Open Letter to 2010, A Fond Farewell

Dear 2010, oh year that has passed,

It is with no remorse that I bid you adieu, a fond farewell for the times we have shared. I had such high hopes for you. And, in many ways, you were good to me. I am grateful for you.

But it has not been easy.

You wanted me to lose weight, as did many of the years that came before you. I knew it for a long time. And even though I thought it would be impossible to lose as much as my 30 pound goal, I managed to lose nearly 50. Thanks to Weight Watchers, I am empowered, a master of my own domain. I needed success desperately. I had no idea how much I also needed the help and support.

Maybe thanks to the weight loss, or thanks to traveling alone, or to moving to Queens, I started dating again. It had been a long time. It was about time. But my timing is still off: I still can't manage to find someone when they're available, or manage to fall in love with someone who will love me back. Romances that initially seem destined eventually fizzle without reason. Calls and text messages just stop coming. Second dates never turn into third dates. And the older I get, the less hope I have for ever getting married. I thought this might be the year that could make it seem possible, but I'm no better at having a relationship now than I was ten years ago. I'm just better at eliciting invitations for first dates.

Thank God I didn't get pregnant. I can't believe I still have to worry about that, not only because of my lack of insurance, but because of my perpetual singlehood.

I also worried about paying the rent, even more during your year than I ever had before, even after having moved to Queens to reduce the rent by half. I paid the rent on a credit card, something I haven't had to do since 1997. And although I finally got an apartment with a bedroom, it was someone else's apartment, making my bedroom the only part of it that felt like mine.

Twelve months ago, I placed very few demands on you, 2010. I only requested a few simple things. And despite all of the good things you brought about (though 2009 put you to shame in terms of my career success and stability), you need to own up to your shortcomings.

You broke my heart on Valentine's Day.

You left me alone on Independence Day.

And you most certainly are going to make me cry tonight, on New Year's Eve, a night I'd had such high hopes for. What's left of my heart to break?

So I ask you, on our last night together, to be gentle with me. Treat me kindly and gingerly, for I am delicate and sensitive. Let me pass peacefully in the night into the new year. Hand me off to 2011 with as much love and luck as you can. I needed so much more from you than you could give me. And so it is time for us to say goodbye.

But I will not forget...

Fondly,
Sandi

Related Reading: Open Letter to 2010

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My Six-Word Year In Review

For as verbose as I can be on this blog, I actually embrace the freedom and creativity brought about by the restrictiveness of brevity. I'm not only an active Tweeter, but also an avid six word memoirist for SMITH Magazine, whose Six Word stories were originally inspired by the flash fiction of Hemingway.

For the second year in a row, I won SMITH's year-end contest with WNYC, and their popular local NPR radio show, "The Leonard Lopate Show."

Last year, I won for my Six Word Resolution: "End my twenty month dry spell." (A resolution I kept, by the way.)

This year, my two winning Six Words on 2010 (the only winner for two entries) were:

• "Went from self employed to unemployed"
• "Lost 50 pounds. Found myself underneath."

To listen to this year's interview with Leonard and the editors of SMITH Magazine, click here or on the player below:



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So This Is Christmas

This Christmas was fraught with imperfections and mishaps.

As though it wasn't bad enough that I couldn't afford to buy the gifts I would have liked to have given to my dear loved ones....

Negotiations for a new job opportunity didn't go as simply as I'd expected, dragging the conversation out over the holidays, my life and career's future hanging in the balance.

My flight home to Syracuse on Wednesday was canceled after dragging the airport wait out for five hours.

My airport sushi dinner came back to haunt me in the middle of Wednesday night back in my Astoria apartment, interrupting my night's sleep after only three hours and granting me only thirty minutes of uninterrupted spurts until the alarm awoke me one final time to get up and go back to the airport.

I was so sick on Thursday that I barely ate all day, and only managed to choke down some pizza and chocolate on Christmas Eve, foregoing wine and cookies. My back was hurting so badly that I moaned on the couch and slept with a hot water bottle pressed up against it.

Christmas morning, pajama bottoms falling down from my newly-flattened stomach, I strapped my size 12 jeans on with a belt, letting them hang around my hips, and dove into an egg-bacon-and-buttered-toast breakfast with gusto, despite the pain it caused my inner workings, and the roar of protest that emitted from them.

But it was a perfect Christmas in every way, because I spent it in a place I now can comfortably call home, where I feel I am loved and I am told that I am loved. This Christmas, I received that which I wanted, but more importantly, that which I needed. This Christmas, as in every Christmas of the last several years, I received the greatest, and most needed gift of all: the embrace of a family who has chosen me as one of its members.

