Back in the real world, sort of

Home again, home again, earlier than planned. Call me Spanish school dropout. (No graduation day for me.) Just say it in English, because my vocab in espanol is rather limited. So is my knowledge of verbs.

In Argentina, I lived in the present tense. I had no past and no future. It is an interesting way to perceive and the world.

Actually, it is quite apropos, given our brave new world and goings-on in Wonderland and places beyond. The past is history and the future a huge question mark. Will Alice need to find another gig to keep her in the style to which she is accustomed? Or are those days gone, regardless of what gig she comes up with?

Teaching English as a second language seems a possibility. It is a gig with instant credibility, something Alice believes has been lost in her current so-called profession. She thinks Madoff made everyone in her line of work appear as credible as car salesmen are usually wont to be. This does not inspire trust, a necessary element in Alice's work.

In Wonderland Alice is grateful for her health and mobility: TBF (aka Clover's Companion) had a second back surgery in Alice's absence. She will spend months recuperating. Alice would still feel better if TBF would hire a pro for her caretaking, but it's not her choice.

Husband-the-doctor (HTmD), to Alice, appears on the verge of a breakdown. Alice kindly brought him Cuban cigars that she had rolled in a T-shirt in her suitcase. She tells him to take care of himself, but he seems to fall short in that arena.

Today he shopped and brought home the wrong toilet paper, to TBF's dismay. Alice held her tongue. To her, as we know, toilet paper is not created equal. HTmD is a boy; he doesn't make the distinctions Alice and TBF make. He is also bewildered by all things domestic, and Alice wonders how he survived his lengthy bachelorhood.

HTmD is running himself ragged while TBF is incapacitated, calling herself a cripple with a scoliosis-like brace to wear as part of the recovery plan. He is stunningly clueless about their everyday life -- all things remotely domestic.

Alice has never lived in the world of couples, where one brings in the money and the other manages it, much less one in which food supply falls to the female and the male seems unable to manage for himself. Perhaps it is simply all the stress: Alice will buy that. Under stress, brushing teeth can be problematic.

Doctor-husband cannot ascertain by himself where to put the tuna fish cans. He cannot apply heat to food (nor can TBF). That in itself is not a problem, but his failure to find nutrition that is not on the Chinese food or pizza menu puzzles Alice. Shouldn't an M.D. know what they call a balanced meal? Perhaps order one to be delivered? Cash is not the problem, but common sense is in short supply, or perhaps stress has taken its place.

This is why Alice ran away, and why Alice, once she excavates her dining room table, will be just as happy to get on the plane to Mexico next week. She cannot, it seems, bear witness to that which drives her insane. Apparently Alice is a control freak: who knew? Or is Alice the last to get that memo?

In BA Alice had fleeting maternal tendencies: one day she almost decided to wake up the Twit for school, and another night, while they smoked on the balcony, Alice wanted to lecture her about protein and safe sex. (The women of Buenos Aires have emergency kits for sale in their ladies' rooms: two pesos for a toothbrush, one for a condom. That will see them through the night.) However, Alice refrained.

Twit is massively devoted to Boyfriend, with whom she "chats" for hours via instant messaging, although that doesn't stop her from going out and finding a boy to fuck. One morning she came home and announced that she had gotten laid. Alice hoped that having sex would have calmed her down a bit, but no such luck.

When Alice was 19, she probably acted very much like Twit, except that she kept a bit more of her personal life to herself, and she didn't feel the need to tell anyone how intelligent she was. She was probably more about the hair, makeup, and clothes than she remembers. In retrospect, she was definitely more about the conquests than the intimacy.

Thirty years later, Alice has a different take on the world. She is again dating: tonight is her second date with the Artist, a woman Alice met on line and with whom she giggles madly on the telephone. They courted via email during Alice's hiatus. The Artist's Valentine's Day/Friday the 13th email cheered Alice immensely.

So, brave new world aside, Alice is up for more adventures. Keep your fingers (or other parts of your anatomy, as you choose) crossed for her. She wants something to work out with the Artist. Alice, perhaps, has found something to hope for, something/someone to add to her life.

