SOL March 31: A 5-4-3-2-1 Post

I learned about this format from another slicer yesterday, and I thought I could post this much earlier, but got sidelined by my phone going dark. But I don’t want to slice about that. Here’s a more upbeat slice. The format is 5 things I see, 4 things I hear, 3 things I feel, 2 things I smell, and 1 thing I taste.

In Central Park

 

I see auras of golden forsythia soaring upward.

I see yolky daffodils, lemony daffodils, competing for who’s prettiest.

I see bedrock rising from the earth.

I see vacant playing fields anticipate warmer weather and baseball players.

I see glass spires and terraced apartment buildings girdle the park.

 

I hear distant swoosh of traffic on the road transversing the park.

I hear the distant buzz of construction drills.

I hear an ambulance siren speeding to someone’s aid.

I hear the internal hiss of tinnitus that accompanies  me.

 

I feel the chill brush of a March breeze.

I feel the stout wood of the green bench I sit on.

I feel the bristly fur of a passing dog I do not pet.

 

I smell the moisture of earlier rain, perhaps lurking for later.

I smell the tang of gasoline from a gardening vehicle or those cars on the transverse road.

 

I taste oncoming spring.

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 31 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL March 30: Post Office, Semi-Success

Teachers, aren’t you always telling your students to read the instructions? I know I did. But do I do it myself?

            Today I walked to the post office to mail two packages of books and renew my passport at the passport window. (I’d tried this errand yesterday, but with only a credit card, I failed, because the post office’s internet was down, and without my checkbook, I couldn’t write a check for the passport fee.) Today I brought sufficient cash to pay for the packages.

            Next, the passport window. The woman there took one look at the form I’d filled out and said, “Well, I can’t take this. Didn’t you read the instructions?” She pointed to a line of rather small type right under the heading at the top of the form. The smallish type read: “Please Print Legibly Using Black Ink Only”

            I had used blue ink. I got the feeling that lots of people brought forms filled out in blue, or red, or even purple ink, and that she rather enjoyed pointing out how stupid, or lazy, she thought we were. And I guess we are, especially those of us who’ve admonished others for not reading the instructions. Now I just have to find a pen with black ink in my home.

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 30 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

 

SOL March 29: Post Office Motto-Fail

Don’t we all know the Post Office motto “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds”? It’s not official, but the words are inscribed across the top of the main Post Office building in New York City. We also know how slowed down mail delivery became under the “leadership” of Louis DeJoy, appointed as postmaster general by the previous president.

            Mail is still slow. Incredibly slow. Unbelievably slow.

            On February 10, I wrote a check to Janice, the woman who cleans my apartment every other week. Some days later, I mailed her the check. (I’ve continued to pay her through the pandemic whether or not she comes.) This evening Janice, who lives in Brooklyn, called to tell me she had just received the check. It was postmarked, she said, on February 16, the day I took it to the Post Office. That was six weeks ago.

            Now where has that envelope been sitting all these weeks? Or did it go around the world a couple of times? Janice’s home is 14 miles away by car. If I’d walked it to her, it would only have taken at most four and a half hours.

            As the humorist Peter Sagal, of Wait, Wait...  Don’t Tell Me,” said, we shouldn’t know the name of the postmaster general. Now is there any way to get rid of him?

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 29 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

 

SOL March 28: Steven Wright's Deadpan Humor

My slice the other day about walking led Brian Rozinsky to comment that it reminded him of a quote by the comedian Steven Wright: “Everything is within walking distance if you have the time.”

            I love Steven Wright. Ever since I saw him on a comedy special, I’ve loved his playing with words. So Brian’s comment sent me on a quest for more Wright. Thus:

            `“Why do we drive on a parkway, but park in a driveway?”

            “I spilled spot remover on my dog. He’s gone now.”

            “I used to have an open mind, but my brains kept falling out.”

            “I couldn’t repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.”

            “I bought a house on a one-way dead-end road. I don’t know how I got there.”

