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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Getting to the Festival His Own Damn Self

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The hitchhiker sat in my backseat and, staring back at him, I couldn’t make sense of how he got there.

I was sixteen, new to SAT prep, reported income, and the driver’s seat of a car. What I wasn’t new to was Fairfield, Connecticut—my hometown. And yet I found myself lost, roaming the windy, startlingly unfamiliar streets, no more than five miles from my house.

My friend and I were on our way to the Dogwood Festival, an annual fair at which area vendors gathered on a church green to sell homemade soaps, potted chrysanthemums, and organic dog treats. It doesn’t sound like the most stimulating weekend activity for a couple of teenagers, but this was a town whose young people frequently convened in empty fields to stare at one another and drink cheap beer, so at least that day’s field would have crafts to admire, and less puddles of vomit to sidestep.

The trick, it turned out, was getting there. I’d left the house assuming I knew the way. How could I not? What human of moderate intelligence couldn’t retrace a route taken at least a dozen times before? Even rats managed to navigate a maze if it yielded a cheese reward, and that’s regular store-bought Kraft cheddar. The Dogwood Festival hosted cheese artisans—I’m talking fresh chevre! But there I was, driving in circles.

This was an age before GPS’s, and when cell phones could only be used to call, text, or bludgeon home invaders. So when I saw a man on the side of the road—a kind soul who could potentially point me in the right direction!—I was so relieved, I pulled over without minding his worn duffel bag or the fact that we were in the woods and there was no good reason to trust a man walking along the side of the road. And yet there I was, pulled up beside him, rolling down my window.

“Excuse me, sir. Do you know how to get to the Dogwood Festival?”

Now, this fair was a nice enough event, but Fairfield is a town of 60,000, and the Dogwood Festival wasn’t exactly its equivalent to New York City’s Puerto Rican Day Parade or Whoville’s Christmas. Sure, some people knew about it, and maybe a few even looked forward to it, but it’s not like a stranger taken at random would respond to my question with, “The Dogwood Festival? Golly, I surely do know the way! Let me draw you a map.” The more likely response would be, “The Dogwood Festival? Um, sounds familiar. I think my cousin’s neighbor bought his mom a plant for Mother’s Day there once.”

But this man—who in my exaggerated memory looked like a young Jerry Garcia, but in reality was likely cleaner, say an older John Lennon—looked at me and said, “Yes, that’s where I’m going.”

And then he was in my backseat, door shut behind him, and I can’t remember how he got from point A to point B.

I turned and stared back at the stranger in my car for an uncomfortable amount of time, long enough to consider many thoughts, the first being, Is this a big deal? I try to avoid being dramatic and, when you’re inside the moment, it’s often hard to measure significance. It’s only later, when you’re chained up in an unfinished basement, that you realize, Yup, that was a big deal.

I then contemplated that the man could be good: a weary traveler, journeying from a far distance—Woodstock, New York would be a safe guesstimate—to haggle with the artists of New England over one of a kind stuff to keep in his duffel bag, like say a hand painted spoon rest. Or perhaps he was a craftsman himself, eager to peddle the coasters he’d constructed from littered bottle caps. But then there were other possibilities to ponder, the least gruesome being auto theft, and after a month of driving our Chrysler Town and Country to school, I just couldn’t go back to taking the bus!

So at this point in my baffled stare, I arrived at the conclusion that I needed to remove this vagabond from my minivan. The question was, how?

An eject switch, a little red button beneath my dashboard illustrated with a stick figure flung from a vehicle, would have been the ideal solution. However, this was the year 2004, not an episode of Get Smart. Back to the drawing board. My next idea was a simple one: ask him to leave. But that felt rude, and I didn’t want to seem like some privileged white girl from the suburbs who thought she was too good to give a hobo a lift—we were going to the same place, for crying out loud! So, like I was taught to do when I didn’t want to go to a classmate’s birthday party, I told a little white lie to spare the vagrant’s feelings.

“Actually we have to stop and pick up a friend first, so you probably want to head there on your own,” I said, and sighed relief in the wake of my own socially conscious brilliance.

“Oh, I’ll come along. I don’t mind the stop,” he said.

“Oh you don’t mind the stop? That’s good, that’s good,” I said, my head bobbing as if trying to physically shake an excuse loose in my brain. “Well, here’s the thing though. We may not even go to the festival. I was just asking directions out of curiosity. But what we’re doing is stopping at a friend’s house, and then, only at that point, are we going to decide. We may go, but we may not. And the second part, the part about not going, is a strong possibility. Getting stronger by the minute, actually. So just get out of my car because out of my car you can go to the festival and be out of my car.”

God bless the drifter, he did, and he took his dingy duffel bag with him. As I peeled away, I looked into my rearview mirror; the dust from my quick exodus settled and revealed a harmless nomad, shoulders rounded with fatigue, worn by his pilgrimage, just a guy hoping for a ride.

But at least he knew where he was going.

Ice Cream Cones, And Other Small Stuff Not To Sweat Over

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I’d been waiting all winter for the weather to warm– anticipating, conceptualizing, obsessing over vanilla soft serve ice cream cones with rainbow sprinkles. All three years we’d lived in our apartment, a Carvel sat within walking distance, and I never knew. But now I knew, and the ghosts of unlicked cones haunted me. I watched the second hand tick toward Spring, and as soon as the chilled air receded into the ground I was panting at our front door like a Labrador with a full bladder.

We walked to Carvel– eh, who am I kidding? I skipped. And every piece of normally dismal looking scenery– lawn ornaments in the form of plastic deer and rusty hubcaps, houses lined up hip to hip, the crazy shirtless guy on the corner– were all buffed and burnished with a cheerful gloss. I wasn’t even that embarrassed when two children waved and I returned their salute with an enthusiastic gesture and a peppy, “Hey there!”, only to realize they were greeting the man behind me– their father– and I was just the weird neighborhood lady who cooed at strange children. Phil comforted my ego with the promise of later taunting those unfriendly runts with our Carvel delicacies.

And then I saw it: Carvel– the sugared cream mecca– trounced only by the monarchical Dairy Queen and the mythical home soft serve machine. I quickened my step and looked past the dirty storefront into the heaven within.