Dancing in the streets

The news from home is grim on all fronts -- TBF (aka Clover´s Companion) is going back to the hospital for more surgery, and I am thousands of miles away, but in truth, there is nothing I can do for her in Wonderland, other than Be Properly Scared. I am. I am praying to a God about whose existence I am unsure.

Economic news grows more dire each time Alice signs on to Yahoo. Employment prospects look dim at best for the year. Alice has savings, but Alice, as observed last year, is still adjusting to reduced circumstances. (The exchange rate is so favorable in Argentina that it is cheaper for Alice here than in Wonderland.)

Nonetheless, in Buenos Aires, it is Carnaval, and the porteñonos are, as it happens, dancing in the streets. Wearing elaborate sequined costumes with make-up to match, they are celebrating. It is a joyous occasion here, and I am in need of joy. My flatmates I joined one group, made up of people ranging from toddlers to older men and women (not elderly: if you can dance in the street, elderly does not apply) fiercely contorting themselves in rhythm.

Never before have I literally danced in a city street. When Obama was elected, I wanted to dance in the West Village, but a local cop shushed us while we yelled from the concrete stoop, just as the cars were honking madly, before we could our feet could touch the asphalt. Here, we are welcome to dance in the street.

Buenos noches, Buenos Aires!

I am reliving student life, though in fact I never washed clothes by hand, never tried to iron, never washed a dish, and here I am, seriously lacking in domestic competence, and feeling ludicrously proud of my efforts. The apartment is run down, with a computer that runs Windows 98 and a telephone that requires a card for a local call, and my bed is definitely dormitory quality, if that. But what the hell -- my Spanish is improving, poco a poco, and for three weeks, I get to step outside myself.

The other students are young enough to be my children, if I had any, so I am gaining an interesting perspective on Youth.

Youth runs technological circles around me, though I suspect when I was their age and I lived abroad, I was more completely immersed in the culture around me simply because my time abroad predated the computer age. Cyber connections did not exist. We wrote letters, we sent postcards; occasionally my father sent Telexes from his office.

Daddy liked to know how his princess was managing. His princess was having a blast. Our business Telex name was hotdog, a play on my family name. My brother and I still have email addresses containing that name, to honor my father, who loved every new gadget that came along.


No one here can imagine a Telex, or a telegram. To me, the local internet cafe does seem part of the streetscape, but the cabinets where you can telephone the U.S. still seem a luxury, no matter how commonplace Youth might find them. Alice is a baby boomer, late to the global village. Youth is Gen Y or Z and knows of no other town.


Both Alice and flatmate Youth (a 19-year-old Dutch child-woman) think they are getting a great deal. Youth brings Alice coffee in bed. Alice pays for the taxi to school. Alice has been there, done that, and torn the T-shirt to rags on the rush-hour subway front, an overheated crowd new to flatmate Youth.

Other differences? Youth gets cramps; Alice wanted to sell her futures in Tampax on Ebay. Flatmate Youth instant messages; youth texts; youth emails, youth spends an inordinate amount of time facebooking (my verb of the day).

I, on the other hand, still find blogging a 21st century revelation, and if I want to talk to someone, I don´t want to sit at a keyboard and cripple myself. (Youth willl have to invent great voice-activated software. In 10 years, they won´t be able to type.) Call me old-fashioned, but call me. On the telephone.

Muchos gracias and hasta luego.

Alice, far from Wonderland

Alice va a Buenos Aires para aprender español

So far, that's about all of Alice's Spanish, but she's off to another hemisphere to wait out the freezes of February, keep her mind occupied and her skin warm, and reactivate her hiatus from responsibility.

January has been another month of travel and health crises: last month Brother had spinal cord surgery; this month, The Best Friend, aka Clover's Companion. Brother recovered quickly enough to return to Sleepy Southern State, where Alice went to celebrate her niece's second birthday.

However, back in Wonderland, Alice returned to find TBF still in serious condition, two weeks after her six hours under the knife. Alice trusts the visiting nurse, but the friend chosen to babysit TBF? Not so much.

