Come On Up For The Rising
It took less than an hour for my inaugural cynicism to fade.
It wasn’t the bunting, the banners, or the red, white and blue. It wasn’t The Mall, the monuments, or the museums. It wasn’t even hope, change, or unity.
It was Bruce.
My colleague, Gil, and I were walking off lunch with a long stroll through the capital. We walked the parade route past The White House, then climbed a short hill to The Washington Monument. The Capital Building glistened white against the bright, blue sky to the east. Dozens of American flags flapped in the brisk, frigid wind. Children scurried into photos, giggling against the chill.
Lincoln sat patient and poised to the east, stoic in the face of things. We heard music from his feet, and pointed ourselves toward the The Reflecting Pool. As we walked quietly, I wistfully recalled two photos: Martin Luther King, Jr. giving his “I Have A Dream” speech, and my six-year-old brother sailing a small, hand-built wooden boat.
Which is when I heard the unmistakably hoarse growl of one Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen booming across those frozen waters.
Can’t see nothin’ in front of me
Can’t see nothin’ coming up behind
I make my way through this darkness
I can’t feel nothing but this chain that binds me
I paused, slack jawed, then doubled my pace towards the base of The Lincoln Memorial. There, in mirrored Foster Grants, a navy-blu pea coat, red bandana and jeans, Bruce rehearsed his “We Are One” concert contribution. A gospel chorus backed the refrain.
C’mon up for the rising
C’mon up lay your hands in mine
C’mon up for the rising
C’mon up lay your hands in mine
Afterwards, he told the choir, “Great job!” before joking under his breath, “My ass is cold!”
Gil and I pressed on, rounding the back of the memorial for a look at The Potomac. As we approached Rock Creek Parkway, a pair of black SUVs approached.
“Watch,” I said. “This’ll be U2.”
Seconds later, The Edge stepped from the vehicle. Bono followed close behind, wearing his trademark blue-tinted glasses, and an epaulet-laden, brass-buttoned military jacket. He smiled, and slid slowly past. I stood motionless.
As we strode away, Pete Seeger and Bruce were rehearsing “This Land Is Your Land.” And for a second there, it felt like it.
Yes We Can (But Do We Have To?)
The clock reads 5:56. The sky is purplish-black behind the blinds. I blink the sleep out of my eyes, climb out of bed, stumble into the living room, and turn on the television. NY1 reads eight degrees.
I shave my head, shower, jam five days worth of dress shirts, underwear and aspirin into my bag. I pull on my pea coat, hat and gloves, kiss Abbi goodbye three times, and walk out the door.
My face is straight. My body is tired. And my stomach is unsettled.
I am on my way to Washington, DC, for the inauguration of Barack Obama, and I cannot be less enthused.
Ninth Avenue is empty, the pavement bleached gray from winter. The wind finds every seam in my jacket, slicing across my torso. I hail a cab (“Cold out there, huh?”), and am whisked to Penn Station in minutes.
Stephen Colbert is in line behind me at Starbucks. Rob Riggle passes me in the dusty, fluorescent-lit halls.
Yup, it’s on.
Amtrak #153 is delayed. I lay in wait at my usual spot, just downstairs from the big board. When the track finally posts, I scramble with a dozen other Amtrak Ninjas. We descend to find empty tracks, and scramble again (“Don’t run,” I remind myself) before finding our train. I settle in on the east side, and wait.
We lurch forward into the darkness, then break into a bright, Meadowland daybreak.
* * *
Between Philadelphia and Wilmington — a route I’ve travelled uneventfully dozens of time — I count eighteen police cars, two police boats, a Coast Guard cutter and four K-9 dogs along the tracks.
Which is why I’m unenthused.
It’s not Barack. I’m a fan. I’m psyched. I’m hopeful (with a dash of restraint). I’m psyched the country made a smart choice for only the second time in my life. Or, more succinctly, for the first time in its history.
It’s the hullabaloo. The hassle. The havok.
I have a packet twenty-pages deep of official PIC (Presidential Inaugural Committe) and unsanctioned events: breakfasts, brunches, lunches, cocktails, dinners, receptions, openings, performances, symposiums, red carpets, dance parties and raves. All of which are brought to you by Pepsi, CK1, The Huffington Post and Hardees.
Worse, it’s Hollywood on The Patomic. Leonardo DiCaprio, Usher, Spike Lee, Puff Daddy, Miley Cyrus, Cameron Diaz and a laundry list of A, B and C-listers are all descending on DC to brush up against this luminous, pristine administration..
