While there are a few bad eggs only out for their own interests (1%), they’re easy to spot, and easy to avoid. The miserable little man who claims everyone else is an idiot, whose idea of conversation is talking at people who can’t escape, the disingenuous woman with painted-on smile and seething eyes, scratching madly at everyone, terrified her incompetence will be caught out—they deserve our sympathy, if not our time. There are so many amazing, loving people out there, it’s quite easy not to dwell on these creatures. Don’t.

Just as I started to write, M sent me a link to a Friedman column. Though I think Friedman’s a wanker (“Where does a guy whose family bulldozed 2.1 million square feet of pristine Hawaiian wilderness to put a Gap, an Old Navy, a Sears, an Abercrombie and even a motherfucking Foot Locker in paradise get off preaching to the rest of us about the need for a ‘Green Revolution’?”—Matt Taibii), I did like this line:

“The days of leading countries or companies via a one-way conversation are over,” says Dov Seidman, the CEO of LRN and author of the book How. “The old system of ‘command and control’ – using carrots and sticks – to exert power over people is fast being replaced by ‘connect and collaborate’ – to generate power through people.” Leaders and managers cannot just impose their will, adds Seidman. “Now you have to have a two-way conversation that connects deeply with your citizens or customers or employees.”

Oh, I guess it’s all a Dov Seidman quote. That’s why. Yes, connect and collaborate. Finally, it’s happening.

Something else I’ve always known but truly learned this year: Avoid people who put you down, want to keep you down, take you for granted, treat you poorly, or are generally negative or selfish. Even if they are funny. Even if you’re crazy attached. You know, deeply, that it will affect you. It rubs off and the end result is never pretty. Stand up for yourself, your friends, and your beliefs. Value yourself, your talents, your work, your community, and others will, too. It’s cliche and we hear it often, but live it. You’ll be in good company.

So, what’s the alternative? It’s infinitely harder than the next bauble in your match.com lineup, but infinitely more creative. You step out of the fantasy of romantic love and have a real relationship with your beloved—through your brokenheartedness. That’s right. You reach out through your vulnerability and meet your beloved on real terms. This is Simmer-Brown paraphrased, but it’s exactly my attitude toward love. For better or worse, though I adore romance, I have little trust in it. Maybe it’s because of loss early on my life, but I need my beloved to see the whole me and love her. With romantic love, especially the sort that grows too fast, I don’t feel seen at all. It feels inflated and unreal. Unsurprisingly, I’m not sure how my mean, ugly and needy parts will be tolerated. But there’s also an uneasy feeling that my sweet, beautiful, strong, and nurturing parts aren’t seen either. Instead, as the object of romantic infatuation, I just feel like a giant screen for another’s projection. It’s not a great feeling at all, though sure, the attention and roses sure are nice.

Simmer-Brown’s words were a relief to me because I ache for romantic love to crack open, for the real work and love to begin. Yes, it’s true I’ve tried to force it in the past. Not to hurt or to end the relationship, but to get into the creative work and real love of getting to know the beloved. It’s not for the faint of heart.

As Chögyam Trungpa, Simmer-Brown’s teacher, said (my paraphrase), “There’s not a lot of originality or creativity in the romantic story. Romantic love is a fantasy. Real relationships are infinitely more interesting.”

My word. Yes. I’m not saying I’m good at it. Not at all. In one relationship, my boyfriend complained I wasn’t going deep enough with him, sharing enough with him, and he needed that. “What did all my meditation and yoga give me, if not this?” he demanded. I didn’t tell him, because I couldn’t, that I was avoiding this depth, that I couldn’t share it, because if I was true to it (myself) I would end the relationship immediately. I needed a few more months to honor it, as the unhealthy attachment was strong. There were things I liked about the relationship even though it wasn’t meeting me on the deep level I wanted and needed. So, I get it. It’s hard. And I’m far from perfect myself.

