At this point, we’ve established that I am 1. Not a writer
and 2. Live a boring life. Or to clarify
on #2, I once lived a more exciting life (and I would say now my life is fairly
exciting) but there was a period in which I had nothing really interesting
going on. I went to work, did stuff
around the house and tried to find something that 1. I could cook and 2. My husband would eat. Life in the Seventh Borough was giving me an
overall feeling of Blah and I even felt a little homesick for the Second
Borough, land of my birth. My body had found a weekly Zumba class, but my
mind was falling into this socio-entertainment void carved out by life in the Seventh
Borough.
So one evening, just
like that, I decided to create a blog.
I remember the day well: a typical ride home on the commuter
rail, I was reading my Martha Stewart Living magazine and lapsing in and out of
delusions that I was going to make all the crafts and recipes in this
issue. Ok, well maybe not all of
them. I started to dog-ear the corners
of the pages containing recipes and crafts that most interested me. Yes, just a select few (who doesn’t garden in
February, - insert snide tone here, - sure I have a hydroponic greenhouse on my
property, who doesn’t?) As the train crossed the Harlem River from the
First Borough into the Fourth Borough, and the magazine’s folded pages were
starting to outnumber its unfolded pages, I grew giddy with all these time-consuming
plans. I was losing my mind (do you know
how much raw vanilla bean costs?) Wait, I might be a little bored but I still
have a full-time job. No- I had it, I
wouldn’t make the crafts (flower beds, homemade chicken stock, etc) I would
blog about how to do all this stuff in less time, you know, for the ladies who
lunch – at their desks and really don’t have time to find acid-free tissue
paper and bookbinder’s twine on the weekends.
As the train passed the New York Botanical Gardens (a back yard
full of peonies and 27 types of heirloom tomatoes, anyone?) and through the light-industry
sections of the Sixth Borough, my hopes fell.
If I blogged about simplifying the lovely Martha’s creations and
concoctions I would be both a plagiarist and a liar. These
craft ideas wouldn’t be mine alone, and it would take me a lot more time to
figure out how to make these goodies in less time. It was a bad idea.
I remember the day well, though not because I spent my
evening commute on a bad idea. As the
train unloaded Seventh Borough residents at its Seventh Borough train station,
I walked home along my usual route with nothing out of sorts until the faint
wail of a fire truck became more than just that and alerted my ears that
something was up. I crossed the street
to the block our house sits on and to my surprise, the now blaring fire truck
crossed with me. The fire truck was
about to park in front of my house when a police car zipped ahead of it and
blocked our driveway. I started to run
up the hill to our house, but the first responders were already at the
door.
(Gasp!)
The house looked ok, no spewing flames or gushing black
smoke. As I entered the door, one of the
firemen told me, “It’s just the smoke alarm”.
I guess it was a slow day for Eastchester 911. My husband had set off the smoke alarm (which
is connected to the house alarm, which apparently alerts a haz-mat team if you burn
toast) cooking chicken on a stove top griddle.
Not some Martha Stewart herb-infused lemon chicken. Just regular chicken. It was a bad idea.
But that day, or maybe a few days later, after the smoke
cleared, (literally) I registered the Seventh Borough News at Blogspot. And I had absolutely no idea what I was going
to write about.
Eleven months went by and then my son was born - hence the
new excitement in my life! In my
post-partum mess of love, hormones and sleep deprivation, not to mention being
an actual mess – see mother as receptacle for baby vomit and pee, I had this
grand idea that my blog would be a series of ‘Dear Baby’ letters where I impart everything I have ever
learned about life onto this tiny little creature who only knows six
sensations: being held, not being held, wet, dry, hungry, not hungry. Maybe that would be a bit too much to chronicle
on a blog, after all maternity leave was only three months. I think the imparting of everything I have
ever learned onto my offspring is called ‘offspring’s childhood’. And it lasts for about eighteen years.
Ladies and Gentlemen, here we are. I have no crafting tips to blog about, I
have no recipes for you that may or may not sound the alarm at the Firehouse. I really have to parse out life lessons for
the baby over two decades. But if you
are still visiting this blog site at week three, something must be catching
your attention, and if all you want is to check this blog for tax advice, I’m
happy to help on that too.
I promise all I have
to give is all I have to give. And I
will give it to you, faithful readers. I will take my once-boring life and share it
with you – by sharing I don’t mean in such a way that violates my HIPPA rights
- but I hope, in a way that connects us all.
Next week at the Seventh Borough: 1978 meets 1997.
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