This amidst the most convoluted, bureaucratic, secure, production-intensive environment ever. No umbrellas or baby strollers or access.
And it’s eight degrees outside.
So while I am more than eager to turn the page on a nasty little chapter in American history, and while I acknowledge that my proximity to this historical moment is privileged, I would prefer to do so from the comfort of my brown, velvet couch with my lovely wife at my side.
Ours is a dark season. The days are short and cold. The economy is sputtering a wheezing. The world is in turmoil. And it all whizzed past in a blur, trying as we do, to capture it with our thumbs and three inch screens.
Our President challenges us, though, to be audacious. He dares us to be optimistic.
And so, as Amtrak #153 glides into Union Station, I will endeavor to take that dare, to rise to that occassion, to stare down the hullabaloo, hassle, havok.
The sun is out. The sky is blue. The day is still new.
I’m Just Thirsty
It was 2:44 p.m., just shy of an hour before USAir flight 1549 slid into the Hudson River a few blocks west of my office.
I was sitting at my desk, celebrating the few minutes I had between meetings by blowing email out of my inbox like Missile Command.
“Attached are the last eight days of metrics,” I typed. “I’ve pasted highlights below.”
Behind me to the east, the cold, winter light was fading over Midtown.
“Premium’s fine with us,” I wrote. “Seems to me to be dependent on Tech.”
I was barely half-way through the day, and already the specter of this weekend’s massive inauguration coverage was looming like a tornado over a Kansas trailer park. My head was swimming with logistics, hurdles, and worst-case scenarios. I needed to think about something else. So I sent Chris Abad an email.
Yo! What are you up to after work? Wanna grab a beer? No agenda; I’m just thirsty.
I stepped into Times Square around eight o’clock. Broadway was brushed pale gray. ABC’s JumboTron read just 15°. I popped the collar on my pea coat, dialed up my dad, and leaned into the wind. We talked as I walked up Eighth Avenue.
“One day at a time,” he advised.
Chris, who was walking his dog, Riley, spotted me as I turned west on 56th Street. We dropped Riley upstairs, then struggled through the cold to Bar 9. The bar was half-full. The jukebox was silent. We found a booth in the back, and settled in.
“What’s up, man?” Chris asked. “Talk to me.”
I didn’t have an agenda. I just wanted to hang with a friend, and talk with him about something other than work. We settled on mid-life crisis. We talked about meaning. We talked about what we thought we’d do next. We talked about family, and friends, and rock ‘n roll.
Every time the waitress returned, I deferred to Chris.
“Sure,” he said. “We’ll take another round.”
Which was appreciated, because I was thirsty.
Company Book
For weeks, I was dreading my first day back to work.
From from Christmas to New Years, there was just one thing on my mind: work. When I ran, I thought about work. When I ate dinner, I talked about work. When I lay in bed at night, I worried about work. Work, work, work.
The only “whole thing” I’ve ever run was my high school paper, The Conestoga Spoke (of which I was Managing Editor). The news department of a Fortune 500 is not even remotely similar. And here it was in my hands. Worse, I’d set ambitious strategic, programming and rating goals for the year for the team, then communicated them (with much ballyhoo) to the highest levels of the company. Achieving those goals in the midst of an economic meltdown and media paradigm shift wasn’t going to be easy.
A funny thing happened on the first week of Q1, though. I learned a ton.
So when, by Wednesday, it became clear to me that, not only was there a chance I wasn’t going to mess this whole thing up, but that it was going to be full of meaningful learning experiences, well, I started taking notes. Here are a few.
Monday: Maybe This Will Be Easy
On the firs day of the New Year, I set out for a marathon-training run (I’m running the Miami Marathon on January 25) around Manhattan. The plan was to run south along the Hudson, then around Battery Park and north along the East River. The West Side was freezing cold. The sky was filled with billowing, gray clouds. The cityscape was cast in dirty grays and washed out blues. The sidewalks and streets were empty. And I was worrying about work. As I rounded the bottom of the island, I thought about the spot right around 14th Street where the East River opens up to Turtle Bay. It’s beautiful there, and strikes me as so every time. I pressed on. Sure enough, as I passed the ConEd station, the horizon opened up before me. The sun was out. The sky was big and full of opportunity. Midtown lay before me like a jeweled crown. Which is when it dawned on me. Maybe it’s all about how I look at it. Maybe I should approach work as if it’s going to be a success, not a failure. Maybe — from student council to The Spoke to Newhouse School to Rolling Stone and all the rock bands and blog posts in between — I was made for this. Heck, I thought, maybe this will be easy.