I recited my order to the angelic middle-aged Asian woman behind the counter wearing the blue collared Carvel t-shirt and white company visor. As she pulled ice cream from the machine, expertly rotating her cone wrist to catch the soft serve pouring forth, she looked more appealing than an Oktoberfest Fraulein at a beer tap.

The cone was perfect, the soft serve beginning wide at the base, ripples trailing round and round up to the summit, climaxing into artfully swirled pinnacle. The rainbow sprinklings speckled its face like unnaturally colored autumn leaves on a Vermont mountain.

And the taste was just as sublime. Absolute bliss. Dairy dessert rapture. Not the icy crap that some establishments shamelessly call soft serve (ahem, Baskin Robbins). But the thick, sweet, cream I would gladly replace my saliva with if I was given three wishes. (The first two are between me and the genie.)

Sometimes when you go awhile without tasting something you enjoy, you place the experience on a pedestal, and after so much build-up, it’s ultimately a disappointment. But not that cone. That cone was everything I idealized it to be.

The Carvel woman rang up our two small cones as I floated on a cloud of euphoria.

“$9.45,” she said, and my high came crashing down, landing flat-faced on the intersection between my unsettling passion for soft serve and my frugality. It was an ugly place.

Ten bucks for two small cones? Ten freaking bucks? I didn’t remember it being that expensive. How much time had passed since the last ice cream season? A Game of Thrones winter? For the price of two small Carvel cones, I could have stocked my freezer with four 1.5 quart cartons of on-sale Edy’s– that is if my freezer wasn’t too small to hold the sheer volume of ice cream that ten dollars could buy.

A couple ice cream cones heavier and ten bucks lighter, we left the establishment. On the way out, I spotted a flyer on the window: “Soft serve ice cream sundaes: buy one get one free– today only!”

I had been so excited to get in and score my much anticipated cone, I’d rushed by a promo advertisement that would have gotten us twice the ice cream for half the cost. Oh cruel world!

Well, there’s no point stewing in it, I told myself. It’s over. Nothing you can do. Let it go and enjoy your ice cream. You sure paid enough for it. But I couldn’t shake the idea that I’d been ripped off, and that I’d missed out on a deal. I’d spent years training my eye to spot bargains. Years. You’re better than that, Dillon! I thought, and from that point on, every delicious lick was undermined by a bitter aftertaste– the flavor of loss.

I was so bummed, I didn’t even flaunt my yummy acquisition to those scuzzy little lawn brats who couldn’t bother to say hello to me.

Phil and I finished our Ice Cream For The Rich And Famous about a block from our house. I offered to take Phil’s cone wrapper because I’m a generous wife, and because I’d convinced him to let me have his last bite, and holding his trash until we reached our garbage seemed a reasonable courtesy tax.

I was beginning to mentally draft an angry missive to the corporate ice cream dictators when the wind picked up, and Phil’s paper wrapper escaped my fingertips.

It scurried down the sidewalk, flitted onto a neighbor’s lawn, and returned to the sidewalk, performing a jaunty dance like the chimney sweep in Mary Poppins. I chased after it, and I am not a graceful chaser. Just as I plodded my foot down in its vicinity, it skidded to the right and narrowly avoided my toe. It was as if the wrapper was attached to an invisible string, and a higher power mistook me for a cartoon cat, tugging it out of reach just as I was about to grab it. I stomped and failed three times before finally bearing down on my target. With the wrapper finally underfoot, I bent over to retrieve it, but lifted my shoe seconds before my fingers had secured a grip. The wrapper broke away and again fled down the street. I jogged after it, and had to increase my speed to a full on sprint to catch up. When it was again within my grasp, I lurched forward, my hand propelling ahead with vigor and determination. I punched the sidewalk. The skin on my knuckles scraped away, but I had the wrapper.

I spun around, victorious, lifting the wrapper high like a Spartan warrior brandishing an enemy’s decapitated head, (blood dripping down in both scenarios), only to find Phil buckled over, cackling. I’m talking literal knee slapping. And across the lawn to my “husband’s” right, an elderly gentleman sat on his porch in a rocking chair, also chuckling at the post-cone klutz who was nearly outwitted by a piece of paper.

Then I looked down at myself– at the woman who waited months for her ice cream cone and then fumed over its cost through the duration of its consumption. I’d taken soft serve, an Alexander Hamilton themed bill, and myself way too seriously, and ended up racing Stooge-like behind a wrapper.

And then I too got the joke, and laughed.

Yeah, I’m Just Here For The Massage….

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The chiropractor, a man so petite he’d be turned away from a roller coaster, slid a diagram of the human body across his desk. “Circle the areas that are bothering you and rate the pain on a scale from 1 to 10,” he said.

I picked up a pen, bit my lip, and eyed the diagram. I’d purchased their Groupon for a one hour massage and pain consultation. The trouble was, I wasn’t experiencing any pain. I was there for the massage, and the massage alone. I hadn’t even acknowledged the pain consultation component until I found myself sitting in a doctor’s office, a diagram of the human body under my nose. But I couldn’t tell the man with three framed medical degrees that I had no use for his chiropractic expertise, that I just wanted to relax, pure and simple. That I was wasting his time just to get someone to rub me down at the low price of $30. So I put the pen to paper and drew three random circles on the diagram. I faked the pain.

He read over my report and nodded. “What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a writer,” I said, pleased because it was the first time I used that as my answer. I don’t typically use it since I’ve only earned $800 writing over eight years of actively working at it, and an average of $100 a year just doesn’t count as a viable career.

“Interesting,” he answered, as if it wasn’t.

You’d think such a career answer would prompt the questions, “Oh really? What do you write? Anything I might’ve read?” And I was disappointed because this doctor could tell that no, I hadn’t written anything he might’ve read.

“Well, let me give you a tour of the complex,” he said.

We saw the physical therapy room, the gym, the massage therapy room, the physiological therapy room, and the treatment room. This medical facility was about a lot more than aromatherapy candles and Enya. I was in over my head.

We ended the tour in the screening room. “Before I pass you on to our massage therapist, this machine will scan your back and measure the muscle tension. We’ll see exactly what the problem areas you marked on the paper look like.”

I stared back at him and blinked. “I’m sorry, what the what now?”