It's a perfect Christmas when, upon attempting to drop me and Maria off after breakfast and shopping, Maria's mom asks, "Do you want to come get gas with me?" and we both jump at the chance, with a "Yes!" and a "Yay!" The simplest activities may be routine to them, but they are a revelation to me. I yearn for the chance to wander up and down the aisles of a Wegman's grocery store with them (somewhat satisfied by today's visit to Sam's Club, which is a revelation in and of itself). I savor every bite of breakfast and every sip of coffee with them. And together, we ooh and ah over Maria's new purple sparkly earrings and my new fuzzy Christmas socks, tall enough to peek out over the tops of my winter boots.

Once I got home to Syracuse, it didn't matter that I felt sick, or had a hard time getting here, or had only received three Christmas cards in the mail, or didn't have any room for a Christmas tree in my own apartment, relegating my ornaments to my storage unit. While I have been here, I have only made a cursory mental note of the emails or phone calls or text messages I haven't received, because I have all the love and affection and care and attention I could ask for here: from sister, brothers and brother-in-law, parents, and a whole zoo full of animals, who are as all over me as I allow them to be.

I haven't pushed them away yet.

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Black Swan, And The View from Behind First Place (Excerpt from Extra Criticum)

I've posted a new blog on Extra Criticum inspired by the Darren Aronofsky film Black Swan. Here's an excerpt:

There is a necessary struggle between first and second place, not only in the film, but in life. In first place, it is necessary to feel someone nipping at your heels from behind, so as not to rest on your laurels and become complacent at the top. Likewise, who would be satisfied to stay in second place without striving to overthrow the first? What point is there in being the alternate for a role you never get to perform? The understudy's greatest dream is that the principal will call in sick, get struck by a car, or mysteriously go missing.

The key to successfully shedding your second place status is to always assume it is a temporary state. As much as you're nipping at the heels of first place, someone else is nipping at your heels from third.

Click here to continue reading the full post...

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Photo Essay: Kings County Distillery

Kings County Distillery is one of the few small distilleries that have recently popped up in New York State, and one of only a couple in New York City (in good company with Breuckelen Distilling Company). They've recently opened their doors for limited tastings and tours in the holiday season, and despite feeling run down from all of my traveling this week, I managed to catch the last tour of the year.

The distillery is housed in a recently renovated building nestled in the Industrial Business Zone of North Brooklyn, off the Grand Street stop on the L train.



The operations are housed basically in two rooms: the tasting room and the distillery, where the alcohol is rendered.


spirit tanks, where the alcohol comes out



transference from bucket to bucket



residual corn solids, which are donated to a pig farm Upstate





bottling area





The moonshine is sweet, and much smoother than you'd expect (and than the "Angel's Share" that we tasted at some of the distilleries along the Kentucky Bourbon Trail). It's certainly proper for sipping and shooting.



moonshine tasting


bourbon tasting


The bourbon is also sweet, but with the characteristic smokiness from the charred virgin white oak barrels, which the bourbon ages in for five months.



The bourbon isn't yet available at retail (and won't be until March), so I snapped up a 200ml bottle for $23 in the tasting room.

Kings County Distillery will be open for a couple more limited tours on January 29 and February 12. And after a couple of tastes, some pizza from Roberta's - a short walking distance away - really hits the spot. They serve the moonshine there, too.

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The Vanity Files

I admit it. I'm vain.

But I'm not only a writer and a music industry executive - both of which are somewhat "behind the scenes." I'm also a performer.

And performers must, by trade, be vain.

We have to worry about our gray roots growing in, our shaggy eyebrows, our yellowing teeth, our rosy cheeks, our sagging bustlines and our muffintops. It's part of the job.

I've been a hired spokesperson on QVC for two years now, selling music on behalf of my former employer who now hires me freelance to hawk their musical wares. Over the first year, I watched myself gain so much weight that my bras stopped fitting - something never as noticeable as in my eight minutes of camera time.

I could hide from mirrors and from my reflection in dark window panes along New York City's streets, but I couldn't hide from my own demo reel.

Sure, I'd done my job well on QVC. I'd sold boatloads of CDs and more than earned my fees. And I'm sure, at that size, I was an accessible, realistic depiction of a young woman that QVC audiences could relate to. But I hated the way I looked.

So although I was getting physically injured from all the weight that I'd gained, and was in constant pain and fatigue, it was shame - and, ultimately, vanity - that pushed me into joining Weight Watchers last January.