            “I almost had a psychic girlfriend, but she left me before we met.”

            “For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.”

There are lots more here.

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 28 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL March 27: Baseball!

I am a huge baseball fan. It started with Don Larsen’s perfect game in the World Series of 1956. Could someone actually do something that was perfect? Then it wasn’t impossible for me to be perfect in my life.

            At the time, I was living in a Philadelphia suburb, so of course I became a Phillies fan. Being a Phillies fan in the mid-’50s was good practice for later becoming a Mets fan. But first I had to go through a Yankees phase: when my husband and I were first in New York and lived on the Upper West Side, I thought we must live closer to Yankee Stadium than to the Mets’ Shea Stadium. Then my daughter’s high school offered tickets to a Mets game late in the 1986 season, which turned out to be their World Series year. For the first time, I read the sports pages in the off-season so the new players and the gone players were not a huge surprise come April.

            A few years later I joined a group of Mets fans who had turned their fandom into a bit of money. They were the Mets scorers for Project Scoresheet, started by the baseball historian and statistician Bill James, who had invented a new way to score games that could be computer coded. The scorers only had to watch games, score using the Project Scoresheet system, then fax our completed scoresheets to the computer coders—and get paid $10 per game. Each year, in March, this Mets group of scorers met at a brewpub in New York or southern Connecticut (many of the men, and they were all men, lived in Connecticut), signed up for the games we’d score, talk baseball and play baseball trivia.

            Project Scoresheet failed as a business, replaced by the Elias Sports Bureau, but the Mets group has continued on. Last year our in-person meeting was canceled, but five of us had a watch-party for the Mets’ opening day. That may have been my first zoom ever.

            This year, we zoomed for our preseason gathering. A couple of the men were on grandfather duty, so baby sounds were background. We talked about the Mets’ prospects with their new, super-rich owner; we remembered all the superstars of the past who came to the Mets and didn’t perform; we wondered what had happened to former members of our group; we watched the Mets rather handily beat the Astros. Perhaps we will all go to a game this year—perhaps. It’s an hour subway ride from my home. I hope the positivity rate will have declined by later this summer.

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 27 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL March 26: My Lucky Day

Yesterday, too, but too late for me to find out. Here’s what happened.

            Yesterday I lost my major credit card. I was at the dentist, about to pay for two crowns. But the credit card was not in my pocket. Since the pandemic, I’ve gotten into the habit of putting my credit card into my pants pocket and not carrying my purse because 95% of the time I’m not going out of the neighborhood. But this is the first time the card hasn’t stayed in my pocket.

            I had no idea when it fell out, and it didn’t occur to me at the time to look around or ask anyone to look around the office. Instead, I rushed home, called the bank that issued that card, and should get a new one early next week. Whew! (In the morning, I got a call from the dentist’s office; the person cleaning the office had found my card under one of the chairs. Oh, well, too late. I asked them to cut it up and toss it.)

            Today, as I was coming out of the subway, I felt something hit my back, but couldn’t tell what it was. I should note that I carry my purse behind me, putting less pressure on my back. Up on the street, I checked my bag to make sure my wallet was still there — and it was. But what was missing was my datebook! Perhaps as important to my life as my wallet. I looked all around, went back down to the subway platform. Called the doctor’s office, thinking, hoping, I had left it there.

            Back home, I gathered my thoughts to see what I had to do if that datebook is really gone, because it had some important passwords in it. Within minutes, however, the house phone rang, and the doorman said there was a young man in the lobby with a notebook that seemed to belong to me.

            I can’t tell you how relieved and happy I was. I rushed downstairs, and there was my datebook. The young man refused to take any money — I was ready to give him $20 — said he found it on the street, and my address was inside. I really do feel like today was my lucky day.

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 26 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

 

SOL March 25: Depending on when you met me...