Tuesday: The First 100 Days Are The Most Important
Doing really well during my freshman year at Syracuse (primarily because I lived in a crappy dorm, had no friends, and studied all the time) enabled me to relax just a little bit and still finish strong. I’m not sure why I made that connection, or how I connected it with the notion of a new administration (though I am planning our inaugural coverage), but it made sense. So I’ve begun repeating that “The first 100 days are the most important!” — perhaps a bit too often.
Wednesday: Temper Your Intensity
I came out of the gate like gangbusters. Like, zero to sixty in our first morning meeting. It took until Wednesday to realize that, not only did we not have to figure it all out in the first week, but that we couldn’t. Moreover, if every day feels like a fire drill, what do you do when the place is really on fire? This one occurred in a least-expected moment when I patted a pal on the back for no reason at all. ‘I need to do that more,’ I thought. ‘Levity works.’
Thursday: It’s Better To Exceed Budget And Expectations
I probably shouldn’t get into the details on this one, except to say that I was planning some coverage, and was trying to do it inexpensively. When my supervisor has a grander vision, I remembered something my old boss used to say: “The easy problems are the ones you can throw money at.” So while I didn’t throw too much at it, I did increase our coverage. Because, I decided, the company’s not going to give us any shit when we shatter our goals.
Friday: Every Affect Has A Cause
This was a late entry courtesy of a six o’clock, bi-coastal phone meeting. Conversations about how to best maximize PA, AP, Producer, Digital Producer, Copy Editor, Video Editor, and Writer skill sets given changing economic and technological times are going on in newspaper, TV, and Internet newsrooms all over the world. It’s not about any one category of the production, but about building the best, most-efficient, multimedia team of journalists possible. In every one of those newsrooms, people wrestling with the biggest challenge of all: unlearning, and re-learning. I was discussing those challenges with a colleague when he said, “I’m a firm believer that if you want to change people’s behavior, you have to look at what motivates that behavior.” I haven’t figured this one out fully, but it made sense, and I’m working on it.
Abbi and I were due to meet Chris and Megan Abad at 7:30 on Friday night. I raced out of the office at 7:23, texting Chris as I wove through the pre-theater crowd, “Be there in five!” Then I dialed up one of my perennial iPod favorites, Sugar’s “Company Book.”
In the epilogue, the company man
Takes his company life with his company hands
In his revelation he decrees
Exctinction of faceless robots like himself
Spawned from the company book
I don’t know what this week has in store. It’s going to be a long one, as I head to Washington, D.C. Saturday morning for MTV’s Youth Ball, then return just in time to hop a plane to Florida (just in time to hop a plane to Los Angeles).
Either way, I ought to be interesting.
And either way, it’s a safe bet I’ll learn a thing or two more.
So do stay tuned…
Golden Globes! Golden Globes! Golden Globes!
Just watching the red carpet of the 66th Annual Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Golden Globe Awards stressed me out. T-minus four months until we’re all up in the MTV Movie Awards, and seven until the Video Music Awards.
Tonight, though, I’m on the couch keeping on eye on MTV News’ terrific online coverage, and NBC’s middling effort on air.
If you’ve read my Oscar or Grammy live blogs, you know I’m not that funny. Still, here are some random notes…
8:01 – J Lo with the, “Momma’s talkin’, momma’s talkin’!” Well done.
8:03 – Cameron Diaz was just over Penelope Cruz’s shoulder as they cycled through the Supporting Actress nominees and I though, “Life really is like the high school lunch room.”
8:06 – Kate Winslet, “Look, I won!” Adorable.
8:07 – “Please welcome singer, composer, social activist… Sting!” Please. When
8:08 – Peter Gabriel’s at the Golden Globes? Wow, he looks uncomfortable.
8:09 – Does the sound of silverware on plates ever subside in the show?
8:10 – Bruuuuuuuuuuuce! “Mickey calledand said ‘Some people invest themselves in pain instead of the things that matter in life. This guy isn’t one of them’ And I said, “I know a few guys like that.” I love how Bruce’s speeches all begin with a story. Bruce rules.
8:17 – Tom Wilkinson forgets a dude’s name! Eek. Cut to Paul Giamatti’s mutton chops. Yikes!