“We have a fear of facing ourselves. That is the obstacle. Experiencing the innermost core of our existence is very embarrassing to a lot of people. A lot of people turn to something that they hope will liberate them without their having to face themselves. That is impossible. We can’t do that. We have to be honest with ourselves. We have to see our gut, our excrement, our most undesirable parts. We have to see them. That is the foundation of warriorship, basically speaking. Whatever is there, we have to face it, we have to look at it, study it, work with it and practice meditation with it.”  —Chögyam Trungpa

Then I read a good book. This helped, too. I’ve been wavering in my yoga practice since I came back from the UK. I’ve been sitting (seated mediation) and my 6am ashtanga practice has been ignored for a more gentle home practice. I feel guilty about that, but it also feels like what I need. Maybe. (Ashtangis will chalk it up to resistance.)

When I am uncertain about where I am, I try to do a meditation retreat. A week or two is best, but a weekend is better than nothing. It connects me to the part of myself that isn’t so much fear or ego and clarifies my situation. This is, at its core, what meditation is for me. It’s not about blissing out or enlightenment, it’s about knowing the difference between the bullshit stories that whirl around my head, the patterns I like to trap myself in, and my truth. I looked for something this weekend, but nothing really seemed appropriate and hell, I have a lot of work to do.

Then, out of the blue, Z asked me if I wanted to do some meditation this weekend. In our eight years, we’ve never meditated together, so I took it as a must-do (you know, a sign). I suggested a talk I’d come across by Judith Simmer-Brown at the Shambhala Center.

We went. The talk was excellent, funny, and validated everything I believe about modern love, and what can pass for it. It validated my take on my love affairs of the last few years (love being a loosely used term, as we know) and grounded me in where I am, and what I need now. Simmer-Brown also gave words and a framework to the point of all this, these love stories I want to tell. It was inchoate before, but now they’re screaming, ready to be told. Love Notes, the post title, was inspired by the few notes I scribbled down when I wanted to remember JSBs words.

It’s about going past the fantasy of romantic love. Blind addiction to imagined love is nothing less than the true religion of America (or pseudo-religion, as Simmer-Brown says. Semantics depend on how much you believe religion has to offer). Americans seek romantic love the way humans have traditionally sought God. It’s not just a distraction, it’s a deluded myth that romantic love with “the one” will solve all one’s problems. “There is such a theological commitment to romance that we will dump someone in a second if they challenge our fantasy,” says Simmer-Brown.

Indeed we will. With internet sirens beckoning, as soon as the facade cracks and the person you projected perfection upon turns out to be human, why face your own pain and that of your ersatz beloved when some guy or gal advertising (a) huge ____________ (insert your fancy) comes poking? My gawd, s/he knows the word for your genitals in your mother tongue, and will impress you with it before you even meet. Mmm, titillating. Now this? This will be easy.

Not refined, not subtle, no. Not even attractive, really. But that isn’t part of this game. We can ignore the obvious for now and focus on ease and fantasy. Why face pain and humanity when cranked-up delusion comes calorie-free?

Why? (If you’re really asking, you aren’t going to hear me anyway.) Because as per usual, you get what you pay for.

And so it goes. Another one bites the dust. Next time, some thoughts on real love, and some gorgeous stories for illustration.

~Jon Kabat-Zinn

In all Asian languages, as you may know, the word for mind and the word for heart is the same word. So when you hear the word ‘mindfulness’ if you aren’t hearing ‘heartfulness’ you aren’t really understanding. It’s got this tenor of spaciousness of heart.

~Jon Kabat-Zinn

Life on earth is a whole, yet it expresses itself in unique time-bound bodies, microscopic or visible, plant or animal, extinct or living. So there can be no one place to be. There can be no one way to be, no one way to practice, no one way to learn, no one way to love, no one way to grow or to heal, no one way to live, no one way to feel, no one thing to know or be known. The particulars count.

~Jon Kabat-Zinn

I got here, to the eighth, the day my beautiful new computer arrived, so gorgeous I cannot believe it. So these photos will not be edited between crashes of my six-year old macbook, which slowed me down tremendously. I started editing the Center Kenes photos this morning. And now I’m there.

The writing and editing is also difficult because it involves Guka. Our friendship began to unravel during this trip, and we were already tense. Maybe that partly inspired my little revelation about humanity and relationship, but it’s still painful.

And my old friend left today. He was my houseguest for a week and a total gentleman. I’m easily annoyed, especially with people in my space, and he didn’t disturb me a bit. I loved having him. Largely because I felt appreciated and supported. His timing was perfect.