Said babysitter's technological incompetence exceeds Alice's: yesterday Alice gave a magic show, what with turning on the cell phone and pushing the button to allow the thermometer to operate. Alice and TBF go back a long way, close to three decades on. If Alice were running the show, TBF would have a practical nurse from the time TBF's husband-the-doctor -- an actual practicing M.D.-- leaves the house until he returns.

When it comes to health care, Alice wants the pros. The cost is pretty much irrelevant. TBF is receiving all her nutrition from a feeding tube in her stomach. Fuck the friend/babysitter: TBF needs someone with real training. TBF is also attached to an antibiotic infusion, whose computer speeds the meds into her veins every four hours.

In another time, no M.D. would have dared consider her a home-care possibility. These days, it's let's cut, sew, and don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. If you can fog a mirror, apparently, you no longer qualify for a hospital bed, even if you have a staph infection that needs 24/7 antibiotics and you can't even swallow.

This is scary stuff: if Alice had her way, the amateur would have long since been dismissed, but she has no standing here, just her hopes and her prayers that husband-the-doctor (heretofore known as HTmD) takes damn good care of TBF, who is Alice's nearest and dearest.

Alice is equally powerless at home or 4000 miles away, and since TBF's babysitter is acting as guard dog, and HTmD is short on details, she has opted to leave town.

She is running for her life and praying for the life of TBF.

The printer ate my telephone cord...

...and other tales of urban life.

The weirdness began before Mexico. The No Exit personae were just one stop in the strange confluence of events that has been my life of late. (Hell is other people.)

It may have started the day the telephone cord inadvertently fell into the ink-jet printer, swallowed whole permanently. Bye-bye phone cord. Bye-bye printer. Hello Staples? What do you have in the way of new all-in-one-machines?

Print color documents, fax, scan, copy, enlarge, reduce, read memory cards, tap-dance, what have you. All the machine fails to do is Windows.

It does VISTA. I do not. Note to self: get XP drivers. Download from Web site?

When I packed for Mexico, I could not find my suntan lotion. I had the car service driver stop at the local 24-hour chain drug store at 5 am so I could pick some up en route to the airport. You don't want to know who else shops at that hour. I didn't.

What else? In my absence during the No Exit experience, I have a house guest arrive. My best friend from grad school is in town from Switzerland, where she has emigrated with her second husband.

America is on sale, and she has the empty suitcases to prove it. She is awake when my housekeeper, who is from Poland, enters. While I am sleeping, they discuss their respective situations as immigrants.

It is not, I admit, a coincidence that occurred to me, that they share emigree status.

Later in the day, after my guest leaves, the infant downstairs starts crying. I put on the Rolling Stones to muffle the noise. I dance to Satisfaction. CC, my best friend, is chez moi, her dog in tow. Shamrock barks to show her annoyance at the baby. The Visiting Dog Service of New York has arrived.

My one-bedroom apartment has no place for a baby except a walk-in closet. The couple downstairs, whose layout is identical to mine, failed to receive the memo informing them that the time to move out is between the conception and the delivery.

They complained once of noise from my apartment. I suggested the doorman read them the riot act, and they take it up with their landlord. They aren't supposed to be able to rent in this building anyway.

The Visiting Dog Service will return as needed. CC will teach Shamrock to stop barking when downstairs teaches their child to stop crying. Or when they move the the kid into their bedroom. It (gender undetermined) lives in the dining area, where I have my office. The wailing makes it hard to concentrate.

I am unreasonable, but not completely so: dining areas are for meals and entertainment, not for infants' slumber. Bedrooms have windows and closets, neither of which is included in the layout for this apartment's dining area.

By Wonderland city code definition, a "room" has windows; an "area" that contains them is rare. The floor plans don't call the dining area a slumber nook.

Just as I never enjoyed my upstairs neighbors' domestic disputes, I do not enjoy the downstairs child. Had I wanted to marry or reproduce, I would have. Neither experience is one I need to have vicariously. Years ago, had there been one more thud from upstairs, I was ready to call 911, fearing spousal abuse.

I set up the new all-in-one and realize the sole purpose of the fax machine. It's is for CC to send prescriptions to her pharmacy in Paris and me to do the same with mine a block from here. Without our meds, we wouldn't need it.

