A FEW OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS 2005

Live Music:
The band Heernt, who I discovered via the Avishai Cohen band - drummer Mark Guiliana is Heernt’s band leader/drummer. I’ve seen them live five times this year, and they never fail to amaze, inspire and excite me. They deserve to be HUGE and I think they will be…..

Recorded music:
Ok, it was released in late 2004, but I go back to Abram Wilson’s ‘Jazz Warrior’ over and over. (How can anyone cover a Stevie Wonder track and be as inspiring as the man himself?) They’re a kick-ass live band too and my last ‘Jazz on a Spring Day’ at the South Bank in May 2005 was the summing up of a lot of what’s great in British jazz to me this year, with Abram’s band, the amazing Jason Yarde’s trio and the ever-cutting-edge-brilliance of ‘Tomorrow’s Warriors’.

Other great musical discoveries of the year (in no particular order):
Aimee Mann, Jonatha Brooke, Hanne Hukkelberg, Jeff Taylor, Nouvelle Vague, Jack Johnson.

Best films seen (but not made) in 2005:
Crash , City of God, Dirty Pretty Things.
See them if you haven’t. I mean it. Really. Just do it.

Friends:
I have been blessed with the best friends anyone could hope for throughout this year of tremendous change. I had the most amazing send-offs from the place I’d worked at for 19 years, the best team of organizers/designers/helpers for my wedding in April and the most supportive team of packers/psychiatrists ;-) for my move to New York in September. What can I say except the most sincere thank-you. You all know who you are and you’re in my heart always. I was on the receiving end of so many acts of love this year, and I could never have gone through all of these total life-changes without you.
Special shouts go out to the lovely Catster, ( without whose sharklife-takeover skills I couldn’t easily have left the UK and without whose great smuggling skills of great British necessities I couldn’t have survived thus far in the US) and the wondrous Stevie , (who’s introduced me to a whole load of new music, been a instant-message-distraction-support in times of great shark change and most importantly is a fantastically inspiring musician – check out his blog and great looping skillz at his new series of Recycle Collective gigs starting January 12th.)

Personal events:
Hardly did anything this year. (Haha!). Got married in April to the lovely TH (and the butterflies are still everywhere to prove it…). Left my job of 19 years in July. Moved to New York in September. I’m a big fan of the series of films ‘Seven Up’ and this year felt like a very significant ‘42’.

And finally - Welcome to the World:
The gorgeous Gabriel, our Godson, born in August 2005 in Australia and son of my soul mate Karen.

May your 2006 be full of love, peace and adventure.
And remember- it's not what you do but the way that you do it.
HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL!

FOUR THINGS

- nicked from the Marquis

A. Four jobs you’ve had in your life
1. Post(wo)man
2. Piece-work on a production line in a horse brass factory (I was so shit at that job ….)
3. Triangle/cymbals player for Vangelis (I was so sacked from that job.....)
4. Jazz promoter

B. Four movies you could watch over and over
1. Glengarry Glen Ross
2. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
3. Play it again, Sam
4. Don’t Look Back

C. Four cities you’ve lived in
1. London
2. New York
3. Birmingham
4. Wakefield (it has a cathedral – so it is a city…honest!)

D. Four TV shows you love to watch
1. Desperate Housewives
2. Wife Swap
3. Six Feet Under
4. 7-Up (every seven years)

E. Four favourite places you’ve been on vacation
1. Collioure
2. Chicago
3. Seville
4. Naples

F. Four websites you visit daily
1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/
2. http://www.guardianunlimited.com/
3. http://thesaurus.reference.com/
4. http://www.cnn.com/

G. Four of your all-time favourite restaurants
1. Lindsay House Restaurant
2. The Archduke (best fat chips)
3. Knickerbocker
4. Minang Malaysian Restaurant, Soho London (sadly now closed down, but I ate there every week for years).

H. Four of your favourite foods
1. Creamed spinach
2. Mashed potatoes
3. Insalata tricolore (with buffalo mozzarella)
4. Vegetable Dhansak

I. Four places you’d rather be right now
1. On the cliffs at Lavernock Point, Penarth in 1979
2. Ventnor, Isle of Wight.
3. Seville.
4. No not really – I’m very happy being here thank you. There’s a time and place for everywhere.