But now I am sad. Left to sink into my melancholy a bit, which isn’t the worst thing in the world. I’ve been thinking about old friendships, I guess because I’ve been seeing old friends. I tried to write about Danchik last week, after he (and Pasha, picture below) entertained me through a rough spot one Sunday at Coney, way out west where the beach is decent. But I’m not sure I can explain our relationship, either. He breaks a lot of rules as far as not being an ass goes. But he owns up to it totally, doesn’t pretend to be otherwise, and at the end of the day, he’s there for me. (I wouldn’t tell him that though. He’d be annoyed.) This is more than I can say for most people. People who pretend to be good or talk a nice game around it, but aren’t there when the going gets difficult. For a day.

Whatever “good” means.

So, I accept Danchik for who he is. He makes me laugh and takes me out of myself. He can be a jerk, and he knows it.

He went to Odessa last weekend to chase some girl. That will not have a happy ending, but it will be fun for a time, and that’s all the depth some people can muster. And that’s fine.

If you’re honest.

Well, there. I wrote a bit about Danchik. I didn’t include the hard-to-explain stuff, the quintessentially Danchik stuff. His declaration that he keeps a beautiful-but-boring girl around he doesn’t much like because sometimes you just need some company, a pretty face. “I am an asshole. She is an idiot. What can you do?”

Oh dear.

But, as you see, he’s honest. Most people do this sort of thing, in one way or another, but they don’t admit it. And so start the problems.

I’ve not gotten to August 8th. Or to old friendships. Why they feel comfortable, but also confining. Perhaps I’ll be as prolific tomorrow.

“Anyway. Every summer feels like a big round tent. I inhabit it and simmer inside. Fourth of July is the central axis. My favorite holiday because it’s a nothing day. People don’t alter their lives to celebrate it: they celebrate it with and through whatever life they’ve got going. They satisfice. The ways we “make do” say everything about the real life we’re living.”  —OvO

The title and photo (taken on a ferry in St. Augustine, FL while visiting LD in May) don’t quite match Owl’s quote here. You have to read her post to get it all. It comes together there. Exxon. And the real life we’re living. I, for the moment, have nothing to say. Nothing I can say.

Instead of just deleting this questionable fellow, as I usually do, I left him there, awaiting response. After all, he does enjoy surfing, free climbing, scuba diving, marathon running, and flying airplanes. Very sexy. Very versatile. Very believable.

Like most born before 1985, I’m very confused by social networking etiquette. When I used to receive requests from people I didn’t know, I’d reply, “Do I know you?” Until I read, on elephant journal, I believe, that this is a very rude and hurtful practice. Oh. So then, like Kate Miller-Heidke, I simply ignored and deleted these requests. Until Mr. von Hohenlohe, whose unlikely profile brought the Tin Eye to my suspicious mind. I left him there unconfirmed for three months, until I made time to write this. He’s still there, arms-crossed and waiting, now with 57 friends and the same profile pic.

Of course I have younger friends who make status updates like, “I have a facebook friend called Krystal Chandelier,” which I believe implies that she doesn’t know Ms. Chandelier. After reading about how a health insurance company denied Nathalie Blanchard therapy benefits because they saw photos posted on facebook of her having fun on the beach, and how creditors and other busybodies are creating fake profiles with attractive photos to spy on people and hunt them down, I became even more stringent.

Because his request amused me, I downloaded Mr. von Hohenlohe’s photo and uploaded it into the Tin Eye. The Tin Eye is a reverse image search engine. “You can submit an image to TinEye to find out where it came from, how it is being used, if modified versions exist…” (from TinEye.com). Try it. It’s fun. (We call it the photographer’s bodyguard.)

Results? It looks like a Sean Patrick Flanery might not be too impressed either. Mr. Flanery was not born in Stuttgart, Germany, but Lake Charles, Louisiana. According to his website, he’s an actor who “attended the University of St. Thomas in Houston, where he took a drama class because of a girl. The girl was a short infatuation, but he found true love in college theater. He moved to Los Angeles and…” No mention of a European start or a penchant for skinny dipping (though it seems he did star as Indiana Jones on teevee).

