A few years back, Mayor Bloomberg made a commitment to add 200 miles of bike lanes to the city, which is a wonderful thing. Anyone who has pedaled down the new bike lane on 9th Avenue can testify to the pleasures of biking in the city without immediate danger of being brained by a bus
One (not so) small problem: where do you lock up your bike?
If you can't find room on one of the (rare) bike racks around the city, you're left scouting for sign poles, which are often crowded with bikes and which leave your bike at risk for being whacked by a car door, dinged by a cab, or sandwiched in by other locked bikes. (For a sort of helpful DOT map of bike racks, click here.)
The bike lane/bike rack problem reminds me of the school problem (okay, everything reminds me of the school problems, true): those glass-box expensive condos getting built to lure "families" into the city, without anyone, apparently, noticing that the schools didn't have room for all the shiny families moving into those shiny condos.
So for the moment, these bike lanes are lovely additions to our city, if what you want is a Sunday afternoon ride, or a little exercise. But for those of us who want to use our bikes to get to work, shlep groceries or children, do errands, get to class? As with the condo/school conundrum, Bloomberg again demonstrates that he is a mayor who can't quite see all the way down the food chain: if he really wants "the people" to start using bikes as alternative transportation, then "the people" need a place to park.
Caleb and I were rounding the corner onto 14th street when we saw a group of revelers waving rainbow flags, headed for the Gay Pride parade on 6th avenue.
"Dat's cool flags," said Caleb. "Dey celebratin' dere country, I think."
I remember my first Pride parade, almost twenty years ago, watching as the marchers went past the Washington Square Arch. My brother - who had just come out - walked with Tom Duane, now a New York Senator, but back then only a city councilman. My brother marched; I cried. He looked so happy - and, yes, proud - to be "celebratin' dere country."
Unfortunately, of course, Caleb is only almost right, as Frank Rich details in his Op-Ed piece today. "Dere country" is not "our country" because gays and lesbians are still second-class citizens. Those flags symbolize only the promise of unity, not unity itself.
Given the recent spate of hiking trips taken by members of the conservative right (who knew these guys were such an outdoorsy bunch), I wonder how much longer the whole "sanctity of (heterosexual) marriage" argument is going to last. Seriously? If gays and lesbians want to get married so that they, too, can get bored and go on separate hiking trips in Appalachia - where's the harm in that?
I know Obama's only been in office for five months and he inherited a plate full of crap, blah blah blah, but wouldn't it be great if he could usher in the summer with some dramatic statement that would help make those rainbow flags a reality?
I mean, they really are cool flags. Let's not let them go to waste.
Today, Tuesday, Caleb and I saw these teams of people along 14th street. Each team had odd contraptions on their laps and was studiously looking at traffic. When Caleb and I asked them what they were doing, they wouldn't answer us.
What do you think they're doing?
I had an epiphany the other day at the gym while watching an in-depth VH1 special called "Hollywood: Nipped and Tucked." In loving detail, the show explained who nips, who tucks, who plumps, who does what to which body part(s) in pursuit of endless youth and good close-ups.
The images of nipped and tucked celebrities flashing across the screen - Madonna, Meg Ryan, Lisa Rinna, Michael Douglas, Al Pacino - reminded me of something else we've been seeing a lot of lately: vampires.
Think about it: all those varieties of facial spackle - restylane, botox, juvederm - are used to create the illusion of eternal youth, which is also the key element of vampirism: vampires don't age. In the movie "Twilight," Edward Cullen jokes about a tapestry he and his "siblings" have created from all the various mortarboards and tassels they've collected over the years, as they matriculate again and again and again.
In Book Four of the series, Bella Swan finally gets what she's wanted for three previous books: she's envamped. As a result of her vampiric transformation, she becomes utterly beautiful: graceful, glossy, completely buff. The whole blood-sucking thing aside, another way to read Bella's happy ending is that she "has a little work done," and then gets to waltz off into a gleaming sunset with her equally glossy lover and their immortal child.
Isn't that what the puffy-lipped among us are hoping for?
Don't get me wrong - I've stared into the mirror while I pulled up my (sagging) jawline and smoothed my (shar-pei'd) forehead - but I'm not ready to join the ranks of the undead quite yet. I wonder, though: if we were all forced to undergo plastic surgery, ala Scott Westerfeld's dystopian future world, would the ageless kiss of a vampire still seem so seductive?
A fact: a gynecological exam is never going to rank up there with gelato, foot rubs, or clean sheets on the "life's pleasures" lists. Even the word "speculum" can make a gal wince.
And while I am certainly not a fan of those exams, I have to say that I look forward to my annual visits to my "lady doctor," who also tended to me during my two pregnancies (and one miscarriage). I found Sylvie a long time ago, in a faraway land called Beingingraduateschool. I spent a year or so in that land using NYU's fabulous "health services," a walk-in clinic that played fast and loose with the ideas of both "health" and "service." (Imagine sitting in the communal waiting room for the gynecologist, clad only in your paper "robe." At least it was a women's only waiting room - a small concession - but the door opened onto the main waiting room, where I every now and then caught sight of my undergraduate students. Truly a lovely experience.)