“Yes, this is cutting edge technology. The machine is like a muscle x-ray so the massage therapist will know exactly what he’s working with.”

Which, in this case, was a fibber.

When I drew those circles on the human diagram, pretending I had back issues to get a cheap massage, I’d thought, What’s the harm? How will they know the pain is illegitimate? Well, here was my answer. This machine was about to scan my muscle tension. My FAKE muscle tension. They were going to hook me up to a chiropractic lie detector. I swallowed so hard I made the cartoon gulp sound.

The doctor handed me a smock and directed me to put it on, open in the back.

When he left the room, I tore off my clothing. I’m not sure what my rush was, but whenever I have to undress at a doctor’s office, I move like the doctor is going to turn around and kick the door down. Then I’m left sitting on the examination table wearing the tissue paper gown, my legs swinging. This case was no different. My clothes were strewn across the room, the gown fastened, and I was out of breath. But then I waited for the doctor’s return for so long I could’ve received HP customer support.

It gave me ample time to consider lifting the sofa, just to pull something in my back before it was too late.

The doctor entered after a gentle knock, along with a nurse and a man he introduced as my massage therapist. Great, I thought. My deceit will have an audience.

Together the four of us stood in front of a large flat screen television. One half of the monitor featured a spine with a corresponding bar graph, indicating the normal level of tension at each vertebrae. A blank spine occupied the other half. That was to be my spine. My “aggravated” spine. The nurse dipped two plastic sensors in liquid and pressed them against my top vertebrae, while the doctor stood on his tip toes and held my hair up. It was quite the hullabaloo for someone who just wanted a discount massage.

“You have right neck pain, so the bar on the right will extend well beyond the normal,” the doctor said. He smiled smugly, proud of his new toy.

I thought this was a good time to just run out of the building, but I couldn’t find my shirt.

So I stayed, frozen in place. The medical professionals and the phony watched the bar grow, grow, grow and…. stop– not one millimeter beyond the norm.

There it was, my lie measured.

“Hmm,” the doctor said, dropping back down onto his heels.

“Hmm,” the massage therapist said.

“Hmm,” the nurse said.

“Well that’s strange,” I said. Although it made the perfect amount of sense.

I worried each of the next 32 vertebrae readings would yield the same results– that I had the tension-free back of a newborn baby– and they would see my pain for the con it was. Luckily, it turned out I had muscle tension without realizing it. Unluckily, it wasn’t in any of the areas I had circled.

“Maybe muscle tension is having a ripple effect and causing pain in other areas?” I suggested, desperately.

“Maybe,” the doctor said, in a tone that implied it wasn’t possible.

After the scan was complete, I followed the massage therapist out, staring at the floor like a dog who’d made on the rug.

“Have you ever had a massage before?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, relieved to finally answer honestly.

“Well, this is just like that,” he said. “Except I’ll actually make you feel better instead of just rubbing random patterns on your back.”

And I sighed, because I was no longer the biggest ass in the room.

The Jewel Concert, In Review

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I purchased Jewel tickets with a hint of nostalgia.

Back when gas was cheap enough that you could drive around just for fun, my best friend and I sped down the residential streets of our suburb with the windows down, blasting, Foolish Games. Our hands clasped our hearts, our hair whipped in the wind, and we sang until our throats scratched, thinking, “He was fashionably sensitive but too cool to care. How did she know?” And when the song ended, we pressed the back button and let the anguish wash over us again.

I fell asleep to Break Me and woke to Standing Still. Jewel was part of my teenage soundtrack, until I found Emo and became a real, inconsolable wretch.

Now that my parents are no longer out to ruin my life and the world isn’t so unfair, Emo is an artifact of my history. I won’t touch the stuff. But Jewel? Who Will Save Your Soul? You Were Meant For Me? Hands? There’s plenty of space for her music in my present.

So I said, “Oh, by the way, Phil. We’re seeing Jewel in concert. Goodnight.”

I was a little nervous for Jewel when we arrived at the venue. Ten minutes before the show started, the place was almost empty. I worried the four time Grammy nominee would walk out onto a stage in nowhere Long Island to serenade only me, Phil, and some guy in a cowboy hat. Phil very generously offered his stomach as a blank canvas on which to draw a message of reassurance. A, “We’re here for you” or, “It’s quality, not quantity,” written in borrowed lipstick. But this wasn’t necessary because the room filled during the performance of the opener, an acoustic guitar playing country singer with long blonde hair who we suspected was Jewel herself wearing a prosthetic nose, out to catch a sneak-peak of the crowd.

When the opener finished, the stage crew emerged to set up for our headliner. They carried out a table, upon which they placed a bouquet of fresh flowers (classy touch, Jewel) and a packet of papers that Phil guessed to be a collection of lyrics. I joked, “Yeah, because she doesn’t know the words to her own songs,” and in about 25 minutes, we would learn this to be the case. I guess that’s what happens when 20 years have passed since you wrote the damn things. The men lined up three acoustic guitars and one electric, and then sanitized the microphone. Jewel can’t know who will save your soul, but she’s well aware that Purell is a friend to your immune system.

The theater was sufficiently packed when she walked out, and the crowd rose to their feet to welcome her. One not-effeminate man cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed, “I love you, Jewel!” There were tears in his eyes. These people were my kin.

Jewel parted her lips and took my breath away.

Many might be skeptical right about now. Some, like the three male friends I saw over the weekend who apparently are the authorities on musical talent (yeah, I’m talking to YOU), might maintain that Phil should have sent me alone. But I maintain that, if you were there, no matter your tastes, you would have been impressed.

Here’s what makes her such a special performer. Inside the span of one song, nay, one line, her vocals metamorphose into very distinct, very separate sounds. There’s the whispery resonance, the Mariah Carey-esque belt, the nasal blend, the sweet song, the yodel, and the reverberation– where she wields enough control to sound as if her microphone is echoing inside a coliseum. It’s as if she’s possessed by the spirits of six singers, blessed with Multiple PersTonality Disorder. The audience gets a handful of artists for the price of one. It’s quite a deal.

As I gawked at her talents, I couldn’t ignore a buzz in my ear.