Please don’t suggest that Cassian posted this photo of Sean Patrick as his celeb doppelganger shot for “Facebook Celebrity Doppelganger Week” (what, you didn’t play?), as it ended six months before Cassian joined. And it’s his only profile pic. And a Google search for “Cassian von Hohenlohe” (with quotes) results in only six links, all to Facebook.

I’ll refrain from wondering who this Cassian character really is and just hope I was selected to be his friend at random. What a fine mixture of creepiness and hilarity.

Thanks for some weekend wisdom, Mr. Diggs.

Have a good one.

Why does this matter? I find the psychology of the home fascinating. Settling in means I move the bed back and forth until it feels right. I unpack books, many boxed and unmissed for six months. I give them away. I go to the store, get a friend to take me to the store, and go to the store again. I rebuy a bookcase I sold on craigslist in March. I move the books around again. I get lectures from friends about installing blinds and keeping dirty laundry under the bed (the latter a chide about choosing such a small space. “So you are going to sleep over your dirty laundry? (This, from a non-feng shui/energy-feeling type guy, I might add.) What is this? You would pay $800 for this in south Brooklyn (read: российский Бруклин~rossiiskii Brooklyn).” “Yeah, and I’d spend three hours a day on the train. Is my time and sanity worth nothing?”

In my other spare time, when I am not in the mood to settle in, I archive. I’m on 2004, which like 2000, is a very full year because of travel. Tagging the photos can be both tedious and emotional. The other day I tagged August 8, 2004, which was one of the most amazing days of my life, one I’ve always wanted to write about, but again, never knew quite how. Tagging the 187 photos was kind of a drag, though. All all of it feels a bit removed and gone, though my epiphany that day involves a prominent theme in my life. I had dinner with a friend last night and she validated my feelings about it entirely. But for six years I’ve wondered how to explain it properly. Now that it’s pertinent, especially because I needed help with the move, that’s what I’ll tackle next. Happy weekend.

Maybe it’s because I dislike them so. They are disruptive and bizarre. On a computer, I love to play. I’m more than comfortable when I build a website, fiddle with plugins, or muck around in code. But put someone’s name in my cell phone? Disaster.

I’d like to blame this entire story on my cousin, who started it all the other night, when he joked, in my preparation for visiting my Aunt in Chicago a few days later, “The only gift you need is a dirty joke. She’s so naughty.” She’s 87.

This much I knew. Quite frankly, all the women in my paternal line are quite, well, perverted. Once I’d asked my mother if she thought I was like my dad, and she said, “No, I think you are like your Aunt (his sister).” Interesting.

Back to my cousin. “Yes,” I said, “Thanks for the confirmation on that. I’ve been trying to remember if it was her or Granma who instructed, ‘The only way to get over a man is to get under another one.’ (It was Granma.) But does she still like chocolates?”

“Yes, but you might have to hear that they make her go to the bathroom,” he replied.

Fair enough. She is 87.

“Take her lemon curd. She loves it.”

Great. I can do that. At some point the next day I’d make my way towards Fairway or Williams & Sonoma and find her some lemon curd. And I asked a few friends for some jokes, as the only good one I have is pro-lesbian and I’d have to test the waters with her to decide if it’d go over well. (It did.)

So, the day before I left, I got everything in order. I couldn’t get downtown, so I planned to check out all the nearby stores on Broadway for lemon curd after I taught my last class. I also had to pick up a bottle of wine because I was en route to a party. My path was marked: the party was 6 blocks south, 4 blocks east, with errand stops in air conditioned stores on the way. Though it was still sweltering in the city and I was dressed for the party, it was well planned and would be no problem. A nice stroll, even.

Until the voicemail. After I taught, I chatted it up with students for awhile, then went back to change. I then noticed the VM message on my mobile.

“Anastasia! I have a favor to ask! There was a mess-up and we had to run to downtown catering and didn’t have time to get the cake. Could you get it? It’s at Make My Cake on 116th and St Nicholas. They close at 8. Text if you can or can’t.”

It was 7:30. Of course I could get the cake, though I’d have to run, as I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get there. As I took off east across campus, I called and left a message, “Yes! Just got your message. I’m running to get the cake. Just let me know if someone else got it. This isn’t a text ’cause it takes me about 10 minutes to write one!”