Sylvie - the first midwife I'd ever met outside of books - had a comfy chair for pre-exam conversation in her office; the cold metal stirrups on the exam table were gloved with potholders, so as not to chill tootsies; and most importantly, she gave my questions all the time they needed.
I suppose as with everything, there are good midwives and mediocre midwives; I just seem to have found a really good one. Proof? In a city like ours, where just about every decision gets made on the basis of which train you'd take or if it's possible to get a cab, I stayed with her from an office close to NYU's campus, up to the Upper West Side, and now to Columbus Circle. In short, I've followed her uptown and cross-town.
Women always used to use midwives when they had babies, but in the late 19th century, as obstetrics become a more "scientific" profession, women were pushed out of the field and midwifery became a marginalized and denigrated occupation. Women who could afford it were encouraged to have their children in the "twilight sleep" of anesthesia, to be attended by a staff of (male) doctors, and to have their children in the safe space of a hospital. Midwives were dismissed as the last refuge of ignorant women, and midwife training programs all but died out.
In recent decades, however, that trend has shifted: there are now a number of midwife programs, including one at Columbia, and there are several midwifery practices in the city. Some studies say that the rate of unnecessary c-sections is significantly lower if a midwife is in attendance at a birth - but there is still a significant bias against midwives in the medical profession.
I felt that bias when I was pregnant with Liam. I'd gone to Sylvie for a regular check-up and she'd put her hands on my not-very-big belly and said "hmm...you know, let's just be sure and have you get an ultra-sound." She suspected, without any fancy instruments, that perhaps my pregnancy wasn't proceeding as it should.
Sure enough, the ultra-sound proved that in fact, Burbage (as we called Liam in utero), wasn't growing as he should, which the ultra-sound doctor brilliantly summarized as my having "a crappy placenta." This paragon of bedside manners, after so bluntly dismissing my inner organs, went on to ask me who my obstetrician was and when I said I had a midwife, she looked at me as if I'd said that my pregnancy was being attended by a veterinarian. "Oh," she said, after a long pause. "A midwife." As Sylvie, somehow, were at the root of what was wrong with my baby.
The doctor who eventually performed the very necessary c-section that saved Liam's life had a different opinion: it was Sylvie and her good hands, he said, who was responsible for Liam being as healthy as he was - she caught the problem early and made sure that we were monitored carefully. Sylvie delivered Caleb, too, and watched with me through gestational diabetes, through a due-date that came and went, and then a labor process that, even with pitocin, took WAY longer than it should have (and broke my tailbone - yes it can happen).
She's followed the growth of each boy and those annual checkups (still on a table with potholder-covered stirrups) have become conversations about our respective children, about life in New York, about her thriving practice, and whatever good book we're currently reading.
Yesterday, Liam and I went to Prospect Park to celebrate the 1000th baby delivered by Midwifery of Manhattan (MOM, get it?). Spread out under the green fluffy trees of Nethermead field were M.O.M's children: from kids on the verge of college to newborns, including Sylvie's first grandchild. Liam didn't really appreciate the celebration (or the lack of ice cream), but I thought it was amazing.
In light of the wanton destruction of Dr. Tiller last week, the celebration of 1000 births seemed also an affirmation of a woman's right to her own body: the births being celebrated were wanted birth; the parents wanted to be parents.
I don't know what numbers Liam and Caleb are in the count to 1000, but having them be in that number (like the saints!) makes me think that they have a guardian angel watching over them from somewhere in the vicinity of Columbus Circle.
In (dubious) honor of the man who more than 1,000 British women voted as the celebrity they would "most like to lick," Del Monte has created this tasty treat: Daniel Craig - aka James Bond - in three flavors: blueberry, pomegrante, and cherry.
Del Monte created this lo-cal stick o'joy in honor of the first annual Ice Cream Week (June 1-7), although for some of us, of course, every week is ice cream week.
Makes you wonder what the company would come up with for National Sausage Month.
My first morning in San Francisco, I woke up dreadfully late, according to NYC time: it was 6:03 in San Fran, which meant at home, Husband had already done the breakfast-lunchbox-dropoff routine and was back home with a cup of coffee.
I thought about calling to see how the first morning-without-mommy went, and then decided I didn't want to know. But going back to sleep proved impossible: the morning routine has become too hard-wired. Instead, I decided to haul myself out of bed and wander down to Union Street for my own cup of joe (alas, the coffee shop was very unclear on the "iced coffee" concept: hot coffee poured over ice is NOT iced coffee).
Watery coffee notwithstanding, however, the city did offer me a reward for getting out of bed: sunrise over the city.
There is a vigil happening right now, in Union Square, for Dr George Tiller, the doctor who was shot in a church in Kansas. I can't go to the vigil because I'm home, making dinner for my very desired, very wanted children, who I can afford to feed and clothe, as well as supply (sometimes) with legos, bakugan, hot wheels, and swimming lessons.