J. Four things you find yourself saying
1. That’s not allowed
2. He/she/it dates back to the Upper Jurassic Period
3. ………(Ed)
4. 5,000 dollar bet!. –at last count I’m owed 25,000 dollars ;-)

K. Your four favourite sharks
1. Shortfin mako shark
2. Silky shark
3. Silvertip shark
4. Nurse shark

THREE FRENCH HENS, TWO TURTLE DOVES AND A NUT-ROAST IN A CURRY.

And so we are at the 'nut roast curry' stage of the proceedings, which could possibly explain why everyone else has gone out with no return eta. It might also be the reason that the majority of my Christmas presents seemed to contain a subliminal message - a food processor, a cheese grater, a spatula, a chopping board- you work it out. Still, I'm a whole Martha Stewart more of a corporate wife than I was last week, as until Sunday I'd not even turned the oven on before. Now I'm experimenting on an hourly basis. Not always with food, mind you.

The present which has really captured my imagination (and most of my time since 25th) is a remote control shark from the lovely Catster. There are queues all down the corridor to use the bathroom as everyone waits whilst I have 'just one more go', (the remote-control-shark version of 'just-one-more-drink'). The ever-observant T is concerned that I am in fact somehow (sub)merging with said shark and asked me to check if it has started booking gigs and is hanging out menacingly on a submerged stool at the right-hand side of the bath yet? I can only answer - clearly not - it is a left-hand-side-of-the-bath shark - obviously.

Some of CodenameLizzy's fantastical skillz with children have obviously rubbed off on me over the past year as I also seem to be seriously scaring the under 40's in the flat with my excessive use of the dive and attack features. So much so that I'm not sure the Elf will ever bathe again. On the other hand, with her new-found total computer obsession, I doubt she'll ever do anything else ever again.

So this is Christmas, and I'm looking back over the year and contemplating the next. A yearly summary will follow at some point this week, and in the meantime the TH is happily humming along to Prefab Sprout, Mrs N. is away for a week and I'm about to have 'just one more go' before going out to see the amazing Heernt at the Knitting Factory tonight. Life feels good.

'Sharks kill less than 20 people a year, but humans kill more than 20 million sharks a year' .
Elf 'I'm still not getting in the bath'.

COMPUTER ZAUBERER

The transport strike is over, thankfully. Not that we minded walking approximately 70 blocks a day to do stuff (fun only if you haven't got a job to get to at a certain time or are freezing to death on picket lines ), but if I'd had to watch the same three commuters moaning on and on one more time on that 15-minute-loop-excuse-for-a-tv-news-channel-New-York-1, I'd have personally gone out and bought a bus myself to drive them home. Amazed nobody did that actually - not like an American to miss a good business opportunity.

It is the best Christmas present I could possibly have for Maff, F and the Elf to be staying here for a couple of weeks, and I am astounded by how much the Elf has grown up since I last saw her 5 months ago. She is now holding long conversations about various historical and political discoveries in (almost) two languages, and has become alarmingly computer-savvy. I woke yesterday morning to a series of attachments being sent to the laptop next to my bed from Maff's computer in the kitchen. On rising to investigate I discovered that said Elf had set up her own blog and was now demonstrating the various formats in which one can mail photos (uh?!), whilst her parents still slept.
Today her early morning solitary surfing resulted in the download of several new games.

Maff is getting anxious - 'How do I put parental controls on the laptop?'
Me -'No idea......ask the Elf'.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Purplemafling: 'Is Father Christmas called Father Holiday here? 'Cos if I say to the Elf we're going to see Father Holiday tomorrow she'll think she's being done'.

The Elf's lego sweets New York 

THE ELF'S FIRST BLOG

It was really sunny today and we went to the (what's it called?...) the Statue of Liberty.
Then we went to Ellis Island and we went into a museum. After that we went home to shark's house in New York then we took our shoes off and now I'm playing with lego sweets.
We are going out for dinner to the (where are we going?.....) Vietnamese restaurant.
And then I am going to bed and my dad or my mum are going to read me the story Pippi Longstocking or Dragon Disasters.
I like it in New York very much and the Empire State Building, because it flashes with green light in the night. And then I'll go to sleep and I'll wake up in the morning and it will be a bright day.
The Elf (age 7)

SBC BLUES

Just had the sweetest/craziest phone message from my lovely drunken London mates at the SBC Xmas Party.
Until now, was feeling rather relieved to be out of that xmas-party-a-day trawl for once in my life, sitting here, incredibly sober, with my veggie stew and netflix movie.....
But now missing you all horribly.
I love you guys!