8:20 – I nearly set the kitchen on fire just now. I’m making rice, so was boiling water and managed to boil it all off. Pot was empty on the burner when I walked in. Oops. No fire alarms. All’s well. Crisis averted.
8:25 – Don Cheedle? Hotel For Dogs? Oh well, nice quips at the Coen Brother’s and Brad Pitt’s expense.
8:26 – Eva Mendez with the turquoise. Very nice. Muy caliente!
8:28 – Well done Mr. Cuban Golden Globes Guy. Short and sweet.
8:32 – Anna Paquin gets lost en route to the stage. Genius. But… really? “True Blood?” Not “The Closer?”
8:37 – You know it was gonna’ be good when Ricky Gervais walked on stage with as pint in hand! “That’s the last time I sleep with two hundred foreign journalists.” Genius! Highlight so far.
8:39 – The Jonas Brothers. Every network programmer thinks that if Miley and The Jonas Brothers run the place through, the kids’ll watch. I’m not so sure. Though I do kinda’ dig Kevin’s velvet tux. That is Kevin, right?
8:41 – Wall-E!!! Far as I’m concerned, the Best Film Of 2008.
8:42 – Forty-two minutes into the 66th Annual Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Golden Globe Awards and Johnny Depp’s already lost his tie. And he appears quite tired. Poor guy.
8:43 – You can tell there was no coordination between the guy who tallied the winners, and the guy who did the seating arrangements when someone like Sally Hawkins has to hoof it from the back of the room. Oooh! And we’re now applauding tears! We love sentiment.
8:53 – I just delivered dinner to my wife’s lap (she’s knitting on the carpet next to me). Rice turned out fine. As did the chicken and green beans. Enjoy.
8:54 – I can’t believe Diddy is up for an acting award.
8:56 – Jessica Lange looks petrified.
9:00 – Betcha’ Heath will win The Oscar too.
9:02 – “All these power players in one room. There’s no scene like The Golden Globes.” Oh, Hollywood.
9:07 – Colin Ferrell with the coke joke. Nice.
9:08 – So it took the guy who made “Waltz With Bashir” four years to make it real. Principle shooting on “Mister Rogers & Me” began in June 2006. I still have time!!!
9:09 – Um, Maggie Gyllenhaal? Mutual of Omaha called. They need their drapes back.
9:18 – OH! MY! GOD! They used The Pixies for the “In Bruges” montage. Wow. The Pixies at The Golden Globes.
9:21 – And The 66th Annual Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s Golden Globe Award Odd Couple goes to: Amy Poehler and Patrick Dempsey.
9:22 – “And The Golden Globes goes to…” the only dude in the Beverly Hilton who I’ve seen step out of a cab on East 79th Street.
9:30 – Just added “John Adams” to Netflix.
9:33 – So I guess J Lo and Marc Anthony are still a go. You see that canoodling?
9:37 – Tracy Morgan, new highlight. “Tina and I agreed that if Barack Obama won, I’d be the new face of the show!” Classic. “So props to our man, Lorny Lorn!” And then Baldwin whispers in his ear, apparently reminding him to thank the head of the network, “And my man, Jeff Zucker.” Cut to Zucker, slouched in his chair.
9:44 – I got nothin’ against Diddy, but I think it’s time he loses that little tuft of beard on his chin.
9:49 – I’ve seen Tina Fey a few times on the playground. Just saying.
9:54 – Wait, what about “Pineapple Express” and “Step Brothers”!?!
9:55 – Wow, someone had to shush the audience for Scorsese. F’d up. (But then Scorsese says, “I stand amazed at his constant skill … I marvel at his ability to conjure … images that are genuinely transcendent.” Did he see “The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skulls”?)
10:01 – Ok, I give. There are some great flicks in there.
10:17 – I don’t get it. When I move my eyes, my forehead moves. What’s wrong with these Hollywood actresses? Their foreheads don’t move.
10:18 – Dear Sandra Bullock, Not so much with the dress. But nice pronunciation of Barcelona!
10:20 – Me on Colin Ferrell: “Is his hair graying?” Abbi: “I see what you see.”
10:21 – “A playground for imagination, thought and feeling.” Wow, you go Colin. Waxing lyrical, indeed.
10:41 – Ok, gather.
10:47 – Fading…
10:48 – And the award for Best Supporting Actor in the Stack goes to… Ritz!!!
10:53 – First, Mickey Rourke trips on the first step of the Golden Globe stage. Then Darren Aronofsky flips him off. Then Rourke says “balls” a second time and thanks his dogs… Cue the music! Wow. Guess I gotta see that flick.