Now, nearly a year later, I've lost almost 50 pounds, and I'm going back on QVC. And I can't wait to see myself.

I know it's vain. I know it shouldn't matter. But I wonder: will the weight loss give me a renewed confidence and heightened attractiveness that will sell even bigger boatloads of product? Or will I transform from the sorta chubby cute girl next door into the scantily-clad new neighbor from Brazil, an outsider, an other, and therefore a threat to the entire block?

When Stella gets her groove back, does she lose the trust and confidence of all those around her who have also lost their mojo?

Cross posted on Extra Criticum.

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Photo Essay: MTA Vintage Subway Train Ride for the Holidays

Once again this year, New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority has blown the dust off of some of their vintage subway trains and buses - normally housed in the Transit Museum in Brooklyn - and has re-released them onto NYC's streets and subway tracks for commuters to enjoy.

I'd ridden a train from the classic R1/9 fleet down the A line from Times Square to the Rockaways over three years ago, so I knew to expect a typical crowd of older train and transit enthusiasts, native New Yorkers, and transit workers, as well as befuddled tourists and newbie straphangers.



Today's train took a relatively short route from Queens Plaza to Second Avenue-Lower East Side along the M line, and - unlike my express ride a few years ago - made all regularly-scheduled local stops along the way.





Still, the train careened through the tunnel under the East River, the longest stretch we had of non-stop locomotion.







Each of the eight cars of this particular train were actually slightly different, some with beige-colored rattan seats...



and others with red leather cushions.



Walking between the cars was even more of a challenge than on the modern subway trains - something I usually refuse to do. The train seems to be going so FAST, and while traversing its narrow spaces, you not only cross other passengers, but also conductors who lean out of either side to shout their announcements to those waiting on the platform.



I didn't expect the fanfare that awaited us at the train ride's terminus at Second Avenue: a swing band, dancers, and revelers of all sorts in period costumes.









Riding those old trains provides a commute worthy of roller coaster squeals and amusement park snacks. I may just do it again next Sunday.

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On Borrowed Time

As a music fan, I’ve always enjoyed the passive listening experience – radio, music television, Muzak, jukeboxes – but I’ve always felt the need to own the music that I love. Whether it’s meticulously taxonomized in file folders on my laptop or painstakingly alphabetized on a wall full of shelves, ownership of the thing has always meant something.

I can never understand the appeal of these subscription-based streaming music services like Rhapsody. Sure, they give you access to a large catalogue. But so does a library. And sometimes you don’t want to just borrow a book, you want to own it.

Besides my hulking music collection – now dramatically reduced after moving to Queens – I’ve never owned much of significance. In my bedroom growing up, my father constantly reminded me and my sister, “That carpet is ours. When you sit on it, you’re borrowing it from us.” When I went away to college, my father bought me a mini fridge and said, “Just remember. We own this. You’re borrowing it.” Not surprisingly, I chose to buy my own microwave, just so that it would be mine.

I’ve never owned a home, only rented a number of apartments scattered across three boroughs in New York City. Even in my apartment now, despite my roommate’s protestations and my rent payments, I still feel like I’m borrowing my room from him. When I’m not there, I’m finding some other place to sleep: a hotel room, a couch or a guest bedroom.

I’ve never owned a car. In college, I borrowed several friends’ cars to drive to the mall, or Pizza Pub, or to the beaver pond where my senior seminar biology project lie rotting in the sun. I’ve rented dozens (if not hundreds) of cars on business trips and vacations, which has taught me to quickly acclimate to each new piece of heavy machinery I am to operate. And if something happens to the car – a lost hubcap, a scratch on the door – I can simply return the car silently and hope the rental agency doesn’t notice.

During this trip to LA, Steve not only let me crash at his place while he was on vacation, but offered to let me borrow his car. Eager to save money, I jumped at the chance, with the caviat, “If you feel comfortable letting me do that…”

Despite all my best intentions, I ended up in a tight squeeze and cracked the front parking light on a pole in one of those typical LA subterranean garages.

The horror.

Amidst my apologies and offers to reimburse the repair costs, and the sinking feeling that I let a friend down and never deserved his trust, one thought keeps nagging at me: I wish I owned my own.

It’s one thing if something happens to a car you pay for and rent. It’s another thing when it happens to a car you borrow as a favor and have to return to its owner, who has to drive it.

But if I owned my own car, whatever happened to it would be entirely up to me. And damage, repair, and loss are necessary components of ownership.

