Light the Tree

My mom is earning a master’s degree in a graduate art program in Manhattan, and tonight there’s a reception for all the students. My brother and I are going with her tonight (my dad can’t go). It should be very nice: it’s going to be at the Rainbow Room, on the top floor of 30 Rockefeller Center. Great views of the city. (Though I guess there’s no longer a view like this one.)

And, um, the Christmas tree lighting is tonight.

Yeah, right there in Rockefeller Center.

Um, I guess the area won’t be too crowded.

If there should be some sort of terrorist attack, well, it was nice knowing you. Please remember me fondly.

In the meantime, here are some fast facts about the tree. Here’s a live shot of the tree. (Right now I just see a man sitting in front of it with his eyes closed.) And you can watch the ceremony live on NBC, you know. (In the U.S. and parts of Canada, anyway.)

So, it’s been a few days since I’ve written, eh?

I think I’ve needed a little bit of “me” time. It just kind of hit me: why am I writing about the details of my life? How could any of this be interesting to anyone but me? I mean, who the hell am I, Princess Diana? And I mean, I don’t even know you people! It’s all really bizarre when you think about it.

Sometimes it’s nice to remember that your life really does belong to you and you alone.

I’ve also felt a bit stifled because I know with certainty that my parents have seen this site. When I was home over Thanksgiving, I found the URL in the Internet Explorer history files for a day when I wasn’t at the house. Apparently, one (or both) of them visited my site on Sunday night, November 4. The day before, they’d come to visit my new apartment and they’d taken me food shopping and out to dinner. I guess they wanted to know my take on the weekend.

I can think of two ways they could have found this site. One, I might have left traces of my own visits on their computer on the few occasions that I’ve blogged from their house. Two, one of them typed my name into Google and, with some detective work, they found the site. My parents are smart people. And I’d told them I had a journal on the Web.

Three, they know someone who happened to stumble across this site, and that person told them.

It was that stupid Associated Press article that did it. If not for that article, there would be no way of knowing I have a blog. Allowing the writer to mention my blog in that article was a big mistake, then. Gee, I sure didn’t get the mileage out of that piece that I’d expected: no increased readership, no interviews from Newsweek, no nothing. I did manage to reunite with an old college friend. Other than that, no good came out of that piece.

Anyway, from November 4 through November 23, there were no traces of parental visits to my site. Not from their home computer, anyway. I guess they decided that some things weren’t meant for them to read. Hehe. Yeah, they’re only for the rest of the world to read.

Or for about 180 people to read, apparently.

Well, mom and dad, if you happen to come back to my site: welcome. You might come across things that I didn’t want you to know about. I hope it doesn’t bother you too much. I am a human being, after all. At any rate, neither of you has treated me any differently in the last several weeks, so I guess either you chose not to read very much of my journal, or you did, and you read about things you now wish you hadn’t, but you were so damn proud of my writing that you just didn’t care — or you realize that I’m an adult now and that I have to make my own decisions.

At any rate, right now my relationship with the two of you is probably the best it’s ever been, so I guess it’s all good.

Back to my non-parental readers:

Watching Ric Burns’s documentary on New York City finally got me inspired to read a book I’d wanted to read for a while — The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York, by Robert Caro. It’s supposed to be a masterpiece. So far, it’s pretty damn good.

I’m obsessed with age. Whenever I read a biography of someone famous, I compare myself to where that person was at my age, and I realize I’m woefully behind. Did you know that when Walter Lippmann was a college student at Yale, William James, the famous philosopher, was so impressed with something he wrote in the paper that he sought him out? Lippmann didn’t seek out James — James sought out him! And look at Leonard Bernstein: he stepped in to conduct the New York Philharmonic at the last minute and gained great fame for doing so — when he was 24!

You know, nobody’s ever sought me out. Nobody famous has ever recognized any particular talent in me and recruited me onto the path to greatness. My life hasn’t yet had that “aha” moment with which writers like to end Part One of people’s biographies.

Michael Chabon published his smashing first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, when he was 24. David Foster Wallace? Same thing, I think, with The Broom of the System: 24. Tina Fey graduated from UVA three years before me, and she’s already the head writer and news anchor for Saturday Night Live. Kirk Read, one of my UVA classmates and my one-time hallmate and confidant, has already written his first book.

Then again, when Harry Truman was 40 years old, he owned a hat store.

I kinda thought maybe this website could be a launchpad for something. So far, it hasn’t been. And my readership numbers have stagnated. No wonder — no contests here, no send-in-your-photos, no gimmicks. All I do is write. I don’t even write short, snappy entries; I write long, in-depth, sometimes rambling entries. If this were a book, I’d need a good editor. And I don’t even write about things that people care about. I write about myself, of all things. Are you kidding me? Who am I? Who cares?

This is one of the most solipsistic, inconsequential endeavors ever.

I want to do great things with my life.