10:59 – Tom Cruise in the double breasted tux.
11:01 – Slumdog producer rocks a few martinis and yells, “Fuck!” Thanks, Hollywood Foreign Press! G’night Tom Cruise!
Forever & Always
You may recall that one of the “A Holiday Benefit, Vol. II” silent auction items was a “Custom Benjamin Wagner Song.”
This was the pitch: “Singer/songwriter will collaborate with YOU on a song. At the end of the process, you’ll get two (2) signed CDs with YOUR song plus original album art. Minimum Bid: $75.”
At the end of the night, the item had three bids. I decided to take them all, netting 826NYC $386. I followed up immediately with each bid (actually, one bid came from a loose affiliation of four friends), only one of whom had a specific mission and pressing deadline in mind: a song for her parent’s 35th anniversary on Christmas day.
Now, I’ve haven’t practiced patronage before, nor have a done much co-writing (let alone with a non-musician), so I wasn’t terribly clear on how to proceed. And while I know it wasn’t really going to be my song, it would be my name and my voice on at least two CDs. I didn’t want it to suck.
So I suggested to my patron that she and her two siblings do a simple, free-association exercise by sitting at their computer, thinking about their parents, and typing every word that came to mind. The words came in three separate emails, each with its own set of unique — and in many cases, uniquely unusable — words (my favorite unusable one was “Peter Lugar Steak Sauce”). It wasn’t until I received the eldest brother’s list and read the phrase, “Love Forever & Always,” that I knew where I was headed. So I spent a few Saturday mornings with the three pages of words spread out in front of me, and improvised around the words.
Here’s what I came up with:
In the backseat a photograph framed in my mind
The family together for a fall weekend drive
The colors don’t fade as the years roll byWith the lake in the distance as we drive through the day
Passing the time in the usual way
The foliage flies but the color never fadesI’ll love you forever, I’ll love you for always
I vow to endeavor in all of the small ways for you
I’ll love you forever, for all of the seasons
For all the right rhymes dear, and all the right reasons
I do, I love youA fireplace waltz in the light of the stars
The flicker flames, a bouquet of flowers
A family is made in these long, golden hoursI’ll love you forever, I’ll love you for always
I vow to endeavor in all of the small ways for you
I’ll love you forever, for all of the seasons
For all the right rhymes dear, and all the right reasons
I do, I love you
The song opens with a photographic device, which, I came to find out, was prescient as the kids loaded the MP3 along with a bunch of family photos into a digital frame. Our little song, “Forever & Always,” then, was the soundtrack to their first twenty-five years. Which, I’m told, they loved.
Three final notes.
First, I wrote the song thinking about Franya’s parents, but also imagining about Abbi and me in twenty-five years.
Accordingly (and secondly), I’ve come to think of “Forever & Always” as the b-side to “Promise.”
And finally, this recording is just a rough demo of me in the my closet with a guitar and microphone. With limitless time and budget, it would be far more symphonic. Imagine strings. And harmonies.
Oh, and I know it’s a little cheesy. But I figure, after twenty-five years of marriage, Franya’s parents deserve it. And anyway, cheese is delicious.
So, enjoy…
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Planned Parenthood
On the street, Edward refused to take my hand, issuing a long, withdrawn, “Nooooooooooo!” So I carried him.
On the subway platform, the roar of the trains scared him. So I held him, whispering, “I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.”
Abbi and I took Ethan and Edward for a few, long hours this afternoon. Eighty blocks, four subways, three historic buildings, two carousel rides and one gift shop were more than enough. The boys were mostly adorable, to be sure. But the pressure was immense. Everything was a threat.
Blackberry-wielding pedestrians careened blithely down the sidewalk. Drunks staggered recklessly across our path. Buses hissed. Fire engines screamed. Taxis raced. At Grand Central Station, the flurry of tourists and commuters left me so rattled, I clung to Ethan’s hand tightly.
“Uncle Benjamin,” he said, “You’re holding my hand too tight.”
At the MTA Transit Museum, Abbi told the boys they could each pick a toy train. Edward quickly settled on a blue locomotive, “Like Thomas!” Ethan, though, wandered the store pawing nearly every item.
“I want a diesel,” he said.
We paced every inch of Grand Central looking for one, before heading toward the New York Public Library.
“Wait ’til you see the lions out front!” I said.