Two girls at my left shoulder were chatting at great, animated length, as if the concert was the site for their much-anticipated reunion. Perhaps they were twin sisters separated at birth, meeting for the first time, with everything to learn about one another. It’s a tender story, and I was happy for them, but take it outside, ladies. I shot them a couple of intentional looks, not necessarily expressing a high level of animosity, because I’m not confrontational, but we made eye contact– enough that, if the tables were turned, it would have registered with me that another concert attendee looked me in the eye while an iconic singer was standing on stage, and since “I” ain’t no showstopper, it must be because “I” couldn’t SHUT MY DAMN MOUTH. They didn’t get the point.

Just as my blood began to boil, the girl closest to me leaned over and actually spoke into MY ear.

“Isn’t she amazing??” she asked.

How would you know? I thought, but nodded absently, limiting my response to drive the point that I was not there to socialize.

“I was disappointed it was standing room only, but she’s so amazing I don’t mind standing,” she said. And when I didn’t reply, she prompted me with, “Do you know what I mean?”

I rarely hope that somebody has a mental problem. But in that case, her continual interruption of my experience was so infuriating, I could only forgive her if she was cognitively handicapped.

“Can you save our spots?” she asked then. “We have to go to the bathroom and don’t want to lose our spot. We’re two people.”

I turned toward her, and then looked behind us to confirm that, yes, we still stood at the back of the room, in front of a six square foot empty pocket. There was no need for saving space.

At this point in the show, Jewel had three times asked the audience, in her very cute and funny way, to shut the hell up. I was afraid the pop star might spot Chatty Cathy and me and assume we were together, that I too was disobeying her repeated requests. This would spoil my chance of one day being best buds with Jewel Kilcher, or as I, her best friend, will call her, JK. In order to get the insistent woman out of my ear, I took a dramatic step to the left to indicate their spots were safe with me.

Then I caught a stale fruity whiff; the undeniable fragrance of cigarettes and hair product. I confirmed this fragrance with another sniff— yes, the woman in front of me was a smoker, and I’m allergic to cigarette smoke. I tried to talk myself off the reaction ledge. You’re fine. This isn’t going to affect you because it’s diffused in this big open space. But the roof of my mouth began to itch, and I felt the tingling compulsion to thrust my tongue against it, a motion that produces a throaty quack, a habit my family refers to as “clucking.” Sexy, I know.

I was about to ask Phil if we could relocate when Jewel began to sing, “Break Me.”

This song is so fragile, so delicate, a pin dropped in the room could shatter it. I hardly allowed myself to breathe, never mind address the irritation inside my mouth. I simply froze. So you can imagine my rage when the man in front of me whispered a joke to his lady, and she responded with an uninhibited snort.

Between the two chatterboxes, the smoker, and the snorter, I’d just about had it with people. I wanted to whisper to Phil, “Duck,” and take all my neighbors out with an unforgiving, well-deserved, spinning kick. Only then could I return to appreciate the concert.

Luckily for my peers, I swallowed this impulse. But after Jewel sang the final note of her ballad, I tugged Phil’s sleeve and we slid around to a new grouping… where we found Jewel’s biggest fan, and that adjective describes both this person’s avidity and her size. She was built like a linebacker. She could have worked Jewel’s security detail.

Every time this woman cheered Jewel on, which was often, I jumped. Her voice was so startlingly loud, so sudden and blatant, it was like an air horn. I turned to survey Phil’s reaction, and his eyes, too, were widened in fear. We’re going to hear her yell, “Yeah, girl!” in our nightmares.

The next song was Jewel’s hit, “You Were Meant For Me,” which we immediately learned was Big Girl’s favorite. She belted along, loud and clear, to the entire song, mistakenly thinking that I paid $50 per ticket to hear her sing. Granted, Big Girl’s voice was surprisingly pleasant, but still. This wasn’t a rock concert. At a folk concert in a small arena, a bellow from a crowd member with this woman’s lung capacity was disruptive. I had trouble listening to Jewel over her, and Jewel had a sound system. But I would never have said anything to Big Girl. She could have hammered my head with her fist and pounded me into the ground like in a caveman cartoon.

We left that night with renewed respect for Jewel: for her abilities, her poetic lyrics, her humor, her past (she grew up in a log cabin in Alaska where they survived off the land, and as a teenager lived in her car in CA) and the fact that she is 39 but still looks like a just-discovered 18 year old.

We also left wondering, is it Long Island people that are obnoxious, or is it just people people? We’ve been here so long, I don’t remember.

Jewel yodeled at the end of the concert, and it was the first time I ever heard yodeling in real life. Phil and I tried it on our way home, as I imagine half the crowd did. We were, well, not great.

The Naked Truth

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There are nude beaches fifteen minutes from where I live. This is a fact I wish I knew before setting out for an afternoon in the sun.

Friends were visiting for the day. Up until that point, their previous visits could be filed into the following categories: the time we went to the pitiful winery whose owner was so surprised by our arrival that he said, “Do you realize there are real vineyards only forty minutes from here?” and gave us free cheese nips for our trouble; the time we drove all the way out to the “real vineyards” and I selected the one tasting in a garage; the time we went to brewery in a garage; and the time we paid sixteen dollars for the Fall Harvest and Seafood Festival, which consisted of joining a crowd of hillbillies (of unknown origin) to watch crabs race in a kiddie pool. Obviously this list was incomplete. I was missing “the time we went to a nude beach,” but destiny was fated to course-correct.

In an effort to avoid any further debacles, I had refused to make any plans beyond the elaborate meals we prepared to compensate for our visitors’ risk in venturing over the bridge again. But the day would prove that, established itinerary or not, a trip to the Dillon-Lombardo residence is never what one might expect it to be.

After we ate, we collectively decided to visit a run-of-the-mill, clothing mandatory beach. We threw around a football, we waded into the Atlantic– but these activities alone were far too ordinary for a visit to the island, so the day could not end there.

I’m happy to report that I was not the one who suggested we explore Fire Island’s emblematic lighthouse, but I also did nothing to stop it.

We drove to the lighthouse, climbed it, and wandered onto Lighthouse Beach, where we immediately spotted a beacon even brighter than the one we’d just scaled: a blatantly naked man.