Then again, I’m still young, so people tell me. But I’m constantly beholden to the illusion that my life is almost over, that all the good days are behind me, that the future does not exist — because I just can’t conceive of it. Jeez, there really can’t be that much time ahead, right? There can’t really be 50 or 60 more years of opportunity ahead of me, right? That would just be too good to be true.

And then I realize, wow, it really is true. What a blessing — truly a blessing. I have so much opportunity ahead.

And then I get impatient to get going with my life already. I want to do great things already. I think I have the talent. I have to work on the discipline and the focus and the drive, but I think I have the talent.

I just wish I knew what those great things were.

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. Jews don’t have Christmas, and Chanukah is actually a pretty minor Jewish holiday that took on significance only so we wouldn’t be left out of the holiday cheer. I always felt envious of all the kids who had Christmas. Thanksgiving, on the other hand, belongs to everyone.

Our family is pretty small, but at our house yesterday we had the largest group in quite a while, thanks to a Japanese man who works with my dad along with his wife and two small daughters. They were so adorable — these four- and six-year-old smiling Japanese girls with identical hairstyles and rosy cheeks. They got along great with my cousin’s three-and-a-half-year-old daughter. The three of them were running around, chasing each other, laughing together, and, in a sight that was as adorable as a teddy bear, Elmo, and a puppy all rolled into one, the three little girls hugged each other repeatedly. I nearly cried over how cute they were.

The food was wonderful. My mom’s an amazing cook. After the mushroom soup, the turkey, the cranberries, the stuffing, the sweet potatoes, the green beans with persimmon, the brussel sprouts and turnips and beets, we finished off the meal with several desserts including a pumpkin chiffon and a cranberry-pear pie with crumb topping.

Later at night, after a good Thanksgiving meal, what could be more Norman Rockwell than settling down in front of the TV to watch a sitcom about an urban gay man and his bitchy friends? It’s been a few years since NBC last showed a real Thanksgiving-ish movie or some other television event. I guess they’ve realized there’s no reason to give up their regular crowd-pleasing Thursday night lineup. I actually relish the idea of someone’s parochial Grandma and Grandpa and corn-fed Uncle Jasper and Aunt Betty sitting down in front of the TV in Selina, Kansas, to watch “Will & Grace” together. “Hey Gert, what did that guy mean just now when he said he didn’t know you could actually use a turkey baster to baste a turkey?” Welcome to the twenty-first century, I guess.

Today I’ve been at my parents’ house, mostly vegging out and watching PBS. See, this weekend WNET, New York’s PBS station, is rebroadcasting the entire 14 1/2-hour New York: A Documentary Film, by Ric Burns. I’d never seen it before, but I came across it late last night. Because I love New York and because I love American history, I’ve been glued to the TV. It’s really a phenomenal project, and if you love this city I encourage you to see it sometime if you can. It’s on videotape and DVD. I immersed myself in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire of 1911, in which about 150 people died, mostly teenage girls, and in which onlookers were shocked to see people attempting to escape the fire by jumping out of 8th-floor windows. (It was sad to remember that this documentary was made in 1999, when nobody could have predicted that people would one day be jumping to their deaths from the 100th floor of a burning skyscraper.) I watched the rise of the Empire State Building, the rise and fall of Al Smith, the New York draft riots of 1863, the construction of the subway system, the incredible energy and triumph of modernity during the Jazz Age, the stock market crash of 1929 — and the impact of all of these on the city.

It’s also chock-full of stunning views of the skyline — including, of course, the World Trade Center towers. Every time they appear on the screen, I mourn their absence.

And yet, while watching the long, engrossing paean to the Empire State Building, I realized that we’re lucky we still have that building. The Twin Towers might be sadly missed, but the Empire State Building would be even more deeply mourned were we to lose it. Thank God we still have it. I’ve actually found myself paying closer attention to it when I see it towering against the sky, say while walking through Greenwich Village — just in case it, too, should someday disappear.

Holy fuck, I love New York. I’m so glad I live here.

In a little while I’m going home, and tonight I’m going out. In Manhattan. I’m not sure where, but I’m sure this is a big weekend and every place will be packed. That seems appealing, all of a sudden. New York, New York — a hell of a town.

Gratitude

Giving thanks is not something you should do just one day a year. But something about human nature makes it hard for us to appreciate things. We’re not good at noting the obvious. To our ancestors — running around the savannah, picking nuts and berries, and running away from scary predators — it was probably more important to note suspicious changes in the environment.

Okay, that may or may not be a load of bull.

But in any case, we’re a readily adaptable species. It’s easy for us to incorporate new things into our idea of normality. Case in point: the state of the nation over the past two months. The new becomes normal very quickly, especially these days. Whether it’s good or bad, our lives evolve to a new normal. What this means is that while we can get used to adversity, we’re still always looking around for something better, complaining about what we don’t have, trying to find what it is that we think we really need to survive.

Contentment would seem so damn easy to achieve, but we’re not wired to notice it too well.

Give thanks every day. You may forget, but try to remember.

In no particular order, here’s what I’m thankful for these days.