Then came the bizarre phone message: in my line of work, I have had clients ask me to be their executor, or a trustee in their wills. Depending on the circumstances, I may agree. Today, a stranger from upstate left a message: would I consider being a trustee if he and his wife died? I am not sure what to say when I return the call.

Do I start with, are you out of your mind? Or, are you terminal? I have no idea who this person is, much less whether I will still be working when his need for a trustee arises. Or why he would want to entrust his finances to a stranger. This is not where I would begin the conversation.

Where would I begin? With the digested cord? VISTA? The 5 am lotion stop? No Exit? The emigrees? The Visiting Dog Service? The dining room child? The fax discovery? The trustee request?

This week an expose of my prep school has made the cover story of Wonderland magazine, much to my amusement, following the Spitzer denouement on its cover two weeks ago.

One class ahead of me, like most of my fellow graduates, he was filled with the arrogance and hubris imparted with the diploma. I suspect, too, that he never got laid during his days there. That strikes me as a reasonable explanation for his choice of paid companionship.

Where will it stop? Please: someone, anyone, a clue?

Feeling Jamesian...

My mind seems stuck on tunes that made me sad 30 years ago, and once again they are exerting a pull toward tears. Responsibility overload, stemming from a myriad of sources, mostly family related and to which I am inextricably tied. Top on my mind's hit parade is Billy Joel's James:

James...we were always friends.
From our childhood days
And we made our plans,
And we had to go our separate ways.
I went on the road --
You pursued an education.
James...do you like your life
Can you find release,
And will you ever change --
Will you ever write your masterpiece?
Are you still in school --
Living up to expectations...James...
You were so relied upon, everybody knows
how hard you tried --
Hey...just look at what a job you've done,
Carrying the weight of family pride.
James....you've been well behaved.
You've been working hard
But will you always stay --
Someone else's dream of who you are.
Do what's good for you, or you're not good for
anybody....James
I went on the road --
You pursued an education...James...
How you gonna know for sure -- everything was
so well organized.
Hey...now everything is so secure,
And everybody else is satisfied.
James...do you like your life,
Can you find release
And will you ever change,
When will you write your masterpiece?

When will I write my masterpiece? That is, as they say, the $64-thousand-dollar question. My friends from college are surprised I haven't managed at least one published volume 25 years out. I start projects -- the most recent being a memoir of my father, Haiti, and our family's careless self-destructiveness -- but it's difficult to maintain my concentration. Life intervenes, day after fucking day.

If you had asked me in 1982, I could not have imagined myself in the position in which I find myself today: putting out all of my family's financial fires, to name one thing that occupies more of my time than I could have guessed. Never seeing my father or Haiti again. Having synaptic lapses made more pronounced by medication I can't change. Knowing my aunt and uncle's hotel in Lake Placid burned to the ground.

They say you can't go home again: between Haitian politics and the demise of where I spend my Adirondack summers, I honestly don't have a childhood place that I could happily call home. My mother sold the house where I grew up 15 years ago, and I was never attached to that house, where I spent a tortured adolescence, then escaped to college, so it hasn't possessed the allure of home that Haiti and Lake Placid have.

My college went on a building spree after I left, so now the campus is strewn with what I presume are considered post-modern architectural gems but which remind me that my architectural aesthetic stops somewhere short of women's suffrage. Any building that has all the charm of an airport lounge and the same amount of character is not one I think of as home.

What no one told me was that as I grew, my brother would grow away from me, from the city where we were both born, that he would marry four times, and with each wife, I would feel he was less and less a part of my life. He has a daughter now, my niece Kayanna, whom I would like to see and get to know. I'm not likely to have another. But this marriage of his is still in its infancy; he lives in Tiny Town, Slow Southern State, and I am old enough to be the mother of his child-bride.

I seem to be more active as Aunt Alice to Clover, my best friend's shitzu puppy. Those of us who don't have children do take out pets rather seriously. Last year, it broke my heart when I had to put the off-White Rabbit to sleep. Clover comforts and entertains even more so than the White Rabbit did, and both pets are considerably more reliable than either of our siblings.

