Other

Everyone likes to talk about themselves, writers more than anybody. There’s something satisfying about describing the painful process of shoveling through the thoughts in your mind, flinging handfuls of sludge over your shoulder and hoping nothing good flies out with it.

Maybe it’s just because writers like to talk more period. (Talk in the sense of communicate — some of the very finest writers were mouth-shy. One of the best craftsmen I know stutters when he has to speak to an answering machine.)

New York has forced me to refine my tendencies to speech and silence. I natter less and glower more. I’m also more aware of the efficiencies — and deficiencies — of it all.

My work requires that I be on a conference call (which I secretly refer to as The Neverending Gory) with anywhere between 10-15 people, every day. For eight straight hours. We have a very high pressure job that’s time sensitive down to the hundredth of a second and a non-stop buzzing of noise in both ears that can’t be tuned out or you’ll miss critical information. The amount of chatter and our intense focuses occasionally lead to someone’s (my) joke falling flat or a question (mine) being unanswered. This is a very unusual situation. Imagine having 10 bosses monitoring you constantly and never knowing if they would answer when you asked an important question.

As a humor writer, I have some of the instincts of a stand-up comic. When I make a noise and I hear silence, something in my heart breaks off and goes tinkling to the floor. Being ignored at work (if you can call it that because everyone has a legitimate reason to focus on something else) has taught me to speak only when it’s really necessary. I’m less myself, but it makes everyone else’s life easier.

I called a girl last Sunday. We used to be best friends until we had a falling out my last year of college. In the four years we haven’t spoken, I got a Master’s degree and my first live-in boyfriend. She started teaching ninth-grade algebra at a school for inner-city Boston kids returning to class after dropping out, having babies or any number of disruptive things.

She’d deleted my phone number (I’m ignoring that, having kept hers all this time), so I had to identify myself when she picked up. I used my first and last name, to the person who helped me zip my fat-suit Halloween costume two years in a row. At that moment, more words were strange.

We recited paragraphs of our lives back and forth, taking turns, cracking innocuous jokes — the kind you’d tell your dentist or tax lady — and it felt a little stiff until the end, when I had to go.

“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I’m sorry too.”
“Things have really changed for me, especially since I got to New York, and I really miss you and I think you should be part of my life again.”

She was silent.

“I’d like to be friends again, if that’s ok with you.”
“That’s ok,” she said.
“Really?”
“Yeah…. I’m sorry, you have to give me a second.”

She was silently crying.

When we hung up, we used our names, full first, not our old nicknames, but not our last names either. Fewer words were better.

2010. The year of the wedding. At least for me. Rapidly approaching three years of post-college life has apparently scared my friends straight… into marriage. I know this is the first wave (I can’t seem to stop using war terminology when I talk about this) and more will come, but I yearn for the lull between.

The art of the wedding gift, similar to the knack of composing the perfect greeting card, is an area in which I consider myself fairly expert. My two rules: never buy something on the registry and never get anything new.

I haven’t always been fond of the antique. When I was 14, I chided my parents for their mismatched house decor. (You may feel more sympathetic if you saw the sousaphone hanging above our fire-engine red leather couch.) My exasperated mother asked just what I would like to change and after a few moments of thought, I exclaimed, “Well, at least have matching dishtowels!”

I can’t figure what changed between then and now, but in my own house, I’ve taken a more relaxed approach to decorating. And the other day, I looked around and noticed most of my favorite items are old. I have a 1956 Underwood typewriter that I adore, despite the fact that it hasn’t technically worked in a few months. (A user error — I loaded the tape incorrectly and now every two letters, it falls below the keystrokes. I’m sure it can be fixed, just not by an engineer like myself.)

Many of my books are old, including the 1962 Encyclopedia of Modern American Humor. The record collection I’ve built is mainly of my parents old vinyls. My mother contributed Blood, Sweat and Tears and Joe Cocker and my father let me have his Cruising ’58 as long as I swore to give it back someday. (This column is also about the pleasure of possession.)

Yesterday I met a friend at the Brooklyn Flea, which is a three-story amalgamation of young t-shirt designers who all try to look like Elvis Costello and batty hoarders selling broken costume jewelry. I like flea markets and antique fairs, though I can never find a happy medium between haggling the seller until I feel guilty and being ripped off completely. I spent about $200 on two beautiful pieces of art, one of which I believe I’ll give to a pair of friends who are going to be married in November.

If I were getting married, I would want gifts like a washer and dryer, or other expensive houseware items. The rest I’d like to be fun pieces that reflect me and the person who gives them. I think this is much more meaningful than that set of stemware from Williams Sonoma. (But what do I know…. I drink out of something that half resembles a sippy cup.)

I don’t believe in reincarnation, but I do believe that something of yourself remains in the objects you use. When you buy a new cooking pot, you must first season it or the things you make taste bland. They lack depth and personality. But once you’ve used the pot for a few years, you build a relationship with it and you trust each other and the end result is a better collaboration than something new and sterile could have produced. (That and you ought to have learned to cook better during all that time.)

The one thing I’d hesitate to buy used — wedding rings. I love the idea of an old piece that’s been worn before, but I fear the other marriage’s problems would come along with the diamonds.

I guess it’s a good thing I’m not the groom in any of these weddings, just an attendee who comes bringing great gifts.