How often do you stroll around public property and encounter another human being without any clothing? We were startled and confused, but also a little giddy. Intrigued by the novelty of his brazen nakedness, we ventured in for a closer look. This, we’d later learn, was a grave mistake.

Phil, who had just had eye surgery, squinted and said, “He can’t be naked. He must be wearing a flesh colored bathing suit. He can’t be naked.”

But he could, and he was.

I did not play it cool. I don’t think I said one coherent word. Starting from that moment and continuing for the next twenty or so minutes, I was just one long nervous giggle.

As we moved closer, my unencumbered giggling frightened the nude creature, and he curled up inside of a blanket and hibernated.

At first we were a little disappointed that we scared off this lone animal, when the sighting of one is so rare. But as soon as this one went into hiding, we spotted another in the distance, and this specimen appeared far bolder. He was applying suntan lotion to his lower legs and–OH NO–he was not squatting, but bending over.

Then we saw one coming straight for us. And he was pierced. Oh boy, was he pierced. Then we saw one lying casually on a towel among four fully clothed friends. (How can you be comfortable lounging in the buff when your pals obviously prefer bathing suits?) Then we saw one sitting naked in the surf, letting the ocean lap at…. himself. I don’t know how we didn’t notice it sooner, but the nakeds were everywhere. We were surrounded.

“I don’t think we’re on a regular beach anymore,” someone whispered.

Then we saw what appeared to be a mirage: a glimmering man in impeccable physical condition, hands on hips, standing proudly, with no tan lines. He looked as if Michelangelo carved him from bronze. His presence was palpable. His physicality was deafening. He didn’t have to say anything– we knew he was the king of his sandcastle, the sun of this solar system. We felt the gravitational pull, and we didn’t like it. It was suddenly clear that if we got too close to him, we’d never be able to leave. We’d get sucked into the mechanism. We’d be caught in the rip tide and pulled out to sea. We’d be no match for this Lighthouse Beach David.

“We have to get out of here right now,” Joe said. And we all heard the unspoken end of that sentence: before it’s too late.

We turned around and headed toward what we thought was the exit of this disrobed dimension, toward what we thought was freedom.

As we began our escape, a man wearing nothing but eyeglasses and confidence approached us, casually flipping through a magazine. I’m not sure what the magazine was, but I’m guessing it wasn’t a Men’s Wearhouse catalog. He stopped and looked us up and down.

“When you’re ready, join us,” he said, and then continued on his leisurely stroll.

“Thanks,” I choked out in the next wave of giggles.

“Oh, we will,” Jon said. To this day we aren’t sure why he said that.

We quickened our stride, trying to create as much distance between ourselves and the oiled up Adonis at our backs. We started to relax, started to unclench our butt muscles. My giggles even changed from nervous to relieved. We were in the clear. We could look people in the eye again! But then we saw another naked person. And then another. And, suddenly, there were too many to count. Instead of retreating, we had entrenched ourselves further inside the heartland. If these people were of one nude nation, we’d just entered their Tribal Belt– a belt that didn’t hold up any pants.

“What should we do? Should I take off my shirt?” Jon asked.

“You should take off your shirt.” Phil said.

So he took off his shirt. Why? Camouflage I guess.

We passed a bodacious babe shaking a booty so vast that her dance threw off the tides. We passed a naked drum circle. Yes, a naked drum circle. We passed a nude family who had painted their naked daughter’s faces with markings of exotic large cat species. Lions and tigers and bares. Oh my, this was Eyes Wide Shut freaky. This so freaky we considered that fleeing via the Atlantic Ocean might be the fastest, safest, most direct way out.

Eventually, we did emerge, but we left a piece of ourselves behind on the beach that day. A naive piece. A trusting piece. A piece that previously had not seen the privates of so many (ugly) strangers.

I just can’t believe that I was so unprepared, so unaware, when I live only fifteen minutes away. Although now that I’m writing this, a vague memory is tickling my brain of a grandmother telling me that Fire Island has naked beaches because it used to be a colony for “the gays.” But I tend to disregard information dispatched by anybody who plugs an article in front of a sexual preference category.

In retrospect, I suppose I should have listened. But at least now you know. If nothing else, I hope this tale serves as a warning to prevent others from making the same mistake we did. Maybe because of what we experienced, fewer future beach goers will find themselves so… exposed

Beware all that lies east of Field Five.

You know, unless that’s your thing.

Lotzah Matzah

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On April 15th of this year, Passover ended and Jewish people nationwide tossed their remaining matzah to the side and sank their teeth into the doughiest, yeastiest, breadiest bread they could find. Actually, I’m not positive that this is true. It’s an educated guess based on the fact that, on April 15th, grocery stores started handing out boxes of the unleavened cracker for free, and since grocery stores aren’t normally in the habit of giving away food (as this would be a poor business model) I can only assume that after a week of the stuff, our Jewish brethren weren’t begging for an encore.

Phil and I took four boxes. We are big fans of free, especially of the food variety. But, upon the first bite, we understood why this was no-charge fodder.

It isn’t bad, necessarily. In fact, it doesn’t taste like much of anything. If I had to identify the notes of flavor in matzah like a wine connoisseur would at a cabernet tasting, I’d say, “I detect hints of toasted cardboard with subtle suggestions of other tasteless provisions that you eat strictly for nourishment, like say… flour and water.” Which makes sense when you read the ingredients on the label. “Flour and water only.” Only. How often do chefs underscore how little there is in their cuisine?

I’m sure the makers of Aviv Passover Matzos include the word “only” to confirm for those observing Passover that their meal is as bland as it should be. But for a gentile like me, the “only” is not just a little hilarious, but also completely unnecessary. I could have told you that it was flour and water only when a bite of the stuff made my mouth so dry that I expected dust to escape through my lips in a puff cloud.

Needless to say, Phil and I haven’t been sneaking late night snacks of the sacred delicacy. This chow isn’t designed to be a treat. I get that now. It’s designed to make the consumer consciously aware of the resoundingly mediocre experience that chewing it entails. And, since that is the intent, matzah, you are a wild success. But, since I am not a Child of Israel, since my ancestors did not suffer at the hands of Egyptians until finally being liberated by their gracious God and the mostly obedient Moses, there is little reason for me to commemorate the tenth plague, in which God killed all of the Egyptian first-borns in His ultimate warning to the civilization, but passed over the houses of his chosen people. I certainly respect the Festival of Unleavened Bread, but I’m mostly Italian and prefer my bread as leavened as possible; it’s easier to wipe up residual tomato sauce that way. The other half of my heritage is Irish, and they had their own set of problems. I’d be happy to honor their famine by consuming all varieties of potatoes for eight days. No offense to matzah, but potatoes are just a superior carbohydrate, unless of course there is some way to mash or fry matzah that I’m not aware of.