I'm in melancholy mood at the moment. What I have to keep in mind is a lyric from another Billy Joel song, also from the Turnstiles album: "They say that these are not the best of times, but they're the only times I've ever known."

Behind the gates

Here in Wonderland, we joke that a gated community is the kitchen Clover's Companion fences off with window screens so her puppy doesn't have a chance to have an accident someplace untoward, like the living room rug.

Other gated communities are homes, like the cage in which the off-White Rabbit lived, or the bars that separate the monkeys in the zoo. In short, gates are for the animals; however, Alice does realize that is within a microcosm of larger gates, ones that have no bearing on Christo's orange gate installation in Central Park a few years ago.


In Florida, from which Alice has just returned, gates are for people. She visited three people in three different communities, each of which had its own gate configuration for entry.


Assuming you are in a car, and if you're in Florida, that would be the main form of transportation available -- you must roll down the driver's side window, give your name to the gate lady, wait until it is accepted, then show an ID, all to get into the parking lot. If there's no gate guard, you need to know the magic code to punch into what would be the order-taker box at a drive-thru to allow you to enter. At the very least, your host must leave some indication that you are among the blessed and wanted.


Alice has encountered this before: in Arizona, she visited friends whose gate was controlled either by intercom or via swipe card. She can't imagine what a nuisance it would be to have the world shield her with a piece of metal. It generates as false a sense of security as the TSA does at the airport, waiting to seize a contraband lighter or a bottle with more than 3.4 ounces of liquid.

True, as Adrienne Rich wrote: "the door is simply a door. It makes no promises." In Wonderland, an entryway door begs to be rung, so that she who speaks into the intercom can be buzzed in to the building without other tenants assuming the worst.

If there is to be a gatekeeper, Alice prefers it be a person, like her doorman. While a good part of his job consists of determining who is allowed entry into the apartment building -- a guest arrives, he takes the guest's name, and rings Alice on the intercom or by telephone to get her blessing to send the person upstairs -- he provides a human touch.

The gate to Alice's abode is strictly for people, not for animals, unless the animal is a guest, like Clover's Companion's puppy. What goes on inside any apartment is basically his/her own business, so long as they meet the requisite percentage of rugs on their floor. Our "homeowners' association" is the co-op board, members of which Alice doesn't always recognize and whose control is primarily deadbeats and decibels.


At Alice's friend's house, one of about 100 meeting the architectural criteria for inclusion in Sea Breeze, or River Walk, or Atlantic Gardens, or whatever that particular gated assemblage is called, the homeowners' association clearly has too much time on their hands. Her friend, like 21 others in their compound, has received notice of fascia dysplasia.


Fascia has something to do with gutters or is connected with the roof in some way. In a "private community," the fascia police, like the dog-size/noise police in New York apartments, have the power. (Alice doesn't understand why the decibel police don't exist for crying babies. She is quite sure her mother would have shushed her but good, without raising a fist, if Alice's tantrums rose above the level her mother could tolerate.)


Whether co-op board nazis or fascia fascists, each requires that you must live up to a group standard that may or may not leave you with Constitutional rights . This is becoming a trend across more and more of the U.S. according to The New York Times.

Even when Big Brother, in the name of "homeland security," doesn't take away your right to free speech, you sign an agreement with the co-op board or the condo/homeowners' association in order to have a decent place to live. No wonder no one realizes our rights are melting away; they have already signed contracts spelling that out. We're all behind one gate or another.

Janis Joplin knew what she was singing: freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.

My first meme

This is courtesy of frog, whose blog I can't link to, but you can. Until now, I've never been intrigued by the meme concept (and the tell-it-to-me-tuesdays or thursdays) and the like. This one, however, contains questions that interest me, though I'm not sure what they reveal.

