Category: Personal (Page 6 of 25)

Day 47

April 29, 2020 /

In our household, the key to keeping spirits high is soft drinks.

Since heading into isolation mode, we have spared no expense in keeping the carbonated and sweetened refreshments flowing. It’s an easy way to get a kick of energy, or a happy little mouth tingle, or just a change of pace from the pitcher of Brita in the fridge.

It would be hard to overstate our saturation. We have, in the house right now, one or more of the following, many in cases: Diet Coke, Coke Zero, caffeine free Diet Coke, Honest Tea, diet Snapple, Arizona Arnold Palmer light tea, Sparkling Poland Spring, Vintage seltzer, four flavors of Polar seltzer, three flavors of LaCroix, three flavors of Bai, Gatorade, Coca-Cola and Canada Dry ginger ale. We had some San Pellegrino, too, but we ran out.

Since March 14 we have been in the suburbs, my very busy wife and our rather accommodating sons and our food-stealing dog and me, rather comfortably ensconced in a large house with a ping-pong table and plenty of space and decent wifi and, thanks to some quick last-minute thinking, a brand new basketball hoop in the driveway.

Of course, like everyone else who left city apartments for houses as the crisis approached, we only have parts of our existence, despite the surfeit of seltzer. Limited clothing, limited toys and games, no household projects to take care of, a general sense of mild displacement. On par, though, we’re really quite okay.

When 9/11 happened, I was an active blogger in the early days of blogging, and that activity was core to my existence. My posts came daily, a way of communicating, a way of coping. When we began to experience life in the novel coronavirus era, I expected to do the same.

Yet I have not. I’m posting a little bit on social media, and chatting: on various forums and in WhatsApp and Zoom. But that’s all. It turns out my emotional strength is being utilized differently. I’m supporting my children, my wife, my colleagues and extended family, including some who have dealt with the virus.

Also, unlike 9/11, which was a shock, the coronavirus is a rolling tide, with a continual worry about the near future, yet very little that’s imminent. I often find myself completely spent by 9 p.m., wanting only to watch old reruns on cable TV and assemble jigsaw puzzles, rather than expend more effort into, say, extemporaneous composition. (Case in point: when I began drafting this essay, the title was Day 38.) Unlike September 11, when we literally watched and smelled the disaster, my experience has been more removed. I am grateful for that, and for my six family members and friends who have already recovered from the virus.

In my household, we are all healthy; we’re sleeping in a bit; we are at work and at school, in routines that are starting to feel routine. I’ve been very good (read lucky) at securing food delivery slots. The ping-pong and basketball are great. And, because we left home, we have less of our own stuff to fuss over, which leads to lots of time spent just playing games with the kids and cooking. And consuming soft drinks.

So, yeah, I’m doing okay. I hope you are, too. Stay safe in there.

The decade in cities

December 31, 2019 /

Hitting publish on my annual Year in Cities post made me think it’d be interesting to compile the past ten years of overnight travel into a single entry.

I suspected the first decade of the century was arguably more interesting—I got my passport in 1999, and in the ’00s went to Europe, China, and Central America. But this decade I seem to have ventured as far as Australia, and to twenty-one states (plus the District of Columbia) and ten countries, so there’s some meat on these bones. Let’s see where I’ve been:

Domestic

Akron, OH
Alexandria, VA
Arlington, VA
Athens, GA
Atlanta, GA
Austin, TX
Baltimore, MD
Bellevue, WA
Blue Bell, PA
Bolton Landing, NY
Boston, MA
Chicago, IL
Cleveland, OH
Dallas, TX
Denver, CO
East Hampton, NY
Edgartown, MA
Gloucester, MA
Grapevine, TX
Groton, CT
Hanover, NH
Hawley, PA
Hershey, PA
Jacksonville, FL
Lake Buena Vista, FL
Lakewood, NJ
Las Vegas, NV
Lenox, MA
Livingston, NJ
Longboat Key, FL
Madison, WI
Montauk, NY
Mooresville, NC
New City, NY
New York
Newton, MA
North Creek, NY
Orlando, FL
Palenville, NY
Palm Beach Gardens, FL
Plymouth Meeting, PA
Portland, ME
Portland, OR
San Diego, CA
Santa Monica, CA
Saratoga Springs, NY
Short Hills, NJ
Washington, DC
West Tisbury, MA
West Warwick, RI
Wheeling, IL
Williamstown, MA
Winter Haven, FL

International

Avignon, France
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Hong Kong
London, England
Paradise Island, the Bahamas
Paris, France
Positano, Italy
Punta del Este, Uruguay
Rendezvous Bay, Anguilla, British West Indies
Rome, Italy
St. Thomas, USVI
Sydney, Australia
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

The year in cities, 2019

December 31, 2019 /

Now in its fifteenth year! Not a very exciting year, as it were, we had enough going on at home that there wasn’t much venturing going on. Next year is setting up to be more interesting.