It’s not just a car. I wish I owned my own life. I wish I weren’t so dependent on the kindness of others, or on the professional services that cater to my transience. Taking life one day at a time, trying to make the most of each one, without knowing what lies at the end of the hike, I feel like I’m living on borrowed time. I don’t know from whom I’ve borrowed it, or when I’ll have to give it back. But right now, it doesn’t feel like mine, not mine at all.

Related reading:
A Room of One’s Own – Virginia Woolf
Avoiding Regret: Life on the Curb

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Photo Essay: Hollywood's Most Famous Caves

LA's parks are full of historical sites - be they vestiges of grand old estates, or former shooting locations for a variety of film and television productions. I have yet to hike to the former set of M*A*S*H, but I know it's there and it's on my list.

Today I returned to Griffith Park, whose huge expanse is full of hiking trails and nooks and crannies often left unmarked on maps, to visit the Batcave.

Bronson Canyon is situated in the southwestern section of Griffith Park, not far from Beachwood Canyon. The main trail, Brush Canyon Trail, is located at the end of the road past Camp Hollywoodland, where hikers share the land with horses and equestrians (presumably from the nearby Saddle Ranch Hollywood horse ranch).



I hiked a steep path for a while, but after having walked three miles around the Hollywood Reservoir, I was unimpressed with what looked like just another canyon. So I turned around and returned to the parking lot for the real draw of my trip: the Bronson Caves.



A young family was well on their way up the path when I heard their young son (who must've been six years old) say, very seriously and excitedly, "This is where they shot the Batman television series of 1966!"

Indeed, I was on the right track.



This is exactly where Adam West and Burt Ward were shown driving out of the Batcave in the TV show that ran from '66-'68. It looked a little more overgrown back then.

The caves themselves are presumed to be manmade, largely because this area of the park was home to the Los Angeles Stone Company's rock quarry.



They have been featured in a number of Hollywood productions, including Little House on the Prairie, Fantasy Island, and even Star Trek: Voyager.



The main tunnel is actually quite small - high enough to stand in, but short enough to be crossed in less than a minute. It is flanked by a couple of other openings that serve as crawlspaces whose only way out is also the way in.

On the other side of the tunnel, once again, the Hollywood Sign peeks out at you.



Griffith Park felt very much alive today, though overcast skies and a chill in the air reminded me that it's winter. But the grass was greener than I'd ever seen it, and there were plenty of signs of life - including some tracks in the mud from what I suspect was a mountain lion.



Yet another highlight of the hidden city known as Los Angeles.

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Photo Essay: Lake Hollywood Reservoir

A few years ago, before I started spending so much time here, I met a guy in New York who was visiting from LA. When he asked me what I thought of his hometown, I told him I didn't really like it that much. And then he said to me, "Los Angeles is a hidden city. You have to know where to look. And you probably need a local to show you."

Over the course of this year, I've become almost a local myself, criss-crossing the country every month or two and establishing an existence that's practically bicoastal without having a regular place to stay when I'm out West. And every time I'm here, I set out to discover and uncover some new hidden corner of the city, a placemark on a map no tour guide would ever show his visitors.

Today I found Lake Hollywood.

Yes, Hollywood has a lake. It's actually a reservoir, one of two (the other being Silver Lake) that I know of in the area. But then again, I'm still getting to know LA.

Like many Los Angeles parks, especially the urban ones, I had a hard time finding the entrance. I drove round and round, past runners, walkers and bikers ambling down the side of the road, looking for some opening amidst all the locked gates where I could actually enter the perimeter and not just circle the surrounding roads.

And then I found the East Gate.



The East Gate is one of three entrances to the walkway/bike path that gives you a good view of the surprisingly lush lake.





But still, the lake is surrounded nearly entirely by rust-colored chainlink.



In fact, the entire path feels pretty industrial and urban.









The east side pathway leads you to the south of the reservoir, Hollywood sign hovering behind you, and the Mulholland Dam looming in the distance.



The dam is actually a real highlight, where the walkway continues past the Weidlake Gate and 933 feet all the way across the concrete structure that crosses Weid Canyon.





Just past the gate, though, before you can continue on the access road of the west side, another locked fence appears. In fact, the entire west side of the reservoir to the North Gate is closed due to landslides, so I turned around and retraced my steps back to the East Gate, now facing the Hollywood Sign, which winked at me from behind trees and power lines.

In both directions, Hollywood's locals bade me good morning as they passed me, never suspecting I wasn't one of them.

For more information on the reservoir's history and surrounding areas, click here.

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