A (very long) while back, I was having dinner with four of my closest friends from college and we realized that in our college years (and the few years immediately after college), among the five of us, we had had four abortions, two incidents of date rape, and a wide array of unsavory and unsatisfying boyfriends. Through nothing but sheer dumb luck, I was not one of the women who had an abortion - instead, I drove friends to the clinic, waited with them, and drove them home. But those roles could have easily been reversed; I could have been the passenger, not the driver.
Now all of us are mothers - babies we had inside the shelter created by stable relationships, jobs, health insurance, family support.
But if we'd been forced to carry those college-created babies to term? Who knows what would have happened to those unwanted children, the products of broken condoms, drunken fumblings, "true love" that didn't last - and who knows what would have happened to us, women not ready to be mothers?
What I do know is that more than twenty years ago, we had access to a safe, clean, close clinic that helped us through those dark hours. It never occurred to us, way back when, that twenty years later, those pro-life protesters would still be shaking their horrific posters at women caught in the most difficult decision of their lives. How does a "pro-life" agenda square with shooting a man in cold blood, in a church? The idea of violence in a church violates the very foundations of social order, even if, like me, "faith" isn't a daily part of life.
A few years ago, Bill McKibben wrote an article in Harper's, called "The Christian Paradox: How A Faithful Nation Gets Jesus Wrong," in which he points out that the most basic precept of Christianity is the truly radical notion of "love thy neighbor as thyself." And it is radical: I mean, think about it: if you love your neighbor as yourself, can you imagine telling that person who (not) to marry? Or how to educate your children? Or what to do with your own body?
Somewhere in the fringes of the "pro-life" movement (and one must use inverted commas here, because let's be frank: there seems to be a real confusion about whose lives are - and are not - valued) there are people who are applauding what's happened in Kansas. How they rationalize this act of violence with their putative faith, I don't know.
I do know that there are many people of faith, including many Catholics, who are outraged by what's happened, and who knows, maybe - finally - Dr. Tiller's death will be the catalyst that moves us closer to that radical and foundational Christian notion of loving our neighbors. But I have to say that I'm not optimistic.
The vigil in Union Square is over now; I can see from my window that people are filing home, and I suppose that some of the women in the crowd are themselves wrestling with the dilemma my friends wrestled with, decades ago.
How can it be that all these years later, we are having the same battle over women's bodies - and how can it be that women have even fewer resources than we did then? And how can it be that the body of a doctor - a healer - has so little value?
A doctor killed in a church. How do we put that statement next to the phrase "a civilized society?"
These are two very unexciting pieces of luggage: a ten-year old black nylon shoulder bag, and an LL Bean rolling carry-on, in basic New York black.
Boring, right?
Wrongo, batman. These unassuming bags represent an epic milestone: Mannahatta Mamma has hit the road.
Alone.
Last fall, Husband and I went on our first weekend away together, and Grandma watched the kids. We went to a conference in Santa Fe and had a wonderful time together, sans enfants.
Last week, I left Husband and children alone for - wait for it - five days and four nights. Yes, almost an entire week.
Husband was left with a sheet of instructions (well, it was more than one page but I shrunk the font so that he wouldn't feel overwhelmed): when various babysitters were coming; when the play-dates had been scheduled; what went in whose lunchboxes; what was in the freezer for dinner options.
Now, okay, truth be told, Husband probably didn't need a full page of instructions (maybe the lunchbox memo, given that he's never packed the lunchboxes before); I think probably the instructions were my own efforts at long-distance control.
And yes, probably there's a tiny evil part of me that sort of wished everything would go haywire, if only so that I can know that I was missed (I mean...what if they are fine without me? What if I don't have to be there every minute making sure that everything is going smoothly? Then what would I do?)
Even before I walked out the door of the San Francisco airport, into the bright clear sunshine, however, I came to a realization: traveling is really very easy without children. Did you know that?
That it's possible to get on a plane with just two carry-ons, stow one of them in the overhead bin and then sit down with your book, maybe the newspaper or a magazine, and just ... read? Maybe eat the smooshed sandwich you brought on board so that you don't have to cough up the eight bucks for the half-frozen Delta baguette special? Maybe get up at some point, take a little stroll down the aisle for a leg stretch and a pee?
Traveling without children goes a long way towards restoring civility to air travel (or some vestige of civility, anyway, because let's be honest, there is nothing civil about standing on a gross airport floor in bare feet while some dude holds up your ziploc of sundries and examines your taste in face lotion).
So there I was in lovely San Fran, visiting a dear friend from college, staying in her lovely house, visiting here and there with other friends. I wasn't preparing for a conference, I wasn't dashing in for a quick overnight; I wasn't trekking with my kids to the playground when I'd rather sit on the deck and have a glass of wine.
In fact, I had what is known in the vernacular as a vacation.
Lovely.
I recommend it highly.
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