I might have been

            —listening to a baseball game on the radio late at night in the late 1950s;

            —a college dropout living in a commune in Washington, D.C.;

            —riding in a car late at night through Pennsylvania to visit my boyfriend in New York City;

            —a new assistant editor after my boss died, and I was unable to write a rejection letter unless I pretended to be my own secretary (because I didn’t have one);

            —a free-lance part-time copy editor at one of my favorite publications, “The Village Voice”; then full-time staff; then copy chief;

            —a free-lance part-time copy editor at “Publishers Weekly”; then full-time staff; then managing editor;

            —co-founder of the Network of East-West Women, an organization supporting women activists in the newly non-communist countries of Eastern Europe;

            —a member of multiple writing communities, including this one.

 

(I got this idea from Heidi's Musings, and just what I needed for a late-night post.)

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 10 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

 

SOL March 24: Steps

 

I try to walk every day, outside if possible, inside following a 2-mile walk video if it’s wet or too cold. I used to think that 10,000 steps a day was the goal, until I read that there’s no science behind that number, 5,000 is sufficient, and more than that is even better.

            Today, I walked outside only twice, on errands, and I still managed to get to 7,000 steps.

            First errand, an appointment for a CT scan (just checking up on something that may be, but probably isn’t, a problem). It was at my local hospital, just a few blocks away, but maybe even a block or two of walking once I was inside the hospital, walking down long corridors. After the CT scan, I went to the bone density office; I was supposed to have had that scan last year, but of course, Covid. There, I heard that the machine was down, and I don’t even have to make an appointment: it’s walk-in, three days a week. I’ll be back.

            I walked home for lunch.

            Mid-afternoon, I walked up to a stationery store to get passport photos. I’m not planning any international travel even this year, but my passport expires next month, so I’d better get it renewed when I am not in a hurry for it.

            I walked home.

            I might have gotten to 10,000 steps if it hadn’t started to rain, and my plan to meet a friend out in the park to give her a couple of books was canceled. I’ll do better tomorrow.

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 24 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

 

SOL March 23: Into the Real World

Not that we haven’t been living in the real world the past year, but that world has been severely constricted.

            Today I had lunch with three friends from my women’s group, at a restaurant outside, sitting next to and across the table from each other. It wasn’t a zoom call, it wasn’t a phone call. It was Real Life.

            One of these friends lives in my neighborhood, so we had been having the occasional lunch at outdoor restaurants last summer and fall. But the other two lived in further neighborhoods, and we’re all in our 70s and 80s, so playing it very safe. At lunch today, we still played it relatively safe, keeping our masks up while not eating, and the one friend who’s only had one shot so far ordered for herself, while the other three of us ordered a selection of mezze (it was a Turkish restaurant) and appetizers. Food was delicious, if service not quite at the same level.

            After lunch, as I walked up the street, everything felt and looked different. That is to say, it looked and felt as it had before the pandemic changed the world. It was a little disorienting, though eagerly so. We will continue to cautiously return to, or enter, the new Real World.

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 23 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

 

SOL March 22: Defective Product, Defective Me

Yesterday a lightbulb I bought a month ago blew out. And when I tried to replace two ink cartridges on my printer, one cartridge was “not recognized” by the printer. Since I bought both products from local stores, I waited until a weekday to make my returns.

            There was no problem at the hardware store were I’d gotten the bulb. I was asked for my receipt, which I no longer had, because I shred credit card slips after I get my statement and check everything, especially since I’ve been totally off cash since the pandemic started. When I started to show the manager my credit card statement, he waved it away and said he’d take my word. One down, two to go.

            The stationery store was a totally different matter. First, the young man behind the counter (a son of the family that owns the shop) said they don’t carry those anymore. I insisted that I’d gotten the package of three colors from them a while ago but not too long ago, but he said no. I forget how long it took before he finally said they didn’t carry any ink cartridges at all and hadn’t for over a year; their supplier just doesn’t carry ink cartridges anymore. Then his co-worker (a brother?) said I couldn’t have gotten the cartridge I had in my hand from the package I had in the other hand because the cartridge was 222 and the box was 702.

