Let's Get Fired Up (Or, "New York, I Love You, But You're Bringin' Me Down")

As I write this, Manhattan is expecting three to five inches, then rain, then five to twelve inches (in that order) of the white shit, Congress will spend six solid hours arguing over what they think I want but can't ever seem to arrange for me and I shot a little truth serum on my way to the office, so I've confidently devised a list of concretes, which I hereby unfurl with wretched, indignant determination. Now, what to call it...

TOP FIVE THINGS WE CAN NOW CALL TRUTHS BECAUSE I'VE SAID 'EM AND REALLY, I JUST KNOW, SO DON'T ARGUE

Uno.) Snow in New York City is only snowtastic and snowglobular if you work in Manhattan and take a taxi to your office. Those tidy Manhattanites who stroll into your place of business wearing decorative scarves and declare, "this is pretty!" have never had to drape their sodden cotton tennis socks over an office space heater.
Don't let them fool you--there's no way in hell they commute.

Dos.) The absolute best way to blow off some steamy breath is to send Time Out New York a hate email for their two-tunneled and ridiculous Brooklyn vs. Manhattan cover story. As if we're not sick to death enough of the comparisons, now we're subjected to pie charts and in-depth resident "types" analysis where our actual insights used to be. Oh, Time Out, you shoulda never done the Jonas Brothers cover. There's just no going back from that. Guess I'll just keep hangin' out in Queens. Remember that borough? It's part of NEW YORK CITY.

Tres.) Umbrellas don't work in snow. I can't possibly be the first person to declare this a "truth" but in case I am, let me repeat it: umbrellas don't work in snow. For your own good, if you are still toting, you've got to let it go. There's nothing more pathetic than a thimble-sized, wool-clad human, tossed like a salad in a snowacane while she holds on for dear life to a sopping cocktail umbrella. Plug in that IPod and get your ass on out there. It ain't pretty but it's all we've got.

Cuatro.) Puffy coats aren't just for chicken-legged teenagers. They're for adults with office jobs, who sometimes like to go to wine bars. This is something I've come to accept about the out-and-out gear one needs to live in the urban outback. One should also be armed with skull, heart or cherry-adorned rain boots and a hair-smashing hat that someone from Brooklyn knitted for you.

Cinco.) The mannequins in the Bloomingdales window, who are currently draped in apricot-colored appetizer napkins and toothpick sandals, are placed there to make you feel a.) fat b.) wet c.) like you will never, ever again wear anything drapey or feather light and d.) like you've never been invited to a really good summer party in Long Island and you sure wish you knew someone who lived there so that once, just once in your life you could arrive on a beach deck in the late August sun wearing gold fan earrings and a charmeuse shin-skimmmer and say to someone (it really doesn't matter who), "I love the Sound at this time of year".

Got it?

Love and Taxes

My husband and I have always had a relatively pragmatic view of Valentine's Day. After twelve years together valentines are more like notes we pass to each other in the halls of an ordinary day than that one beaming roman candle that you light on a Valentine's Day early in your relationship and silently hope doesn't explode in your hands.

This year, we celebrated all things red and pink by having our taxes done. Oddly, it seemed a perfect way to honor our married 2009. No year is really over until the fat, Federal lady has sung, so we celebrated a New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day hybrid while sitting in our accountant's cubicle at H&R Block.

Fifteen minutes into itemizing it was apparent that 2009's pursuits had already begun to melt into memory. When my husband pulled out the L.A. back-up documentation folder I felt a strange, sorry sensation, as if I'd forgotten the lines of my favorite poem. There it was: the evidence of all we'd tried to do -- his rental car and hotel receipts, plane tickets, and credit card bills from the western sojourn to see what else was out there. In another folder was my own paper trail of first year tuition tax forms and textbook sales slips. Added together, could our paper pile amount to something more tangible than the year itself?

I watched our accountant tally up the deductions thinking that in its own way, each w-2, 9, form C, 1040-E and 1098 was like a kind of valentine we were sending to each other. They were more than just statements of account or interest paid, they were small proofs-of-purchase from the down payment we had made on our dreams. As each form was stapled into our 2009 tax portfolio I imagined them dusted with tiny mylar cupids and adorned with lipstick kisses. I pictured signing on the dotted lines with a neon pink pen, replacing each "i" in my name with a totem pole of bubble hearts.

I was thinking,

'Valentine in black and white.
A solid, stapled
paper replacement
for time and trial.
And yet, and yet,
it warms
when I hold it
thinking of you.'

I was dreaming of before and after, of everything we did and want to do. That's pretty good for two gray chairs in a gray room, on a gray day in February. Pretty good, pragmatic valentine.