LOCKER NO 146

at the gym, is MINE. Of course it's not mine at all, because I haven't forked out the 300 dollars it costs to own a locker at the gym, but it nevertheless appears to be mine every time I'm there. Which made me think today about the extent to which we are all creatures of habit. We zone in and mark out our territory at an early stage in any ongoing experience in a simple yet very precise manner, in so many areas of our lives.

For almost 15 years I sat on the same stool in the same place at the RFH bar almost every day at performance time. If some stranger made it to that stool before me I wandered around in nomadic fashion, unable to settle anywhere else, sometimes even unconsciously eyeballing said stranger, waiting for the intruder to move.
At the RFH bar, sitting on the left side of the bar was right, sitting on the right side of the bar felt wrong - like trying to write with your left hand if you're right-handed.

And sitting there every day, on MY stool, I noticed that everyone else behaved in the same manner - the retired hairdresser who always placed himself precariously on the edge of the higher level, leaning against the pillar behind him, and the two brothers who attended commuter jazz every week and had their own place in front of the left side bar pillar. They were extreme - if anyone else was standing in their places when they arrived, they would look momentarily confused, then LEAVE. The regulars all had their own seats, the standers their own square footage.

And now, 3,000 miles and a whole lifetime later, I'm behaving in exactly the same manner. Locker 146 is mine, and who the hell knows why, because as lockers go it's a pretty poor specimen with the door half hanging off, but I head straight for it each day, like a child to its parent.

And I wonder how much we narrow our lives with this territorial behaviour? At the gym I will only probably ever get into conversation with the territorial owners of lockers 144 - 148. Who knows what beauteous friendship could be lurking in the 200's?

How would our lives be different if we all made a conscious effort every day to behave differently from our everyday patterns, even in the smallest ways? If we went to a different coffee bar on the way to work, caught a different train or bus, walked a different route, took the stairs rather than the lift?

And I cite as a good example of this the fact that the TH, my husband, was attending commuter jazz at the RFH every week for several years before I met him - only he was standing on the RIGHT side of the bar. It took a friend of his to drag him to the left side for us to meet.

But on the other hand, if I'd met him years earlier, would we be married today?

sunrise NY 

FOR A FEW DOLLARS LESS

Took a break from trailing the ever so logically numbered streets in search of a surgeon this afternoon to go to the hairdressers for the yearly straightening saga.
It was a mere 50 dollars cheaper to have hair straightened here rather than get on a plane and do said task in London, but ever so slightly more convenient.

Ezequiel was as Latino as he sounds. He was also a body-builder from Panama. For a five hour hair process this meant three pit-stops for protein drinks, because otherwise his muscles would dissolve or something. I spent a fair amount of the afternoon shrieking because the whole process was progressing very differently to the British version ie. chemicals being splattered about liberally and randomly, and whole hairdressers experiencing major power cut at crucial hair drying time. All of my comparative Continent panic went STRAIGHT over Ezequiel's head, as his English language only amounted to the buying of shoes (five pairs this week apparently - note well Bloominjools) and jeans (thirteen pairs this week. What? The man is clearly earning too much AND insane), and his parting words to me 'do not sleep on head for four eight hours'.

Despite all of this trauma, hair appears to be extraordinarily straight, although the TH responded in the appropriate manner for his sex this evening with 'but your hair was straight anyway?'

I, meanwhile, need to work out how to sleep vertically for the next 'four eight hours' - a skill I believe has only been successfully mastered to date by sperm whales and astronauts.