            A hazy memory surfaced: I’d had to get my ink cartridges from another stationery shop in the neighborhood the last time I needed a replacement because the closer shop didn’t have the cartridges i needed (though I don’t think I was told then that their supplier just wasn’t carrying ink cartridges at all). In that earlier episode, the clerk at the further away store sold me a 702XL, which I didn’t notice until I started to install it and saw it was much bigger than the usual cartridge.

            Now I was thoroughly confused. Where had the 222 cartridge I’d apparently been trying to use as a replacement come from? I still have no idea. But at the other stationery store, the clerk again tried to sell me another 702XL, and when I objected he said XL means extra ink. More ink because it’s bigger, I said. “It won’t fit in my printer.” So I still have no magenta cartridge and can’t print.

            I’ll have to order online, which I hate doing. I’d much rather shop at brick-and-mortar stores. However, I have now taped a note to my printer that the first stationery store no longer carries printer cartridges, so I hope I don’t forget that again.

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 22 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL March 21: Books, Books, Books

I live in a building with about 115 apartments. Many years ago, someone put a bookcase in the basement laundry room. Residents began filling it with books, culling their own collections and glad to not have to figure out where to donate the books themselves. A retired librarian took charge, cleaning out the shelves periodically, then she passed the task on to a former library volunteer, and some years ago, she passed the job on to me.

            When the pandemic took hold a year ago, we were worried about the contagiousness of surfaces, so I asked the super to drape a tarp over the bookcase so people wouldn’t keep leaving their unwanted books. My major donation sites shut down: a nearby library branch, the nonprofit Housing Works.

            Last week, it seemed time to open up the bookcase. People had been leaving books anyway, and despite my earlier efforts to keep fiction and nonfiction separately, everything was mixed up. Plus, despite my pleas, people continue to leave books that can’t be or aren’t worth being donated: reference works, textbooks, travel books more than four years old, or what I think of as speciality books (“The Astrology Body Types” anyone?).

            Tonight I began sorting through the books. I throw out those I know I can’t donate, which does pain me—throwing away books??!—but I know no one in the building will take those books, and if I take them to Housing Works, someone there will probably throw them out. I’m e-mailing a playwright friend to see if she’s interested in either of the two acting training books I found, and a poet friend about two contemporary poetry anthologies. And I’ll post on our online building bulletin board about what kinds of books are welcome and which aren’t. We’ll see if that has any effect.

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 21 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

 

SOL March 20: Walking Through the Past and Present

Yesterday I was in midtown for a doctor’s appointment at Madison Avenue and 33rd Street. Afterward, I walked up Madison — and it was “up,” as I realized why this neighborhood is known as Murray Hill — to 40th Street.

            My first job in New York City was as an assistant to the educational sales managers at Bantam Books. It was the mid-1960s, and a new federal education act provided government money to educators,  who were just beginning to see the value of paperbacks as supplementary reading. We printed catalogues for educational association conferences and also responded to teachers and professors who wrote in asking what books would be useful for, say, an American history class or an English literature course.

            Bantam then published only paperbacks, the kind known as mass market. They did classics, like Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (this in a dual-language version, the Middle English on left-hand page, modern English on facing page), as well as nonfiction such as Only Yesterday and Since Yesterday by Allen Frederick Lewis. Part of my job involved writing copy for catalogues, describing what classes each title was most appropriate for, as well as answering teachers’ requests for exam copies and desk copies. For this latter task, I typed the books’ code numbers on address labels, the codes consisting of a letter and a four-digit number. To this day, 55 years later, I still remember that F = 50 cent book, H = 60 cents, S = 75 cents, N = 95 cents, and Q = $1.25 (a rare price in those days).

            Bantam’s office was at 285 Madison Avenue. On the corner was a bank, the Chemical Bank, which became my bank. Yesterday, when I peered through the glass door of 285, it was stunning to realize that the lobby was not only deserted, it was hollowed out. The building looked abandoned. Then I saw the real estate signs on the windows. The whole building was empty and for sale. Was this because of the pandemic? Or had it been emptying out before everything shut down last year?