[Spell your first name backwards] ycnan
[The story behind your user name] I live in Wonderland, a city most of the country cannot imagine, except to visit.
[How old are you?] over 40
[Date of birth] 10/08
[Where do you live?] white brick postwar apartment building
[Occupation] paying? financial planning. for love, writing.
[4 words that sum you up] devoted friend, sardonic eccentric

Describe your....
[Wallet] European red leather
[Key holder] Sterling silver with initials
[Jewelry worn daily] gold bracelet, lapis lazuli ring; gold wire ring, diamond earrings -- all gifts
[Pillow cover] high-thread count, white Egyptian cotton
[Coffee cup] travel mug with college logo
[Shoes] summer sandals, winter loafers
[School bag] I’m not in school
[Favorite dress] one I have yet to own
[Cologne/Perfume] Jean Patou's "Joy." If I can't feel it, at least I can wear it.
[Piercing] 2 in right ear, 1 in left ear
[What you are wearing now] cotton flowered dress bought on the street
[Hair] brown
[Makeup] none
[in my mouth] iced coffee
[In My Head] another sleepy day, another day I haven't worked
[Wish] that I will start publishing again
[Eating Habit] a nutritionist's nightmare
[Some of your favorite movies] Holiday; The Best of Everything; The Big Chill
[Do you believe in love at first sight] not so much
[The last thing you ate?] chocolate souffle
[Do you believe in love] yes
[Do you believe in soul mates] yes
[Do you believe in forgiveness] yes
[Three cities you wouldn't mind relocating to?] Paris, and that is only the most remote possibility. I travel; I don't relocate.
[What are some of your favorite foods?] smoked salmon, coffee ice cream, grilled mozzarella sandwiches

Yes or No...
[you keep a diary] had diary, now a blog
[you have a secret you have not shared with anyone] yes
[you fold your underwear] Actually, the housekeeper does it.

YesLast...
[movie you bought] I have no idea.
[song you listened to] James Taylor's "Mexico"
[song that was stuck in your head] "The First Cut is the Deepest"
[song you've downloaded] I’ve never downloaded a song.
[CD you bought] No idea--I haven't bought one in ages.
[CD you listened to] Woodstock
[person you've called] my neurologist
[person who called you] Clover's Companion
[TV show you've watched] Crossing Jordan
[Thing you said] “Where are my cigarettes?"
[Black or White?] black
[Cats or Dogs?] dogs
[Tea or Coffee?] both
[Achiever or Slacker?] slacker
[Leader or Follower?] neither
[Beer or Cider?] cider
[Drinks or Shots?] drinks
[Single or Taken?] single
[Matches or a Lighter?] lighter
[Letters or Emails?] email
[Short hair or Long hair?] long

I want to...
[Go] to sleep
[Kill] Big Brother
[Hear from] The Croquet Player
[Meet] the love of my life
[Look like] I'm as thin as I was in college
[Avoid] pain
[Hug] my niece, Kayanna
[Kiss] TCP
[Loved somebody so much it makes you cry?] yes
[Drank alcohol?] some
[Done drugs?] yes
[Broken the law?] depends on who's asking
[Ran away from home?] no
[Broken a bone?] no
[Cheated on a test?] yes
[Played Truth Or Dare?] yes
[Flashed someone?] yes
[Mooned Someone?] no
[Kissed someone you didn’t know?] yes
[Been on a game show/talk show] no
[Been in a fight?] not physical
[Ridden in a fire truck?] no
[Been on a plane?] yes, and flown one
[Come close to dying?] yes
[Gave someone a piggy back/shoulder ride?] no
[Swam in the ocean?] yes
[Had a nightmare/dream that made you wake up?] yes
[Kissed someone of the same sex] yes

Relationships...
[Girlfriend/Boyfriend] Yes/Yes
[When and who was your 1st crush?]
Sixth grade. A boy named Steven.
[Your idea of a perfect date] anything with someone I love
[Name a moment that you thought was really sweet] Meeting my niece for the first time. A classmate sending me a postcard thanking me for working as 25th reunion co-chair.
[Your first kiss] (real kiss) can't remember who. I was 17.
[Do you have a crush] not at the moment

Are you a...[Vegetarian?] no
[Good Student?] have been
[Good Singer?] fair
[A good Actor/Actress?] fair
[A deep sleeper?] Yes, but also an insomniac.
[A Good Dancer?] yes
[Shy?] no
[Outgoing?] yes