From Mom's Mixed-Up Files: George C. Scott

My mom was an energetic correspondent, especially when aggrieved. I inherited this trait from her. But I had no idea how deep hers ran.

When she died, I found a treasure trove of letters, in which she complained about everything from construction on the Whitestone Bridge [right] on opening day at Shea Stadium to PC Richard on the failure not only of her DVD/VCR combo, but on its website's woeful inability to calculate the number of miles between her house and the nearest repair center.

Often she was a Donna Quixote tilting at windmills, but occasionally her advocacy did bear fruit; after she sat at an intersection down the road from her house and kept a log of traffic light changes and cars backed up behind people waiting to make a left turn, the village actually installed a left-turn lane.

But I was completely surprised to find among the weary bureaucratic responses to her single-spaced diatribes, a few letters from celebrities.

Partly because I myself had, as a teenager, done the same thing (see my blog post about it here), and gotten responses from people like Michael Palin of Monty Python [left] and John Belushi, en route to becoming a professional celebrity pursuer at Rolling Stone.

But I was also surprised because she'd framed some letters she'd gotten when she was younger from the likes of Adlai Stevenson, but these writers shoved into a folder deep in the recesses of her house -- Kurt Vonnegut and George C. Scott -- were pretty impressive "gets."

My mom wrote to Scott to compliment him on a TV series

The Outsourced Consumer

When you buy a new apartment, you try to make the right consumer decisions the first time, so you don't live with a mistake. My last apartment, when I did the Ikea scrum with my daughters, I thought a round dining table would be perfect. I brought it back home and it didn't fit. Luckily I could bring it back and swap it out for a drop leaf rectangular one.

In my new place, some decisions have come easily. Though I've lived with my girlfriend for five years, she had moved into my preexisting place, so this is the first time we've set up a non-sublet home together. We've had very few disagreements about furniture, rugs, closets, etc., and it's gone very smoothly. No regrets.

But the vacuum cleaner decision nearly broke me.

Forgotten, then Gone

Although New Yorkers love to lord their city over everyone else's hometown, to be honest, they often brag about places they don't actually patronize. Kind of like the folks who brag about their iPhone app capabilities when all they really do is play the same video game every day.

You talk about how great all the museums are, and then totally fall into the habit of only going to them if someone's visiting from out of town.  You have a favorite restaurant you recommend to people, when deep down you realize the last time you actually ate there was years ago and you have no idea if it went downhill.

As life accelerates (in truth, when did it ever not?), I feel more and more of these New York attractions slipping through my fingers, and now and then I make conscious decisions to reinvigorate them.

Let it Stop!

I woke up today to see that ominous gray sky. Looked out the window down at the street -- oh no, the frosty menace is back.

It wasn't always this way between us.

Unloading

When you move, it's imperative to throw out as much as possible in advance. But you can't always predict what will work in the new space until you've lived there.

So I knowingly paid movers to schlep several things uptown, despite the fact they would soon be history.  One of the more embarrassing and unwieldy was the 65-pound, 27" diagonal, perfectly working Sony [above] I had bought when I moved into my old place in 2004.  I mean -- I work in television, for chrissake.

I had never bought into the plasma extravaganza. But now LEDs were too good and cheap to ignore. So within a few weeks of moving, I bought a Samsung and a new TV cabinet to house it, and the Sony became the world's biggest doorstop.

Not wanting to dump it on the sidewalk, I posted it on Craig's List.

City Porch

People who live anywhere but New York City take outdoor space for granted.  In L.A., the only other city I've lived in my adult life, even the shit-ass lowliest apartments often had balconies (and sometimes swimming pools). The last time I lived there, for the same price as my grungy New York apartment, we had a whole house with a yard, a hammock, a hot tub, and a resident pet bunny. We barbecued -- even in February. 

One of the nicer aspects of the Upper West Side apartment I rented in 2004 turned out to be its fire escape.

Moving (Part 1)

Many people find moving traumatic. But I was never one of those people.

Growing up, I was the opposite of an army brat: my family only moved once my entire childhood -- and that was to a house a few blocks away, which was larger, so we didn't have to throw anything out.

When I went to college, I spent two years in dorms, then got my own place for two years. After I graduated, I lived with my parents while kickstarting my journalism career, rented a few NYC apartments, then bought a place and remained there for 12 years.

Then my marriage ended, and my living situation became....entropic.