Skipping down the steps of the park headed toward St Nicholas, I considered the lemon curd and wine and wondered if there was any way I could pick them up over there, as it’s a good twenty minute walk to and from Broadway. No calls or texts came in, so I kept going, wondering if I had the time and stamina to go back to Broadway for the goods. I knew I didn’t want to leave it for the morning before my flight because it’d be too rushed. Maybe I could find a cab. Hmmm. Then I ran into Jon, a friend from the neighborhood, crossing Frederick Douglass with a cane in one hand and cigarette in the other, and told him, among other things, to cut out the smoking. He ignored me and asked what kind of cake I was picking up.

“Dunno,” I answered, running off.

7:50p.m. Cake shop.

“Hi. I’m here for a cake. The name, I think is…. No? What does it say? Ah…I have the order number. I’m sorry, one second,” I said, and listened to my VM messages. “Okay. 7253. Red Velvet cake.”

There was some calling back and forth and some upstairs downstairs before a young guy came out, looked at me slightly disparagingly, and said, “Someone just picked that up.”

“Okay, thanks. Sorry for the trouble. I got a message, but it wasn’t clear if they’d sent someone else.”

“No problem.”

“Hey, is there anywhere around here I can get lemon curd?” I asked the first woman. Working in a cake shop, I figured if anyone would know, she would.

She looked at me with raised-browed amusement and said, “No, you’re going to have to go down to Fairway or farther for that. There’s an organic food store, but it closes at 8.”

“Okay, thanks.” I said, and figured I’d go back to Broadway and try my luck. I passed the still-open organic food store, but no lemon curd. And no cabs. So I walked the 20 minutes back to Broadway, figuring that with the surprise party in full swing now, they just didn’t notice my VM about the cake.

I texted to make sure someone had gotten the cake. “Someone got it!” I wrote.

A few minutes later, the phone chimed, announcing a new text. “Hon, I think you sent a text to the wrong person.”

By now I was almost back to Broadway, hot, frizzy-haired, sweaty, and kind of annoyed. “‘Someone got it!’ was not clear enough?” I thought. I snapped the phone shut, then, frustrated, reopened it to write another, as it chimed in another text:

Joke 1: A woman goes to her doc and asks, “How many calories are in cum?” The doc replies, “Sweetheart, if you swallow, no one cares if ur fat.”

The auntie jokes were coming in. The moment felt incredibly absurd. I typed a reply to the previous message. “The cake? Someone….” As I raced toward Broadway, half-looking, half-typing, I realized that I was the person I deplored—the joker racing down the street fussing with a gadget. I was an ugly pedestrian. A bad citizen. Oh, the shame.

I finished the text anyway, turned into West Side Market, headed for the jams, and searched out the lemon curd. Lime curd. They had lime curd. Hell. Does she like lime curd? I searched for my cousin’s number in my phone. Hmmm. Why don’t I put names in my phone?

Well, I do. I’d put the party host’s in just the weekend before, on July 4th. I do resist though, as it takes time and I like numbers. My grandmother (and namesake. Paternal line) had the numbers, addresses, and birthdays of the entire Lithuanian-American club memorized, and could recall them even at age 95. I’m old-fashioned in some ways. I will argue that my memory is fantastic. It’s just that hunting up numbers in a call log does not carve them into memory them same way fingering that rotary dial did.

I asked a guy stocking soups if they might have lemon curd. He took me to a guy who’s worked there longer than a day, and he led me back to the lime curd. Then he took me past the cheese, sushi, and lobsters to the barbeque sauce section and scoured the shelves for lemon curd. I gave up and went on to Milano. Not even lime curd. Frustration mounting, I went to the wine store. That, at least, would be easy.

Back out in the heat, I had to decide. Walk 6 more blocks to try Garden of Eatin’ for lemon curd? Or settle for lime? My phone chimed with another joke. Wanting to be a good guest, niece, goddaughter, I walked south. I popped into Samad’s just in case, like my auntie, they had a strange fondness for lemon curd, and stocked it. They did not. I went on. At the Garden, my fifth stop, I made a beeline to someone who worked there. “Do you have lemon curd?” He looked uncertain for a split second, then he took me to the jams, reached up to a row of fancily labeled goods, and handed me lemon curd. Lemon curd! Thank God! Relief! My sweat and newly-formed blister were not in vain.

