man?  
 
When your fucking Roomba vacuum robot started up during my mid-Saturday Netflix binge, I nearly soiled your leather sectional. Speaking of which, decorating with a leather sectional demonstrates a serious lack of imagination. And promotes laziness. See mention of Saturday binge.
 
You have a furniture problem. There’s too much in the living room and too little in the bedroom. I need a fucking bedside table!
 
And I really don’t want to get personal but Cocoa Puffs? 
 
Maybe I’m a hotel girl at heart…
 

It started in Morocco. A rug store salesman asked, “Sister, what do you think?”
 
I thought I misheard him until he said it again. And again. Our guide said addressing women with “sister” is a sign of respect.
 
Then when I arrived home the extremely helpful security guard in my building said he considers me the sister he never had. Then my office landlord exclaimed when he saw me, “Sister!”
 
I guess it’s better than “grandma” but still it made me a feel a little old. Even though catcalls definitely disrupted my state of mind when I was younger, part of me would prefer catcalls to “sister” calls.
 
And I address my aunt as “Sister.” But she’s a nun. And a nun’s life wouldn’t suit me. All that community living. All that promise of no hootchy coo.
 
I feel a little dried up when a man calls me sister. Like I’m outta juice.
 
My friend disagrees. She said, “sister” is such a cool term of endearment. It’s shows deep affection, she said. Which makes me wonder if, despite my reticence to date, maybe I want more than affection.
 
Here’s another thing. I already have three brothers, three big dude brothers. They might get jealous. And you don’t want them to get jealous. 
 
So how should you greet me? Maybe “babe” would be ok. Maybe “beautiful.”
 
 Art: Reading. 1873. Berthe Morisot. (French, 1841-1895). France, 19th century. Oil on fabric. The Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access Collection.
 

I’d rather do my taxes or my laundry or the dishes than face returning items to overstock.com or amazon.com. Sometimes I’ll even give them away just to avoid the process.
 
But I have $50 worth of glass cabinet knobs that do not work in my bathroom. Who knew that the length of the attachment screw mattered?!
 
So yesterday I did my taxes, my laundry and the dishes. I should be grateful for all the work I get done but still…
 
Art: Frieze of Dancers. c. 1895. Edgar Degas. (French, 1834-1917). France, 19th century. Oil on fabric. The Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access Collection.

If you marry at 17.
If you start a business without working many jobs.
If you work on teeth all day.
 
That’s just fine but you should know that your vision leans toward short-sightedness.
 
“I’ll stay married even if he’s mean because all men are mean.” “How hard can it be to run a business?” “Patients love me even if my staff is sullen.” 
 
Vision is myopic without perspective.

Art: Tulip. 1875. William Morris. (British, 1834-1896). England, 19th century. Roller printed cotton. The Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access Collection.

Maybe I’m just a lazy blob of passive acceptance but audience questions during a presentation make me crazy. Interrupting a speaker or tour guide or docent mid-talk with questions like “What year was that?” or with a story about how her father did it differently is not about elucidation. It’s about obfuscation. It’s about the questioner heaving himself on stage.
 
In my most impatient moments, I want to mutter “Shut the fuck up. We don’t interrupt actors on stage. Let it flow. Trust the storyteller.”
 
But that’s just the angry controller in me. Just because I prefer a sense of contemplative study to a sense of relentless query, doesn’t mean everyone must.
 
But, really, no one cares about your father.
 
Art: Apollo the Python-Slayer. c. 350 BC. Part of a set. Attributed to Praxiteles. (Greek, c. 400BC-c. 330BC). Greece, Athens, mid fourth century BC. Bronze, copper and stone inlay. The Cleveland Museum of Art Open Access Collection.

So honored to be in the "She Persisted" issue of Earth's Daughters. Here's the poem that appeared. I started this poem nearly 30 years ago and finished it just in time to meet Earth's Daughters deadline.



Immortality
 
Even in the absence
of my footsteps,
this oak floor
sighs and creaks --
 
as if she still elbows
her sisters in the forest
and heaves boulders aside
with her muscled roots;    
 
as if white-throated fungus
and snarls of moss
still mount
her pleated bark;
 
as if her limbs
still sprout ruffled fronds
to snag the perfect
suitor’s pollen;
 
as if she still prays
at least one of her young
escapes the squirrel’s
lethal pantry.
 
 

My iPhone started generating a report on Sundays outlining how much time I’ve spent that week with it. Nearly 3 hours a day! That’s a lot of research, news, shopping and general farting around.
 
Thumbing that soft warm home button was more of a preoccupation than I thought. And I had other things to do. For real.
 
So I became more mindful of my use. I didn’t take it on walks. I delayed opening it until later in the morning. And the first week my screen time was down 34%. The next it was down 11%. I read more. I cleaned up the kitchen before dirty dishes inhibited sink use. I cooked. I day dreamed. I’m down to two hours a day.
 
I wonder if using it as an actual device to talk with someone counts as screen time. Or listening to audible books.
 
 

For the first time in my life, I’m not sure what New York City means to me.
 
Before I lived there, it was a “Marlo Thomas: That Girl” goal, a sky’s-the-limit kind of life. On my first visit, the sheets were discolored but the Rockettes were awesome.
 
When I lived there, it was half ecstasy and half torture. On a day when I felt adventuresome, I sat in Washington Square Park, chatted up butchers, braved the subway. On lonely shy days, I stitched satin and tulle bridesmaids’ dresses for friends’ weddings in my sunless apartment. 
 
When I left, I visited at least once a year. With my husband. With my husband and kid. With just my kid. With friends. I curated each visit to meet my travel companions’ needs. Bead and fabric stores. Restaurants. Central Park playgrounds. Ping pong in Bryant Park. Countless Broadway shows. One time my son and I taxied directly from the airport to a Monday Night Magic Show in the Village.
 
Then I went alone. To be alone. Three or four times a year. Museums. Literary events. Science lectures. I even did poetry readings there. I even made friends there. I loved it and lived for it and probably used it to escape something at home that I could not yet name.
 
The day after my divorce, I visited for the New Yorker Festival and by some strange circumstances found myself homeless for a night. The only available room was $2,000 a night. I found a quiet place in that luxury hotel lobby and sobbed. And longed to phone my husband, my not-husband.
 
But then I found myself on a friend’s sofa. And she helped me settle.
 
So now I’m not sure what’s next for me and New York City.
 
Maybe Brooklyn.