Four months later, Phil and I are down from four boxes to three and a half boxes, and we’ve been mindful of its presence. It isn’t tucked away in the back of the cabinet. It enjoys prime real estate on top of the refrigerator, next to cereal that we eat on a daily basis. We’ve been consciously struggling to consume the matzah. I even looked up recipes, and got really excited when the first result was an article entitled, “100 Recipes for Matzah.” But it turned out that the author was being a bit generous with the word “recipe.” The article really should have been called, “100 Things to Schmear on Matzah.” I have to admit that I was a little disappointed. After 5,000 years of annual matzah leftovers, I expected a more innovative use for it than “as a cracker.”

At this rate, we’ll never get through our supply by the next post-Passover giveaway. And, again, we just can’t resist free. So unless I’m willing to double my supply, and this really isn’t an option since I’ve flat out run out of storage space, I better accelerate the expenditure. To speed things up, I’ve constructed a list of alternate uses for matzah:

  • Placemat
  • Karate chopping sheet for a child’s belt test
  • A customized graduation cap topper
  • Frisbee
  • Mulch
  • Framed as abstract religious art
  • Bookmark
  • Building material for the fourth pig
  • Ninja training: line up a row of matzah sheets for ninja apprentices to run across. If the matzah shatters, they are not yet ready
  • Break into tiny pieces and toss at just-married Jewish couples in lieu of rice
  • Hand fan
  • Take on a hike and leave behind as a crumb trail. You don’t have to worry about the birds eating it. They won’t. Leaves and twigs have more zest
  • Regrind it back into flour
  • If you are a secret agent, you can leave it outside your hotel door. When you hear the matzah crack, you’ll know the villains are about to Uzi their way into your presidential suite, so you should hide inside the tuxedo hanging in your closet.
  • Parchment
  • Rosh Hashanah party confetti
  • Hang as a baby mobile (and this would use multiple sheets! I’m going to be a hit at the next family baby shower!)

Or, I suppose, we could just eat it. Despite my complaints about the “100 Recipe” piece, the woman had a point: matzah was made for slathering—well, not literally—and is also tasty when soaked in something yummy, like soups or chili. It’s a modest fare, but the nice thing about that quality is it doesn’t distract from the taste of whatever you decide to spread on top of it. It serves as a silent vehicle for flavor, and makes me look a whole lot classier than when I just spoon Nutella directly into my pie hole.

(In the google image search for matzah, I saw that people make matzah covered in chocolate, so I think my our problem is solved!)

Wedding Crashers

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Last Saturday I went to two weddings, only one of which I was invited to.

The first wedding, celebrating my husband’s childhood friend and his beautiful bride, was wonderful, and I had a table card with my name on it and everything. The food was tasty, the champagne was bubbly, and the live band piqued my appetite for grooving. Like all great weddings, it ended too soon. It’s strange how when you fill a room with steak, cake, booze, and music, time is warped and five hours feels like five minutes.

After the reception, we left the hall and continued the party back at the hotel bar. This hotel also happened to be hosting another wedding. And their band sounded really good. My boogie hunger growled.

I was able to suppress my freshly tantalized cravings until the band broke out into a romping rendition of perennial wedding favorite, “Shout.” To fully understand why I couldn’t possibly resist this Isley Brother hit, kindly join me on this tangent. You probably won’t be sorry.

::Wind chimes to cue flashback::

Phil and I landed a kick ass band for our wedding. They called themselves, “No Big Deal,” but it was an ironic name because they knew they were at least kind of a big deal. We sat in on one of their practices before we hired them, to ensure that they were as good as their online sound bites suggested. Their Gigmasters profile didn’t do justice to their live performance. As they crooned through reception favorites such as, “At Last,” “The Way You Look Tonight,” and “You Give Love A Bad Name,” my eyes watered.

“Do you play any Neil Diamond?” I asked.

“We do,” they answered.

“This is the band,” I said, my voice cracking. “This is the band.”

On the big day, No Big Deal was phenomenal. They flawlessly transformed their sound testing into a premature cocktail hour jazz session when all of the guests arrived an hour early because I screwed up the timing of the ceremony. Sure the lead singer mispronounced my name when introducing us, but who doesn’t mispronounce my name? The vowels are tossed in their so arbitrarily, sometimes I even get confused.

The band owned the crowd that night. As per our request, they avoided pretty much any “song” released after the turn of the millennium (with the exceptions of John Mayer and early Maroon 5, before they lost their way mingling with the likes of Christina Aguilera). My use of quotations there is obvious but, for fans of auto-tune, I think we use the word “song” a little fast and loose when referring to the machine generated compositions on the radio today.

I jumped around so fervently to artists like Bon Jovi and The Rolling Stones that I stretched out my ivory satin wedding dress and had to be wary of rocking it right to the floor. I knew my guests were having a great time too when the band tried to slow it down with “What A Wonderful World,” and they booed. I’d judge everybody for being so rude, except that I was their leader.

Then, out of nowhere, it was over. Damn the curse of the wedding time warp.

“Last song!” the singer announced. We responded in not-so-kind with more wild boos.

My younger brother, who was dripping with sweat that was mostly top-shelf vodka and wearing sunglasses with only one lens, grabbed my shoulder.

“It better be ‘Shout,’” Ryan said. For months leading up to the wedding, Ryan had been advocating that “Shout” is the ultimate wedding song, and declaring it a mandatory feature during our celebration.

It wasn’t. It was Led Zeppelin’s “Rock n’ Roll.” And we pumped our fists until the final note.

“Thank you everybody. You’ve been a great crowd!” The singer said.

“One more song, one more song,” we chanted, as is customary, certain there was an encore coming. She couldn’t just cut us off when we were so obviously in want of more jams. But when she put her mic down and turned to gather her things, we realized that, apparently, she could.

