Go, New York

View from 7 train platform, Queens.


If I disappear from this site for a while that means I'm busy partying in Flickr, where I'm the baby sea horse watching the blue whales glide by. The two times one of my photos got marked as a favorite by strangers I was like, "yippee!" (think high-toned yelp here). Never mind that the hardcore Flickr pros are getting hundreds of views and dozens of invites to join exclusive groups. I'm like the scullery maid witnessing her first soiree from the kitchen entrance.

Teaneck woods

Teaneck, or home sweet home. Photos taken this morning.


Had a hard time getting deep sleep last night. I took advantage by taking a very early morning walk in the woods by me, and saw the forest starting to blossom.

In my humble opinion (IMHO, in e-talk), one of the richest experiences in life is have the woods all to yourself in the early morning and hearing nothing but dozens of bird calls echoing through the trees. We are so blessed to have our Teaneck home. I get to have morning walks like this while still being able to have my love affair with NYC less than half an hour away.

More photos of my walk here. I'm back to posting collections in Flickr. (The old guy appeared after about an hour of my being there. He greeted me but kept right on walking.)

Kayla the cartographer

Kayla, now age 4, with her favorite birthday presents. Photo taken at her birthday party, April 2008.


This past weekend was Kayla's birthday party. Kayla loved the digital camera I gave her, as well as the globe that she got from Ate. She had asked for both. Word was she went ape shit at Barnes & Noble when she first laid eyes on the globe and had said to Ate, "It's a deal, okay? You will get me this for my birthday?" She first played with the camera, taking pictures of her bear, her dolls, her pillow, even her blanket.

Later she put the camera aside and spun the globe round and round, asking me what this yellow country or that large green country was called. She asked if there were people living in Alaska or if there were just polar bears living in igloos. When I pointed out South America she jumped up off the floor, clapped her hands once, and said that big, big snakes called anacondas lived in South America. (Where does she get these facts? What TV shows does she watch?)

Everytime she pointed to a country near Greenland she asked if it was cold there, for I had told her that Greenland is a very cold place. I showed her that the blue strip running along the bulge was called the equator, and that the farther away you get from it the colder it got. She then pointed to Iran and asked if people are hot there. I nodded, wondering if this girl really might be a genius.

Then she pointed to another country further north, asking what it was called. When I told her it's called Norway she said, "Whaaat??" She was all incredulous, as if a country ought not be called that. This was when I realized that she wasn't a genius. She was just a vibrant, highly curious, very intelligent, exuberant little girl, which is far more preferrable and infinitely more delightful.

Other countries' names that made her eyes bulge out and go, "whaat??!" are Kazakhstan, Papua New Guinea, and Mongolia. She kept going back to Canada -- perhaps the large land mass fascinated her -- and she also kept asking me to show her where her dad is when he goes to London.

She wasn't interested when I explained that all that blue she was seeing was water. She was, however, very much interested in the North Pole and asked if Santa Claus lived there. When I showed her where it was she then asked me to point out New Jersey again.

That was when she said, "Santa Claus knows where I live?" Her tone when she said that wasn't that far off from the "whaat??!" she kept screeching earlier. I said yes, he knows where she and all children live.

Kayla looked at the globe again, tapping the North Pole region. She seemed to be thinking things through. For a moment she stopped asking questions. I was quiet with her, but I was smiling. I was thinking that maybe the girl might be a genius after all.

oh, I get it. I'm creepy, too!

Stealth photo-taking at the Strand. Photo taken Mar 2008.


One of my more recent Eureka realizations is this concept, or rather this pattern, where you attract into your life the very thing you don't want to see about yourself. Finding yourself frequently annoyed by rude people? Chances are that you are rude yourself but don't see it at all. People are always not coming through for you? Do you perhaps let people down in ways that you don't admit to or see as that? You get the idea. This is life's way of making you come to terms with things about yourself. It is only when you accept this trait you've been denying will these people stop having a charge on you. I have recently found this to be very true for myself and have officially included this principle as one of the governing laws On How Things Work.

So when a recent rash of what Lorin calls "creepos" popped up in my Facebook life, thus giving me a very bad Facebook buzz-kill, I started asking myself why this is happening suddenly now, within days of each other. Why are these guys who I barely knew 10+ years ago tapping me and wanting me to be their "friend," in a manner I find suspicious and unnerving? Then again my paranoia is partly explained by the fact that when I was 14 years old, I met a guy at a party and spoke to him briefly.... and out of that one night the guy phoned my parents' house on and off wanting to speak to me from the time I was 14 all the way through the month before I married Lorin at the age of 23. Ridiculous but true nevertheless. The guy even asked questions like, "Were you wearing a white skirt today? I think I saw you standing at a bus stop by the library on Victory Boulevard."

Creepos everywhere! What the bloody hell is going on?!

Then tonight, while going through photos I took last week, the Eureka moment hit. "Oh, I get it," said I to self. "I AM a creep!"

Here's what I saw: I take photos of strangers in bookstores and everywhere else during their unguarded moments. I don't ask for their permission, and I do it quick, slam, bam, then I put my camera away. And I post these photos, or at least posted one of them now. (ta da!) Those I haven't posted reside in my computer, waiting to be archived.

Also, two months ago I was obsessed with Facebook. Those of you who read this p-blog know how stupid I got. And what exactly was I doing in FB?? I was snooping, of course! I was checking out people's walls, who wrote what to whom, what they are doing now, what their jobs are, blah blah blah. Of course it can be argued that this is what people do in social websites and is thus considered acceptable behavior, but that's really not who I am. I don't even Google people I know without getting their permission first. Nevertheless there I was, Girl Creepola from Teaneck, checking out what group so-and-so joined and what their spouses look like. Gee-zus!

Lastly -- and this one came popping up in the clearing of my consciousness as soon as I started to sit back and watch the discoveries unfold -- I am online way too much. I email friends as quickly as my 70wpm typing speed can allow, with no censorship of my interior monologue what-soever. I forward emails and send out mass emails of my musings at least once a week to two weeks, and I have these photoblog entries that I update at the new rate of at least twice a week. I went from no one knowing where the hell I am to everyone being able to know exactly what I did at 2pm on Wednesday.

What the f**ck is right. I saw what I've been doing and thought, "Yikes. I really do have an inner creep."

So I get it. I totally got it tonight. It was a real eye-opener. And just like that, I felt compassion for the two blokes that gave me the heeby geebies in Facebook. I sure as hell still ain't pressing that "accept friend request" button, but I now know that I'm not above them in any way. I too, it turns out, just wanted to be noticed by the people whom I wanted to like me.

"Slow down / you move too fast / you've got to make the morning last..."

Queensborough Bridge (also known as the 59th St. Bridge). Photo taken Mar 2008.


I couldn't find a couple who would be willing to pose for me to mimic the famous Woody Allen shot from his movie Manhattan, so this shot will have to do.

Besides, I was "looking for fun and feelin' groovy" regardless. Badump-bump. OK, that was corny, but I don't care. (See the Simon & Garfunkel song if you're baffled by my reference.)