I’m thankful for my new apartment. This place rocks. After a year of annoyance, of high rent, of noise, of unpleasant neighbors, of a busy street, I’ve moved into an apartment with lower rent, on a quieter street, in a charming building, with lots of space and cable TV. I love being here. In fact, I’ve become more of a homebody lately because it’s nice to just hang out here. I’m so thankful I love where I live.

I’m thankful for my health. I have all four limbs. I can hear out of both ears and listen to beautiful music. I can see out of both eyes and recognize gorgeous colors. I can speak. I can taste. I can touch. I can walk. I can turn my head. I can blink. I can smile. I can breathe. I can run. I can exert myself with no problem. And my pancreas, liver, kidney, spleen, and heart all seem to work just wonderfully.

I’m thankful that I can afford certain material things. I don’t make a ton of money, and I have school loans to pay off. But I can afford to live alone, and I go to sleep with a full belly every night, and I have heat. Those things alone are worth giving thanks for. Also, I have Internet access, and a television, and I can see movies and an occasional show, and I can go to bars and buy a drink or two, and sometimes I can buy new clothes from the Gap.

I’m thankful that I’m young. If you’d asked me a few years ago, I would have said that 27 was so old. Heck, after I graduated from college I felt old — I mourned the apparent fact that the fun part of life was over. That’s damn sure not sure anymore. Twenty-seven is nothing. I’ve got my whole life ahead of me, I’ve barely begun to live it, and — if all goes well — I have lots to look forward to in my future. There are so many people yet to met, places yet to go, things yet to do, thoughts yet to think, words yet to write. I can’t wait to find out what good things the future holds.

I’m thankful for my talents. I’m thankful that I’m a smart guy. I’m thankful that I’m creative. I’m thankful that I’m empathetic. I’m thankful that I have a particular gift for writing. Oh, and I’m thankful that I’m good in bed.

I’m thankful for orgasms.

I’m thankful that I’m a very good singer. I haven’t had occasion to use this ability for a couple of years, but it’s still great to know that it’s still there.

I’m thankful that I’m human. I’m glad I have the ability to feel emotions. And despite the fact that I publicize my thoughts almost daily, I’m thankful for the barrier of the self. I’m thankful for the privacy of the human psyche. That’s true of the human race no matter where you are or when you’ve been alive: employees with really evil bosses, Jews in concentration camps, Soviet citizens in the gulag, women ruled by the Taliban, whoever or wherever or whenever you are: people might be able to tell you what to do, but they’ll never be able to tell you what to think while you’re doing it. From this comes human dignity. People cannot yet get inside your brain. People cannot tell you who you are.

I’m thankful for my family. My parents may have screwed up along the way, but doesn’t everyone’s parents? I’m damn sure I wouldn’t be able to raise even one kid without some major trauma happening. I’m thankful that my parents have been married for more than thirty years and still love each other. I’m thankful that I had a stable, well-off childhood. I’m thankful that my parents recognize my interest in theater and have taken me to tons of shows over the years. I’m thankful that they recognize my love of writing. And my brother — I’m thankful that he and I are close.

I’m thankful that I like what I see when I look in the mirror. Okay, I’m not Abercrombie material, and I’m not musclebound. But I think I’m cute, and I have a slim, nicely-proportioned body with the outlines of some good musculature. If it were at all possible for me to gain weight, I could put on muscle, but on the other hand — at least so far in my life — that means I can eat anything I want and not worry about putting on pounds.

I’m thankful that I’m out of the closet. It took a long time, but I did it a few years ago. For a long time I felt like there was a civil war going on inside my body, but the two sides had a truce and I wound up a stronger, unified person. Life is so much better when you don’t have to spend so much energy hiding who you are. And nobody seems to love me any less for being me.

I’m thankful for living so close to Manhattan. Manhattan’s terrific. The last two months have reminded me of that. You can do anything you want. You can see so many shows, eat any type of food, meet all types of people. You can be whoever you are without being bothered. You can walk along the streets without knowing what interesting things you’ll encounter. Manhattan crackles with energy; even at four in the morning, you can feel the hum.

I’m thankful for this blog. It’s great to have a place to work out my thoughts and feelings and neuroses. It’s great to get positive feedback for doing so. It’s great to get messages from appreciative readers. I love the instant gratification it brings. I guess that makes me instantly thankful.

I’m thankful for the blogging community. I’ve met some great people since I’ve started this thing. Interesting people. Wacky people. Individuals. It’s been a fun part of my social life. Wow, bloggers are a weird lot. You’ve gotta have a few screws loose to do something like this — well, at least if you’re the type who rants on about your own life in public. If you’re the type who posts lots of links and doesn’t say much about oneself — well, then you’re much more normal than the rest of us. I love you anyway.

Well, that seems like a good enough list for now.

No doubt I’m leaving lots of things out. But like I said, it’s hard to recognize the obvious.

Try to do it anyway. As often as you can. Not just today.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.