The street was littered with obstacles. Edward scanned Midtown’s canyons wide-eyed.
“Big buildings!”
We visited the lions, walked through Bryant Park, then rode the carousel. They boys rocked and swayed on their horses, smiling for my camera and singing “Macaroni and cheese!” As the ride slowed Edward said quietly, “I want to do it again.” So we did. When it slowed again he said more loudly, “I want to do it again.” A few dozen feet from the carousel, he stopped crying, “Nooooooooooo!”
When he spotted a 42d Street JumboTron pulsing with full-color, life-sized fireworks, he exclaimed, “Fi-a-werks!!!”
At the Times Square subway station, he danced while a smiling, gray-bearded man played “Ode To Joy” on steel drums. I handed Ethan a dollar to slip into the man’s hat. The subway rumbled into the station. I held Edward in my arms all the way home.
When we climbed out of the 79th Street subway, Ethan said, “Essentials has toys.” And so, in the name of fraternal equity, we climbed the stairs to the toy section to look for a diesel locomotive. When we couldn’t find one, he began grabbing random toys. “I want this,” he’d say before putting it down, picking up another, and repeating the mantra.
I said no, but promised that we’d find him one next weekend. Which is when his bottom lip began to quiver. Back home with his parents, he tossed me under the bus the second we walked in the door.
As we walked towards home (detouring for a late-afternoon beer), I said to Abbi, “I’m not sure I’m ready for this.”
They’re kids. I know they don’t mean anything by the tantrums, pouting or defiance. Still, I’m not used to it. I’m not used to to how quickly they turn, or how badly it hurts.
We passed a young couple pushing a stroller across 72d Street. The woman looked tired, sullen, her eyes sunken.
“I get it,” I said to Abbi. “Kids suck the life out of you.”
“Honey…” she sighed.
“No, it’s cool. I get it. It’s the cycle of life.”
I love those boys like crazy. They’re adorable, and brilliant. And I want to be a father myself someday. I know it’s worth it: the shouting for the giggles, the tears for the wide-eyed enthusiasm.
I’ll get used to it.
Our Own Devices
Left to my own devices, I would spend my time off in one of two ways: sitting on a beach drinking local beer after a three-dive day, or sitting on my couch watching movies, reading Esquire, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair or a good rock bio.
And in fact, I’ve done a fair dose of the latter in the last two weeks, plowing through Julianna Hatfield’s “When I Grow Up,” Jancee Dunn’s “But Enough About Me” and Sting’s “Broken Music.”
The problem with my own devices, though, is that they tend towards entropy. Refrigerators lie fallow, bills unpaid, laundry unwashed.
Things fall apart.
Luckily, I am not left to my own devices anymore. There is an agent of change in my life, and her name is Abbigail Keller Wagner.
And so, thanks to Abbi’s foresight, motivation and teamwork, I entered the new year with a savings account for the first time in my life. I have two new suits. And today, we’re sharing (in the words of Frank The Tank) “a pretty nice little Saturday” running (in the words of my wife) “errands.”
Already, as the sun falls behind Lincoln Center, we have visited J Crew, Best Buy, William Sonoma, and Bed Bath & Beyond. I am currently sitting in the “man chair” (my name for any piece of furniture situated near the entrance of a store to appease male loafing while their respective female’s browse) of Gracious Home as Abbi browses the 70% Off Store-Wide Sale.”
I, unfortunately, have very little to offer the outing short of muttering things like “I’m such a misanthrope.” Which I’m not, but sometimes consider as I walk down Broadway on a Saturday afternoon.
I’m not big on wandering in and out of stores (especially houseware shops fill of tchotchkes like cocktail napkins, monogrammed bottle stoppers or general shelf-oriented nick nacks), but I can appreciate the hunt, and I can appreciate that, even while shopping makes me feel claustrophobic, it is an effortless, joyful for pursuit for Abbi.
And the hands-down best part of the last ten days has been spending time with Abbi: paddling with her, playing cards with her, watching her with our families and friends and noting these sorts of complimentary components to our personalities. She doesn’t goad me, or guilt me, or give me ultimatums. She makes me want to be a better, more patient, more giving man. Even if that means twenty minutes in Bed Bath & Beyond comparing humidifiers.
I’m not sure I’m being clear, here. But my time is up; she’s ready to move on to Banana Republic. The good news is, the northern terminus of our “pretty nice little Saturday” is Fred’s Tavern on 80th & Amsterdam.
Pretty smart, my wife. And pretty awesome.