As always, here are all the places I went in 2019 and spent the night. Repeat visits denoted with an asterisk.

New York *
Palm Beach Gardens, FL *
Plymouth Meeting, PA
Lenox, MA
Edgartown, MA *
Lake Buena Vista, FL *
New City, NY *

9/11/19

September 15, 2019 /

I now live around the corner from the Fireman’s Memorial. The streets were blocked on Wednesday morning; many somber uniformed officials passed by while I walked my dog into and out of Riverside Park.

My walk left me in a wretched mood, and a few hours later, still grouchy at work, it dawned on me why: this is the closest I’ve been, emotionally, to 9/11 in a long, long time. The sadness persists.

Several of my old-school-blogging peers like to post every September 11 about the events of 2001. I do not. I had plenty to say back then, and it holds up. In the years since, I’ve gone about life as any other New Yorker, quietly somber each anniversary. I lost people I knew on that day, too. But I chose not to dwell, publicly or privately, beyond my own quiet acknowledgement.

Walking into the remembrance this week–quite literally–hit me much differently. This wasn’t floodlights downtown leaving me in a bit of awe, this was real people commemorating their own pain and loss. This was my reminder of the policeman’s son who my circle lost that day, and his cousin, the suburban cop, my lifelong friend, spending days in the rubble, searching not only for him but for everyone else that would never be found. The remembrance came to me, and I almost didn’t know what to do with it. I’m glad it made me sad, glad I was able to process it and remember and mourn.

On Saturday, I took my dog for another walk past the Fireman’s Monument, this time with my eight-year-old son in tow. We paused to take in the fireman’s cross made of carnations, still intact and proud, a sober “343” in white flowers in the middle of it, for all the colleagues lost that day. I explained it in gentle terms to my son, then turned away to blink away my tears.

There’s a reason the common phrase around 9/11 is “never forget.” I know I never will.

About those archives…

June 6, 2019 /

As an early web design and usability practitioner, I have a long held a strong principle against linkrot, and maintaining the past for future appreciation. This is not a universal tenet. Some of the world’s best websites have been lost to history, which is a shame. Great examples of website preservation do exist—look up a late-1990s topic on cnn.com, for example, and you’ll get the original layout, which is amazing. (And, of course, Space Jam.)

The difference between those sites and mine, of course, is that mine contains, well, a lot of mildly embarrassing stuff. I’m not the same person I was when I started blogging as a 25-year-old web designer. Still, I’ve never taken anything down; most of what’s gone missing is due to poor database management.

Occasionally, this makes for fun reading. Tonight, discussing a written school assignment with my 11-year-old son, I started digging around my archives to show him examples of how writing could be fun. And it was: in my archives are all kinds of expositions, from travelblogs of places he’s been with me to ridiculous stories of my experiences and my childhood. We both laughed a bunch while reading.

So, dear reader, while this site is not as busy as it used to be, rest assured that it’s not going anywhere, either. My archives will stay where they are, and the old page layouts will stick around, too (not least because they’re hard-coded). New posts will appear as they may, as they always have. And someday, probably fairly soon, my kids will discover the really cringe-worthy stuff in my archives, and I’ll have some explaining to do… but it will be worth it.

The year in cities, 2018

December 30, 2018 /

Now in its fourteenth year, because a 20-year-old blog deserves some traditions, however unexciting.

As ever, all the places I went in 2018 and spent the night. Repeat visits denoted with an asterisk. Interestingly, for the first time in many years, I don’t think we spent the night in either Livingston (with my parents) or New City (my wife’s).

New York *
Arlington, VA *
Palm Beach Gardens, FL *
Grapevine, TX
San Diego, CA *
Alexandria, VA
Williamstown, MA
Gloucester, MA *
Edgartown, MA *
Portland, OR *
Lake Buena Vista, FL *
Wheeling, IL
Orlando, FL *
Washington, DC *

XOXO 2018

September 9, 2018 /

The biggest thing I can say about XOXO, having attended this weekend for the first time since 2013, is that I feel pretty much exactly how I felt the last time around, and I wish I had made it to all the ones in between.

Very few events of any scale manage to be open, accepting, encouraging, inspiring, surprising, energizing and downright fun. Despite lots of comments about how big the conference has gotten—two thousand attendees this year—I felt the same warmth and community (albeit with a bigger challenge to find old friends in the throng) as I had previously.

While I had to miss the last day, I soaked up a wide array of XOXO’s programming, including all of the conference’s first day, most of Art + Code and Story, and a good amount of the tabletop and arcade rooms. I was nearly overwhelmed with the amount of creativity and inspiration that surrounded me. The talks I saw brought tears to my eyes, both happy and sad, on more than one occasion. Like last time, the net result is like experiencing a sea swell on a boat: I’ve been pulled up to unexpected heights, and I’m wide-eyed as I see where it will take me.

