Sylvia, the '80s, and me

I have been tidying the house because it is this nightmare. And today this old datebook washed up on the tides. It is "The 1988 Sylvia Book of Days."

Sylvia was this cartoon to which my roommates and I had a deep devotion back in the day. Awfully feminist, awfully funny. The cartoonist who wrote the comic strip, Nicole Hollander, is 80 now, how about that? I just had to look it up.

I should write an, ahem, essay about this and get it published somewhere, but I am too lazy and I have other things to write and do. Speaking of which, the things I wrote and did while I was using this datebook, just looking at the notes I made of them takes me back to this crazy era of my life.

What was I, 25? I turned 26 during the course of this book. I do remember though that I carried the book around with me long after that, because I had a lot of notes and phone numbers in it. The list of phone numbers made me kind of teary. My Uncle Bob was on it. I miss my Uncle Bob. Robert Junior Lockwood was on the list too, God rest his soul. He was a bluesman my friends and I were friends with. We went to Cleveland and stayed at his house.

The notes show me freelancing for the Niagara Gazette. I recognized my questions for John Lennon's sister, who was one of the people I interviewed. Some of the interviews I totally forgot. On Monday, Oct. 24, I had a note to interview Maria Irene Fornes at the Lenox Hotel. Who was Maria Irene Fornes? I had no recollection so I Googled it and she is a lesbian Cuban playwright. 

How boho is that, interviewing this Cuban playwright at the Lenox Hotel? Surely we spoke of many things. I kind of remember going to the Lenox Hotel for something, you know? But beyond that, it is a mystery.

The Niagara Gazette hired me near the end of that tattered year. My tryout was Oct. 7. The "yuch" I wrote did not mean I did not want the job. I did. But the tryout stressed me out. I was much more happy to write that on Oct. 9, my bartender friend Lupe was singing at the Feede Bagge.

Suddenly because of the Gazette a net was dropped over my head and the days are marked, "Off." "Midnight." "Late." Late was the late shift, 6:30 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. At least if you are going to get a job, get the craziest job you can get, you know? That is what I did.

The honeymoon with the Niagara Gazette did not last long because I had these plans to go over New Year's to San Francisco with my brother George to hear the Grateful Dead. I stuck to those plans -- I made the job let me go, I remember -- and it totally shot my work ethic. The old Sylvia datebook  includes a million notes for the trip. I went back and jotted them on unused pages earlier in the book.

There were money notes about splitting the expenses with George, directions involving Sausalito and the Golden Gate Bridge and my Auntie Rose, who lived in Santa Rosa. My dear Auntie Rose. She is gone too. She was very anti-job and it was while we were touring the Sonoma wine country that my work ethic officially vanished. I stuck it out for something like two years at the Gazette but things were never the same. They stopped letting me write, was another problem. They wanted me to write headlines but not stories and I became discontented with that.

Back to Sylvia. There were pictures stuck between the pages of hippies George and I met in San Francisco. There was a postcard of the Three Stooges that made me laugh out loud because I knew it was from my friend Daryle and sure enough it was.

There was also a photo of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Nelson Mandela. And a photo of me with George and our sister Margie who, I have to say, looks exactly the same now. Phone numbers of guitarists. Lists of my favorite blues songs.

Really, as Dickens famously wrote, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It would be over 10 years before I met my husband. I was not even yet in my West Delavan apartment. I think I was still living in the haunted Parkside place. What a zoo.

Moral of the story: Do not toss your old datebooks!

They are time machines!

Season's greetings

I went walking in the park today and the weather for once was tolerable! There was a cold wind off the lake but it was sunny and ... and! ... I wore shorts.

It was very different from one day last week when I took the above picture.

And this one!

This was the year March went in like a lion and out like a lion!

It was funny, taking those pictures. I went for a walk with my friend Michelle and we were getting soaked. The snow was flying sideways. And it was all in big, wet flakes.

I could tell that my taking pictures exasperated Michelle but still, I could not stop!

"Hang on," I kept saying. Then I had to take off my mittens and get out my phone and take it out of its case because the case is rough and ready in case I drop it. Howard told me it is because I always drop the phone, which I do. The trouble with the case is you cannot take pictures while the phone is in it, because otherwise your picture will look like something that should be on display at the Albright-Knox.