            And the bank? It’s now a space for playing computer games — it didn’t look like an arcade, but I didn’t look inside to see the setup. It seemed too weird.

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 20 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

 

SOL March 19: Punctuation Lesson

One of the editors I work with was having trouble with punctuation and parentheses (she’s new and young). I had fun coming up with this explanation.

 

            The rule is that if the complete sentence (quote or not) that's in parens is totally within another sentence, then the period goes outside the parens, but if the complete sentence (quote or not) is not within another sentence, then the period goes inside the parens. Take this example:

 

Her instructions for raising animals are brisk (“Try to remain businesslike—they are not your pets").

 

            The quote in parens belongs within the sentence because it's illustrating the point of the sentence, so the period belongs to the sentence as a whole, not to the quote in parens. (Parenthetically, if the sentence or quote functions like an aside, as this sentence is doing outside of the preceding sentence, the period goes inside the parens.)

            Further complicating matters, if the quote or sentence within parens is a question or exclamation, that punctuation would go inside the parens (like so! and is that clear?). And you see the period for the sentence as a whole still goes outside the parens. (Is this clear? And does it make some sort of sense?)

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 19 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

 

SOL March 18: Substitute Copy Editor

I freelance copy edit for the magazine I retired from as managing editor. Copy editing is the part of the job I really love, so when I decided to stop working full-time, we arranged for me to continue to the (for me) fun part of the job, at first on an occasional project basis, then for the past couple of years about eight hours a week. Occasionally, I agree to sub for the staff copy editor or the current managing editor, when they take days off or go on vacation.

            Last week I agreed to sub today for the other copy editor. I had my usual three hours of work, but there were news articles that needed reading, and they ended up occupying way more time than I expected.

            One story was written by the news editor, who really has no one who edits him, so I was essentially his editor as well as copy editor. This meant I had to pay attention to the overall purpose of the piece along with the details. Even though 75% of the piece consisted of quotes, there was still a lot of thinking involved. That’s what took so much time. I did have one good editorial suggestion, an anecdote near the end of the story that really needed to be near the top; it was funny and leavened the seriousness of most of the piece.

            Because I had to work so many more hours than I’d thought, I wasn’t able to go out for a walk or get in my stretches and exercise. Well, it was raining all day, so I wouldn’t have gone out anyway. Maybe I’ll think more carefully next time I’m asked to substitute.

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 18 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

 

 

SOL March 17: Hair Color

My bangs have been pink for about six years now. When the color is fresh, it’s bright neon, but it fades with washing to a pale pastel.

            Why pink? Why not?  As a teenager, I pulled out the first gray hairs that popped up against my natural dark brown. Into my twenties, I decided to let them stay; I had natural streaking, something my friends paid lots of money for. My mother became all gray when she was in her forties, made no attempt to hide that fact, and looked terrific.

            Over the decades, I played with hair-color color as the balance turned more gray than dark, my hairdresser coloring strips dark and leaving other strips natural. When I hit 70, I had no idea what my natural hair color was, so let everything grow out. That’s how I discovered that it was mostly white. After a couple of years of all white hair, I found it to be boring. My hair hadn’t been one color since my twenties., but I wasn’t going to try to make my hair a “hair color.” What other colors are out there?

            When I found this neon pink, I knew that was what I wanted. Usually, I get the color refreshed every six to eight weeks, but pandemic conditions have worked against a process that’s indoors at a salon for at least two hours. (Just doing the bangs is a delicate process that I want my hairdresser to do; it wouldn’t look nearly as good if I did it myself.) I’d gotten the color refreshed just before the pandemic locked us down, and it faded almost to invisibility until last November, coincidentally the day that Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election.

            Then came the winter Covid surge. No more hair color appointments—until today. I feel so much better.

 

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 17 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

SOL March 16: Fiction as Life, or Vice-Versa

 I read the following essay in the New York Times about why so many readers think novels are really autobiographies, which prompted this recollection of my own fiction attempt.