And while I was thrilled to spend my time with familiar faces, the natural new connections make this event special. An XOXO attendee can successfully strike up a conversation with pretty much anyone wearing a badge. So when I’m there, that’s exactly what I try to do. Grab a meal with six people I’d just met? Turn people you admire into the people you know? Say hello to every person who sits down next to me, transforming unfamiliar faces into friendly ones? Yes, yes and yes.

Life in a broader sense doesn’t always work like XOXO works. Heck, we as people don’t work every day the way we function in this setting; I know I’m not always one to smile at strangers. Yet Andy and Andy continue to bring their universe to life, and I am again grateful for having been there.

Plus ça change

July 3, 2018 /

Glaser’s Bake Shop closed on Sunday after 116 years in business.

My first apartment in New York was across the street from Glaser’s. I discovered them solely by proximity, as one does in Manhattan, particularly in the pre-smartphone days, where a person had to size up an establishment with his five senses.

The unassuming bakery with the aging storefront took a little effort to try, but once I did, I was hooked. Not only on their famous black and white cookies (I’m not even a big fan of the black and white cookie—only theirs) but of the bakery in general, from birthday cakes to the challah they’d bake only on Fridays, when there was sufficient demand.

Glaser’s closing was a retirement, well communicated in advance. I made the foolhardy decision to visit one last time on Saturday, spending [redacted] hours on line with my son to get one last order. It’s something I didn’t do when the Carnegie closed, and it was nice to say farewell. Not so my family’s two favorite restaurants in Greenwich Village, Cho Cho San and Charlie Mom, which both disappeared rather unceremoniously in the past few years, each after more than 20 years in business. We wish we’d been able to say farewell to them, too.

Glaser’s and the restaurants serve as a reminder, however melancholy, of the ever-changing landscape of the city. Yet they’re also an opportunity to celebrate their longevity and wonderfulness. And they provide us with momentum to revisit the things we love about New York.

My employer has an office in midtown Manhattan, three blocks from where I worked at the turn of the century. A few weeks ago, it occurred to me that the Ernest Klein supermarket on Sixth Avenue might still be serving lunch, like it did when I worked up the block, fifteen years ago. So I stopped in. They’ve renovated a bit, but they made me the same exact sandwich, with the same exact honey mustard that I used to adore, but last tasted in 2003. A good number of the lunch spots on West 56th are unchanged, too, and I hope to visit them all in turn.

Things change. But not all things change, and not all at once. Savoring those that don’t is worth the effort.

The year in cities, 2017

December 30, 2017 /

Now in its thirteenth year, with nods to persistence and/or not knowing when to quit, depending.

Herewith, all the places I went in 2017 and spent the night. Repeat visits denoted with an asterisk. Lots of new and different visits to old places this year.

New York *
Palm Beach Gardens, FL *
London *
Palenville, NY
Saratoga Springs, NY *
Hanover, NH
Newton, MA
Edgartown, MA *
East Hampton, NY
Gloucester, MA *
Livingston, NJ *
Santa Monica, CA *
San Diego, CA *
Lake Buena Vista, FL *
Longboat Key, FL *
Las Vegas, NV *

Persistence

October 16, 2017 /

@20, by Paul Ford.

In two weeks, the Ideapad turns 19. The website itself is somewhat older—I don’t know the date, but I believe it was sometime in 1997, after I got tired of having a tilde-level user directory and long before I realized “netwert” was cumbersome and not something I’d necessarily want in perpetuity. My first ~werty dates to late 1995 or early 1996, I think; my critical writing dates to college, offline, and Nov. 1, 1998 in this space, where it has pressed forward in various fits, starts, ebbs and flows ever since.

Lots of folks chimed in to agree with Paul on his post via social media. But because much of what he wrote about his website is applicable here (indeed, for many of us borne of this era), I thought I’d address it in the most appropriate manner possible: with a blog post of its own.

Paul: Some days I want to erase this whole thing—much of the writing is sloppy and immature, and I was, too. But why bother to hit the red button?

I actually have the converse opinion of my own site. Much of my writing from back then is immature, probably much more than Paul’s sophisticated, philosophical approach. Every blue moon or so I meander back into my archives, read a little bit, and find it alternately joyous an excruciating. But it never occurs to me to erase it. My old notes occasionally have relevance and create delight, and for as long as that is the case, I’m happy to have them persist.

Like Paul, and so many other writer-blogger-creators of the early Internet era, I don’t get nearly as much mileage out of my personal website as I once did. But for me, at least, it’s nice to come back to the old homestead once in awhile. See you soon.