Now I am glad I took my pictures of the park. It is good to have a record of what things were like just over a week ago.

Today I was encouraged by my walk and so I found five minutes to sit down at the piano and play Mendelssohn's "Spring Song." It is this little ritual I have. Even if I am not Leonard Pennario, I can do a pretty good number on the "Spring Song."

Here is a video I found. I do not know who the pianist is but still.

Aaaaaahh.

150 shades of grey

I got in a little Nordic skiing in Delaware Park. It was good to get back to it because it seems the last few times I attempted to ski it ended up going blooey.

Remember when I froze?

Anyway, you must get back in the saddle! Or rather on the skis. So I did. And this time around it went OK. I like the prettiness and silence of the park. No sound but the skis in the snow -- and the birds, when you pass the rain forest exhibit at the zoo.

I got some thinking done on the book which I have been working on a lot recently.

And I took a few pictures. The one at the top is my favorite. It reminds me of a pretentious work of art plus it captures the feel of being out there in the park completely by yourself. And I love when the snow and the sky are the same color.

Here are other pictures I took. Join me on my skiing expedition!

When I took that last picture, the one with the crazy tilt, I knew it was time to go home.

Lucky for me it takes only five minutes!

You CAN go home again

Sunday I went back to my old apartment on Parkside. Remember, I have written about this place, about how we thought it was haunted, that it had a ghost. I lived there in squalor during my lean UB years. (As opposed to my fat present years.)

That is me in the picture opening the door! I felt so funny. I wanted to preserve the moment. I opened the door and you would not believe it. The place was untouched.

Well, there was my bedroom which I had painted a beautiful shade of ice cream pink back when I lived there. Now it was boring white. But the built-in shelves were still there. I had the smallest bedroom. It was only nine feet by nine feet! But it had those shelves to compensate. I loved that bedroom. I wish I had it now.

Here is my old bedroom.

And another view.

Ha, ha! I had this beautiful little bedroom and it was my castle. I had this monastic single bed which was all that would fit in there anyway. My heavy old sleeping bag lay on the bed for a blanket. I still have that sleeping bag and I still have the trunk that sat at the foot of my bed.

That room was where I was sleeping when the mouse ran over my face.

Once when I was living in that apartment we had a party and at 4 a.m. or so I got tired. And I fought my way through the crowd to my bedroom. It took me about a half an hour to get there and when I finally got there I found all these people crashed out in my room. I cleared a space for myself on my bed between a couple of people and I fell asleep.

That was the kind of ignorant agenda I was pursuing instead of going to hear Leonard Pennario play.

I had no recollection of my closet but this was apparently it. There was this sharply sloping wall because it was under the front staircase and there was a cool row of hooks. How could I have forgotten this closet? But I did.

We had these unbelievable kitchen cabinets and they are still there, just as they were.

And there was a built-in telephone table in the kitchen, opposite those round shelves above. I remember walking in there with our dial phone and saying, Look, there is a wall jack, here is where we are supposed to put our phone.

Here is Lizzie standing by the telephone table.

Now this is funny. As I am roaming the house I am telling everyone I used to live there. And one guy came up and said hi because he had seen my name on the sign-in sheet. Yes, I was not shy. I signed in! And he was Martin Wachadlo who is an architectural historian. I have Martin's book on the mansions of Oakland Place.

Martin went specially to this house to look at it because he was so curious about it when he heard it was open. And he was amazed by it! He said that it is so rare for a house to be preserved like this.

He said the windows were the original windows which is impressive considering the house was built in 1905. As I listened agog, he said the wood was from trees growing when the Puritans landed. Also it had other features like our 1920s-era sink, which was still there in the kitchen and which, zut alors, I should have taken pictures of.

This is the view from the upstairs kitchen which, I could not remember being in there before.

And a porch I loved off the second floor.

Martin said his big fear was that someone would buy the house and update it. Oh, no. Oh, no!

I had not expected to feel so affectionate about my old house on Parkside, but now I do.

I want it!