Three nasty jokes had come in by this time, and I read them while waiting in line. Of course I was behind three people at the registers who took eons. One issue with the price of something, another remembered he needed yogurt mid-checkout and went to get it, and the last simply complained about nothing, and stalled the rest of us in her need for attention. This meant the bus, which would have taken me the ten-minute walk back east to the party in two minutes, was just pulling away from the curb as I rounded the corner. I refuse to take a cab four blocks—even if they’re avenues—so I walked.

I arrived. About two hours behind my original plan. Am I becoming part of that mobile crowd who finds this acceptable? Oh, I so hope not.

“Welcome!!” Big hug. “Did you get my super-paranoid message about the cake? Don’t worry. We got it!”

“I know. I went to get it. Didn’t you get my message?”

“No,” she said, confused. She checked her phone. “Nothing.”

“So weird,” I said as I walked to wash the grime off my hands, wondering to whom I’d sent all those messages. As I washed, I remembered a brief thought that flashed through my mind when I half-listened to the greeting when I’d left the VM message. “Strange. Her name sounded so much like ‘Sarah’ the way she said it.” But I was so concerned about leaving the message and getting the cake that I really didn’t listen to notice that I had called Sarah. This is what happens when people are rushing around on phones. No one is really saying or listening to anything. I’d pressed “Purva” when I made the call. I claim not to, but I’d trusted my little machine. I was certain I’d called Purva.

I had, in fact, saved the wrong number in my phone coming home from July 4th festivities last week. But until I got to the party, and later when Sarah left a message saying, “What the hell is wrong with you? My birthday isn’t until next week” (Just kidding. She left a very patient and polite message, very unlike my recent message to a friend whose phone dials me ten times a day—and leaves long background-chatter-filled messages—because my name is at the start of her phonebook) did I seriously consider that it wasn’t the right number.

You hoped this was the end of the story, but no.

The next day, I got to the airport without issue. I’ve never flown Delta, and have therefore never flown out of LaGuardia’s art deco Marine Air Terminal, which is just gorgeous. It wasn’t crowded. There were no lines. I was incredibly charmed until I stood barefoot on the cold, dirty floor of the security checkpoint and the TSA gal called, “bag check.”

I was patient and pleasant because I had nothing problematic with me. I remembered to take out all my lotions and such because I wasn’t certainly wasn’t checking a bag for a few days in Chicago. I had no gels or liquids.

Oh. God.

I froze.

They wanted, and took, my auntie’s lemon curd.

“Are you kidding me?” I said to a nice-enough, middle-aged bald guy just doing his job. “It’s not a liquid. It’s not a gel. It’s solid. It is for my 87-year old aunt. Do you know how many stores I went to for this last night?”

The guy said, “Not allowed. Substances like jams, preserves, almond butter (he actually said “almond” and not “peanut” as if he knew my diet. Creepy, but good to know) in sizes over three ounces are not allowed. You can check it if you want.”

“I can check a 20oz jar of lemon curd?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, I don’t think so.”

“Well, I want you to know that we are not taking it from you, that you can check it, and that it is your choice to give it to us.”

I refrained from retorting that unlike jam, preserves, or almond butter, lemon curd is quite solid, and that it was his choice not to let me take it. I did say, “I went to five stores in the blistering heat to find this for my auntie last night. I find it incredible that I cannot take a jar of solid food product to my 87-year old auntie. Just incredible.”

This seemed to make him feel bad, which wasn’t my aim, but that “It is your choice to give it to us” nonsense is unacceptable. Shoes on, I gathered my things and huffed off. Gal #1 laughed. B – - – -.

I found a seat and flipped open my cell phone. I set off writing a red hot text, partly because I was annoyed, and partly because I knew he’d think it was hilarious. You would hope I’d learned my lesson the night before, but no. I sent the message off to the wrong person again, this time because the last four unsaved-but-in-the-log numbers of the needed phone number were markedly similar. (I’d actually made this specific mistake before, too.) The details of this faux pas are far too humiliating to relive here, so I’m just going to do you the favor of ducking out now.

I was able to find my Aunt another suitable gift, this one filed under her favorite subject: “Not for the puritanical.” She’s such good fun.