It was hard to believe that, after all this anticipation, the night was over. But I had to accept reality. I turned to say goodbye to one of my guests when–

“Now wa-a-a-a-a-it a minute!”

This was not the lead singer of No Big Deal. This was a male voice. I spun around. It was my little brother. On the band’s microphone.

This may not have been an issue except that the band made us sign a contract promising that none of our guests would touch their equipment. At the time, the idea of it made us giggle. We imagined our friends storming the stage, grabbing their instruments in a musical coup d’etat. “You know that must have happened at one of their other wedding gigs. Some wasted guest must have thought he was a rock star,” we’d said, laughing heartily, and then signed the contract without hesitation, assuming it was a meaningless formality.

“You know you make me want to shout!” Ryan sang.

The band stared at Ryan, surely not knowing how to react. But the crowd knew what to do. We jumped. We pumped. And, by god, we shouted.

“Throw your hands up and shout, throw your head back and shout. Come on now!”

This is when Ryan realized that he knew the beginning of the song, and he knew the end of the song, but there was a chunk in the middle that escaped him. No matter. He wasn’t going to let such an insignificant detail as lyrics dull his spotlight. He skipped on to the end.

“A little bit softer now, a little bit softer now, a little bit softer now,” Ryan commanded, and we all obeyed, our voices softening, twisting low until we were crouching near the ground.

“A little bit louder now, a little bit louder now,” Ryan continued. At this point, the band just looked silly standing by, idly doing nothing, so the guitarists picked up their instruments and joined in. Ryan got so excited by this new development in his act that he lost his rhythm, and we all had to coach him back on track until–

“HEY-EY-EY-EY!”

For the last chorus, the lead singer reclaimed her microphone and shooed Ryan off the stage. But it was because of him that we had that extra final moment, and I think he’d want me to share that, for his courage, some have called him The Party Hero.

::Wind chimes to signal transition back into last weekend’s wedding(s)::

So, in the hotel bar, the first few notes of “Shout” triggered a precious memory, and I could not ignore the call to action. I cinched up my floor length dress (my high heels had long been discarded) and sprinted toward the source of nostalgia. Phil, a devoted fan of 60′s R&B and of yours truly, didn’t miss a beat. We even inspired one of Phil’s childhood friends to join the cause. We all ran down the hall, into the reception room, possessed by Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson characters, and didn’t stop until we were on the dance floor, amidst the other guests, throwing our heads back and Shout!

Nobody said anything. I may have noticed a strange look from a bridesmaid in a bright red dress (Phil was in his friend’s bridal party and wearing a tuxedo ensemble of blue and gray), but then again, maybe she just caught a bad smell. Nobody else seemed to be aware of an intrusion. They just smiled at us and nodded an appreciation for our “Shout” fervor. And we were fervent. Our hands waved like African priests seized by spirits.

Perhaps we should have left when the song ended. Or the one after. Or the one after that. Perhaps I shouldn’t have made my way to the front of the dance floor to mirror the very soulful lead singer. Perhaps we shouldn’t have stayed for the rest of the wedding, including the heartwarming number, Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family,” in which we sang along and spread our arms out to address the entire room of strangers. Perhaps we shouldn’t have kissed the bride on the lips. But we did. Okay, not the last one, but the rest are true.

But we didn’t drink of their booze, or eat of their cake. We just shared in their joy, and maybe added a little of our own. So perhaps it’s they that should thank us, for doing our part to make their celebration as special as it was.

Eat Before The Clock Strikes Fast!

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In an effort to shave off some newlywed pounds (it’s a real thing), Phil and I have instated a “no eating after 9 pm rule.” Well, Phil treats it as a rule. I view it as more of a guideline.

Ever since the policy has been enforced, there’s something about 8:59 pm that makes me ravenous. So I stuff my face with all edible products within reach, my hunger screaming, “Hurry! There’s no time! This is not a drill– the fast is about to begin!” as if it’s Jack Bauer on a deadline. (Okay, when isn’t Jack Bauer on a deadline?) I consume like it’s not just the last meal of the night, but the last meal of my life. And that’s how I came to eat a handful of tortilla chip crumbs, grapes, a mouthful of whipped cream, and a spoonful of peanut butter, all within 60 seconds. I don’t even remember if I chewed. It’s kind of a blur.

It sort of defeats the whole purpose and, though legal, does not respect the spirit of the policy. I get that. I’m not an idiot. I’m just a compulsive binger.

Then, no matter what was gorged leading up to our deadline, I’m STARVING every minute from nine until we go to bed. Maybe not STARVING, but I want to eat. Same thing, right?

I wonder if it’s actual hunger talking, or just the blaring fact that I’m not supposed to be eating. Given the amount inhaled a minute before the clock struck nine, science would argue it’s the latter.

After this experience, I totally get why Eve ate the apple. It had nothing to do with the apple itself. I mean, apples are tasty and all, especially if you get a nice crispy Gala in early October, but who just needs to eat an apple? You eat an apple to keep the doctor away. Or because everything else in the fridge is moldy. Or because it’s been baked in brown sugar and cinnamon. Or for the same reason you eat celery: it’s slathered in peanut butter. Not because you are crazy for apples.

I’ll admit that Eve might be more likely than your average person to have craved a Macoun. She walked around naked and, according to the Genesis illustrations in A Child’s First Bible, was friends with animals, so it’s safe to assume she was a little granola. I’m guessing a juicy sirloin wasn’t at the top of her wish list, and Hostess didn’t get their act together until a bit later. But despite Eve’s vegan tendencies, she must have had something more irresistible lying around than a Golden Delicious. The cocoa bean existed since day three. As a woman, Eve was probably enjoying refined chocolate for many moons by the time the orchard was heavy with fruit.

But God told her the apple was prohibited. That’s the trick.

I bet Eve wasn’t even in the mood for fruit. If the whole thing wasn’t forbidden when that serpent came along and tempted Eve with the apple, she probably would have said something like, “Eh, I could take it or leave it.”

But the apple was taboo. Off limits. The apple was her “after nine.”

So, I get it, Eve. I probably could have summoned the discipline to stave off nighttime snacking if it meant preventing thousands of years of painful childbirth for women everywhere, but you couldn’t have known, so I feel for you.

