Aftermath: Of the Immediate Variety

A week later, I finally get a minute free.

Really.

I'm writing this eight days after we moved into our apartment on 5th Street in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, and as I wake up this morning I see, for the first time in that period...the floor. We had a general sense of what the physics would be behind going from 2000 square feet in our Junction house to 1200 square feet in NYC, which is why we furiously liquidated so many of our belongings in that frenzied week leading up to the epic trip in the dinosaur truck. The reality, however, is that you never know exactly how your crap is going to fit in a new place—no matter how many floor plans you draw, photos you take, or measurements you conduct. And so, after a week of some of the most creative storage ideas ever to be generated (see, the apartment has a total of two closets...each measuring less than three feet wide and two feet deep) we are beginning to see success. Finally. And it only took one truly radical act to accomplish this:

GET. RID. OF. EVEN. MORE. STUFF.

As of this writing, we have four garbage bags and two large boxes of various toys, kitchen gadgets, clothes, and electronics sitting on the kitchen floor waiting to be dropped at the Goodwill on 4th Ave. later today. What's interesting about this particular pile is that each and every object in it was the recipient of “no, we can't live without this” status during the very Machiavellian process we undertook to lighten our load. Now, though, those precious items are the recipients of the “what in God's name were we thinking?” status which has relegated them to the donation queue. What a difference 2,500 miles, two weeks, and nowhere to put things make.

Regardless, we have been making solid progress each day. To be honest, though, we are EXHAUSTED. I wake each morning to the realizations that a) I've been woefully out of shape for a long, long time; b) I'm spending each day right now lugging box after box (each of which of course averages something like 75 pounds) from one end of the place to another with no regard whatsoever for point “a,” above; and c) I appear to have turned 40 in the last couple of months, and this means I am sore all the time. Two days ago, I found the bathroom scale and eagerly placed it on the floor and stepped onto it, certain that my grueling week (not to mention the gallons of sweat produced by it) would have given me a good jump-start on my stated goal to drop 25 pounds asap upon moving to the city. Nope. Somehow, I have GAINED five pounds. WTF? Huh? How is this even POSSIBLE? I feel like John McEnroe with no chair umpire to berate...I can't exactly scream at the scale, can I? “YOU CAN NOT BE SERIOUS!” But that's what I feel like doing, because I cannot for the life of me comprehend how the week I've just had could result in a net GAIN in my physical mass. J tries to comfort me by saying things like “you've probably gained a lot of muscle mass” and “well, I think your belly looks a lot smaller so I don't get it either.” She's good that way.

Me? I think I've been hexed by the girl from the Six Flags beer counter who tried to kipe J's driver's license. You bet. Or, as I think about it, I'm led to recall a conversation I overheard in Cabo once between a woman who was there to produce a commercial about the wonders of botox and some of the people on her crew. This conversation has been on permanent reserve in my mind as an example of the most ridiculous, banal, idiotic reasoning I've ever heard another human being use to describe a simple phenomenon, yet now, as I need such reasoning to explain my physical proliferation, I'm thinking of employing the logic. The dialogue that follows is between the woman (W) and her minions (M)--which particular minion is speaking is as unimportant to the dialogue itself as it was to her incredibly narcissistic ass. In fact, most times all of the minions were chiming in simultaneously as it was clearly their primary function to agree with Herself, regardless of the topic. So, it's like this:

W: Y'know, I went downstairs to the hotel gym this morning...

M: Hmmmm. Mmmm?

W: Well, yes. I mean, I have to do my workout every day, you know.

M: Mmmm. Yes. Mmmm.

W: Except Sundays, unless I'm in the Palisades. Because you know, there's a lovely trainer man there I like to work with. He's very good.

M: Oh, yes. Mmmm.

W: Anyway, you're not letting me finish the story. You're getting me off track.

M: (silence)

W: That's better. So I went to the hotel gym...

M: ...mmmmmm...

W: ...and I went up to one of those machines. You know, the Nautlius things or whatever they call them?

M: Yes.

W: I put the same amount of weight on it that I always do...it's the same machine as I have at home, see.

M: Mmmmm. Yes.

W: And do you know WHAT?

M: Mmmm?

W: I COULDN'T LIFT IT.

M: (general gasps of shock and horror)

W: I'm serious! I always start with 15 pounds and work up to 20. So I put 15 pounds on it, and I COULDN'T LIFT IT. Seriously! Now why do you suppose that IS?

M: Mmmm....can't imagine....mmmmm....so strange....mmmm....mumble mumble mumble feigning surprise so well aren't we but she can't hear this over all the “mmmmming” we're doing....mmmmmm.

W: And then I figured it out.

M: Mmmm? What?

W: I figured out exactly why I couldn't lift 15 pounds.

M: Why? Do tell! Do tell!

W: It's because....are you ready?

M: Yes! We're ready! Please! Please!

W: It's because...well, look at it this way.

M: Mmmmm?

W: We're in Cabo, right?

M: Mmmmm...

W: NOT in LA, right?

M: Right.....

W: And Cabo is closer to the equator than LA, right? That is right, isn't it?

M: (general consultation) Mmmmm. Yes.

W: So there's only one possible explanation.

(long dramatic pause....the tension is unbearable as she prepares to reveal her wisdom)

W: Gravity, my friends, must be stronger at the equator. So much stronger, in fact, that I couldn't lift my usual 15 pounds here! Now isn't THAT something?

M: (various subdued but enthusiastic applause) Mmmmm!

W: And I am SO glad I figured that out. Because for a minute there I thought I'd lost my strength completely. And that would never, ever do.


So, as I continue to defy physics myself and gain weight despite sweating more and eating less, I've decided to apply a variation of her argument—its logic intact, though, to be sure—to my situation. Rather than latitude, I'm going to use ALTITUDE as a scapegoat for this predicament. See? I'm going to engage in some big-time cognitive dissonance as I cast aside everything I know about science and tell myself that I weigh more at sea level! It's perfect! Were I to step on a scale in Colorado, I'd be down a good 10 pounds already! And off I go to unpack the rest of my crap. Blithely so.

Oh. Two things:

1. Now that I've got a little time on my hands, I'll be putting together some of the more memorable stories from the move-in week and posting them. You'll get to meet our wonderfully eccentric landlady, spend one of the 7 hottest days in NYC history with me, the Warren brothers, and a flight of stairs, compare southpaw-ness with Bob the handyman, and find the only truly bad Italian restaurant in the city. Just stay tuned.

2. If you haven't already figured it out...the reason that the stupid bitch couldn't lift 15 pounds in Cabo had nothing at all to do with gravity. They were kilos, see. The weights were listed in kilograms. Which means she was trying to lift 33 pounds. Wow.