BRANCHING OUT ON THE MARRIAGE VOWS

I am pleased to report that the TH has fulfilled his only marriage vow agreement, which required him to carry back a Christmas Tree (minimum 7 ft) to whichever apartment we may happen to be in for the rest of our lives (or until said vow is broken, and hence marriage annulled. Or something). Mind you, we're only in year one. Also, he did acquire the help of a rather gorgeous 7 ft student to help him, it has to be said, but I'd probably have added that to the vow anyway, had I thought of it. Said student, incidentally, is about to join the navy to rescue pilots who have been shot down behind enemy lines, (which seems like a very obvious career move from selling xmas trees in the street....) I rather liked that touching 'wanting to rescue people' element to him, be it in a suspect manner and expressed whilst he was holding a saw, although I admit that's probably too much character information to demand of a mere extra in a marriage vow.

I'm rather good at xmas trees, even if I say so myself - so this is the result of an afternoon spent with Christmas music, baubles and fairies, whilst the TH also got into the spirit, not, and spent the afternoon swearing at the computer in the kitchen about release notes, dtm's, cob dates and J drives.. uh? Bah work.

The observant amongst you will notice a collection of furry teddies and suchlike under the tree. These are courtesy of Mrs N, (who actually paid me a compliment today on my tree decorating skillz - now that's a first). We tried to return said teddies, but with no success, and frankly they're tired of being shunted from apartment to apartment across the corridor so I've taken pity and they can stay for now.

Come the New Year though, when the season of goodwill has long gone, I will be delivering a whole case load of unwanted items to Mrs N in return.

Proper snow.. 

All bases covered in our lobby, but I think Christmas wins on size... 

Now this is the kind of weather I can handle. 

BUMMER

I failed to mention that my work permit arrived last week. Hoorah!
Well sort of....
Not quite ready to go back to work yet. Had kind of counted on it not arriving till January.
Anyway, fate has intervened. Apparently I need an op. An otomy or an ectomy or something. I think the otomy is better for all concerned, (mainly me), but it all depends on the surgeon I have yet to find.
Finding the right surgeon here seems to be a job in itself, so I won't be looking for work just yet....

QUESTION TIME

I really can't think of a better way to spend an afternoon than with the lovely JB and Rev. Over huge mugs of tea the 'still very British Rev' (even after all this time in NY) and I discussed the enormous list of NY things we both find more than a little odd.

For instance. How come the sell-by dates on (even organic) milk and cream are like 6 weeks into the future? And even more strangely, why does it say that if you live in NY you should consume said milk by Jan 9th but by Jan 14th in other parts of the US? WTF is that about? Are New Yorkers slighly less immune to mycobacterium paratuberculosis? Does the New York minute tick by slightly faster?
Still at the dairy counter. Why on earth is butter divided and wrapped in silly little quarters, which are just about big enough to deal with a few slices of toast and then leave an impossible-to-use-sticky-mess-amount you then end up having to throw away? It's all very well having decent recycling, but why use four times as much paper in the first place?

And moving into the toiletries section. Why does this land of great choice not sell hot water bottles? Why is there no filing system at all in drugstores, resulting in enormous backlogs of wandering nomadic peoples who have been lost in the randomly stacked aisles for days perusing shelves of stuffed toys trying to find a razor? Is this to keep homelessness statistics down?

And then at the checkout, the very meaning of the word rhetorical - 'how are you today?' To which the standard response is 'how are you today?' Nobody is any the wiser as to how anyone is, but then nobody wanted to know in the first place.

Yesterday evening the subject continued over drinks with Schweer-the-elder (trainee feminax procurer, who managed to bring back one packet from her recent trip to the UK, but consumed half of it on the journey.....)
It's interesting to hear the other side of the story. I asked her why it is that nobody I meet here seems at all interested in my background/career, and indeed never asks me anything about myself at all. According to the elder, from the US point of view, it's so totally normal for everyone to 'sell themselves' here in any conversational situation whatsoever, that if you don't actually offer all this information about yourself immediately you start talking to someone, then they will presume:
a/ that they should already know all about you, or
b/ that you told them, but they forgot, or
c/ that you don't want to talk about it so one shouldn't ask.
Which just goes to show how a small cultural difference can manifest into total misunderstanding, even when the language is the same. Fascinating.

Current reading: 'Brit-think, Ameri-think' (Jane Walmsley), 'Divided by a Common Language' (Christopher Davies), 'Low Life' (Luc Sante), 'Flophouse. Life on the Bowery' (David Isay/ Stacy Abramson. A beautiful and moving book of photographs by Harvey Wang and interviews with the mainly long-term residents of the Bowery flophouses).