            I wrote a novel once. (The very messy first draft still sits in a box on a shelf.) The only consciously autobiographical aspect is the setting, where I lived at age 12 in 1954 West Haven, Connecticut. One element of the plot involves the mother of a 12-year-old girl having an affair with the man who lives across the road. At some point I wondered whether I was "remembering" something — so I asked my mother whether she'd ever had an affair when we lived in Connecticut. There was a long pause, until she mused, "Not in Connecticut." You can imagine my astonishment. My rather prim mother, apparently admitting to an affair! I pressed her for details. It seems that around 1960 a couple they had been friends with since they'd all been young marrieds in the early 1940s were visiting (we were living in a Philadelphia suburb at that point), and the male half of the other couple said they'd done so many things together, but there was one thing they'd never done, and that was have sex with each other. My father wasn't so eager at first (he was even more prim), but eventually agreed, and there were maybe two or three episodes of "wife-swapping." Then that was over — and a few years later, my father decided the other man had given him bad investment advice, and they never spoke again. I can't help thinking the wife-swapping also played a part in my father's withdrawal.

            There's so much I didn't ask my mother about this, but I couldn't get past the child's inability to consider the parents’ sex life. But my mother did once mention that my father had a "low sex drive." Did that have something to do with the couples' estrangement? Did my mother want to try some tricks she'd learned from the other man? Did my father find this disturbing? Did he feel his marital-bed-authority challenged? Was this one more little piece that nudged my mother to leave my father years later, when they were in their 60s? They are both long dead now, so I can only make it up. Another messy first draft?

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 16 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

 

 

SOL March 15: Magazine Exchange

 

I subscribe to too many magazines. For years, I’ve gotten “The New Yorker,” “The New York Review of Books,” and “The Nation.” A few years ago, I added “Poets & Writers” and “Milk Street” (food, if you don’t know it) to the mix. Then last year I  used points I’d accumulated to also get “The Atlantic,” “Wired,” “Vanity Fair,” and “Consumer Reports.”

            Yikes! Who has time to read all those magazines? For years, I’ve used the following system: as the magazines arrive, they go into a basket in the living room. After four or five months, I move them to a basket in the bathroom and discard whatever magazines are still in the bathroom basket. Then I read through whatever looks interesting while I’m in the bathroom, so I’m reading most issues months late. If there’s something particularly urgent, I may read it when it first arrives.

            The other day the “Consumer Reports” that arrived was its annual auto issue. I’m not buying a car, so there was no need to even think about moving that issue into my recycling system. Instead, I sent an e-mail to my apartment building’s e-mail list asking if anyone wanted it. Within a few hours, I got a bite, and this evening I took the issue up to his apartment. Back home, there was e-mail interest from another resident, so I put the two of them together. Now I feel virtuous about not throwing away that magazine.

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 15 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

 

 

SOL March 14: Sunday Afternoon

It’s windy, so that pesky wind-chill comes into effect if one is not constantly moving.

            Today I went for a walk along Riverside Drive, but I timed it so I could listen to the Anderson Brothers Jazz Quartet, who’ve been playing on the Drive at 106th Street (aka Duke Ellington Boulevard) in decent weather on Saturdays and Sundays, 3-5 p.m. They play mostly standards — they did a Benny Goodman tune today, and the leader actually asked how many of us had heard of Benny Goodman. Of course, there were lots of us gray hairs out there, and we’ve all heard of Benny Goodman. A couple of people who look like they might be professional dancers do dance, and others of us sort of bounce around. Byt I do not understand people who sit on the benches without even tapping a toe. Music is movement. One toddler rode her scooter around the dancers, sometimes getting off to dance herself, but sometimes she looked like she thought riding the scooter was dancing.

            It was too cold to sit, but also too cold for me to relax into dancing. It was appropriate that as the group began to play a rousing “Riverboat Shuffle,” by Hoagy Carmichael, the wind roared through and set dried leaves to dancing.

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I’m participating in the 14th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 14 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!