Yes, I am comparing myself to Eve. It may be wrong and grandiose, but I’ve seen Satan in my kitchen.

The devil is in the Doritos.

Didn’t We Agree To Pee In The Ocean?

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I thought we all agreed to pee in the ocean.

Here was my understanding of society’s unspoken contract pertaining to urination in various bodies of water:

Pools are definitely a pee-free zone. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Unless of course the “if” is, what if I wish to seek revenge on the owner of the pool; the “and” is, and on all of the swimmers in the pool; or the “but” is, but they peed in my pool first. Then, it’s disgusting, and as a society we don’t condone such behavior, but that’s kind of what you were going for in the first place, so pee if you must, and we hope the owners treated the pool with the chemical that turns pee green and you are humiliated and exiled from all future block parties.

The permissible pee in lakes depends on the circumference, depth, population of human bathers, and the distance to the nearest toilet.  It’s really a personal judgment call based on dilution potential and required effort but, just for a general idea, any lakes whose names begin with words like “Great” are probably pretty pee-able, and any lake that your high school friends used to lifeguard at are most likely not. There are no tides or outlets in lakes so, just to be safe, err on the side of holding it in or find a tree to squat behind.

Oceans, as far as I was concerned, are considered lock and load. Full speed ahead. Release the floodgates. When a body of water has millions of sea creatures the size of school buses floating around and shedding their waste, little old me with my little old pee is the least of your hygienic worries. Plus, before you know it, a wave comes in and glosses over the whole thing.

I thought we as beachgoers had come to a happy understanding on this issue. But then last weekend, my friends and I were wading in the Atlantic Ocean when one of them got out to use the pavilion bathroom.

“Why don’t you just pee in the ocean?” I said. “Hell, I’m peeing right now!” And the surrounding swimmers shirked away, because all of a sudden I was the weird one.

I keep a safe distance from my peers. (I was kidding above; I wasn’t actually peeing at that moment. I had peed like way more than five minutes before.) I don’t behave like a Labrador marking everything that floats. But I’m beginning to think that I forgot to read the fine print on the yellow memo. Is it possible there was an age cap and I’ve outgrown it? Can you be too old to pee in public, even when you are immersed in *17 quadrillion gallons of salt water?

*This approximation was provided by wiki answers, so you know it is accurate

A Love Letter to My Parents’ Pool

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For the past month or so, I’ve been convinced that this is the hottest summer ever.

I try to suntan on my back deck, but it’s like when kids play, Whose feet can stand on this burning concrete the longest? Except I have no one to compete with, so I pretty much just walk out onto the deck, am engulfed by raging humidity, walk back into my air conditioned apartment, and…. game over. I am the winner, but I am also the loser.

I’ve been trying to figure out what has changed. Does tolerance for heat reduce with age? Am I in some sort of Long Island ozone oven where temperature is amplified? Have I turned into a vampire? Why am I cowering indoors like a 21st century Emily Dickinson? If I don’t go outside soon, the neighborhood children are going to invent scary legends about me, like this generation’s Boo Radley. (Can I be Boo Radley and Emily Dickinson, spliced into, perhaps, a Boo Dickinson, or did I just mix literary metaphors? I’ll leave that for you to decide.)

Then, it hit me, and it’s so obvious. At the risk of sounding like Veruca Salt (Daddy-demanding spoiled girl from Willy Wonka– bam, third literary reference. So what if they were all from a 6th grade summer reading list?), I was lucky enough to grow up with a pool and now, for the first time, I am experiencing summer…. dry. Well, you know, aside from all the sweat. The lovely thing about having a pool, besides the obvious matter of the pool itself, is that if you are sitting outside and feel moisture trickling down your back, you can convince yourself that it’s just residual pool water from your recent dip. On a deck, it’s just sweat, and you have to deal with that awareness.

Suntanning poolside is an entirely different animal, and one that can’t be replicated. Trust me, I’ve tried. You’d think darting straight from the shower to the deck might be a decent imitation, but it’s not. First off, you leave a trail of slick water down the hall, one which you will most likely forget about until you are sliding on it toward the bedroom with slightly less grace than Tom Cruise in Risky Business, arms flailing as you try to regain composure. Second, by the time you race out on the deck and situate yourself with your beach chair and book, you are dry. Pulling a muscle later as you avoid a hallway wipe-out will all be for naught. The other semi-reasonable stab at a pool substitution is lying out beside a stock pot full of cool water. You think– finally, a use for this stainless steel 20 quart stock pot that I requested on my registry but have no practical use for because we are only two people and have no reason to make 20 quarts of anything! But don’t celebrate prematurely, for after the 10 minutes it takes to fill up the damn thing, you will discover that this measure is also a failure. One, because a stock pot, though too large for only a couple servings of chili, is not the same as a pool, dumbass. And two, now you are overheating and you look like a fool on your back deck with views into eight other backyards (two with pools!! Jealousy!!), meaning those eight other families also have a view of you with your feet in a pot, bent over, cupping and dumping water onto your upper thighs and forearms. Now the kids on the block will not call you the neighborhood Scary Lady, but the neighborhood Crazy Lady. Happy? Third, now that your sweaty feet have been soaking in expensive cookware, you must boil water in the pot to bring it up to the sterile standards of its intended function– making food.

There are two expressions that this summer has confirmed to be true:

1) You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.

2) People with pools have more friends. If that is not a legitimate expression, it should be. I don’t see anyone lining up with inner tubes and foam noodles to sit on our deck. But the guy next door? He’s either really funny, or people are there for the above ground that takes up his entire lawn. (He, by the way, has looked up from his floating lounge chair numerous times to see me on my deck, streaming with perspiration, and has never once invited me over. I would never accept, because swimming in a stranger’s pool would be kind of creepy, unless it was really really hot out. But it’d still be nice to be asked. I know one neighbor who is not getting Christmas cookies. Okay, yeah. Nobody is getting Christmas cookies. If I’m baking cookies, I’m eating them myself.)

The summer months used to be reserved for getting tan enough that Phil and I could almost pass as an interracial couple. That’s all I want in life. Now, I just don’t have the willpower.

On the bright side, we’re saving on suntan lotion.