Driving Miss Manhattan

“When’s the last time you were in a car?” JAL asks me. 

I’m sitting next to her as we drive away from the mall and toward her house, winding our way through back streets and side streets I didn’t know existed. 

“Um…” I have to think about it for a second. It was August, just a few months earlier, the last time I visited Florida before now, Thanksgiving time. I don’t particularly miss being in a car—that is to say, I don’t particularly miss driving one because anyone who knows me knows I take cabs probably much more often than I should. But every time I come home, there gets to be a certain day where I’m just so tired of being in the house I need to drive, and drive anywhere just to shake off the monotony of whatever the last few days in the house have been. Watching TCM with my mom or Jason Statham movies with my dad. Working my face off, lying on my bed in nine different ways trying to write an article that for some reason I’ve made due during what’s supposed to be my vacation. Sitting in the back reading a magazine in the sun. Or just sitting inside doing nothing. 

I’ve never been a person who can do nothing for extended periods of time. It’s short, two days max, sometimes two hours max, before I start to fray at the edges, snap at anyone in my wake, and make an internal “grrrrrrrr” sound that would put an angry cat to shame. 

My internal compass guides me the same place it always does, always has: the bookstore, the world’s most perfect place to wander and get lost when you simply need to just get out. My “grrrrrrrr” slowly but surely fades into a purr as soon as I place the key in the ignition. Driving down University Drive, it’s 45 mph speed limit and occasionally curving but mostly straight-shot roads if you leave the house at the right time. I change the radio to something good because I can’t drive in silence or with shitty music because that, of all things, is what’s most distracting to me. And soon David Bowie or the Pretenders or Phoenix or the Beastie Boys will spill out of the speakers (never too loud, though, unless the windows are down and it’s 1am and there’s nobody on the road, of course). Part of me will breathe, relax, unclench my jaw that I’ve been holding tight for the last few hours as I slowly make my way out the door, angry at myself for not getting there faster. I’ll feel my shoulders begin to move, my neck relax. 

People write all kinds of manifestos about driving, how it brings them peace or a sense of control. I suppose it brings me both of those things, but only if I’m driving in places I already know—I’m not a good driver otherwise, and I will not, WILL NOT take the highway because well, I’m too scared of dying. I knew just enough people or people who knew people in high school who died untimely deaths in car accidents that I don’t know if I will ever feel truly safe behind the wheel of a car. I remember one time driving on the highway with friends and clenching the wheel so tight that my knuckles sparkled white on the steering wheel, having to pause every few minutes or so to stretch my hands. But when I’m driving someplace I know, my hands perform a quiet choreography on the steering wheel, turning the thing at just the right angles almost from sheer muscle memory alone. That’s actually something I look forward to, not just the choreography but the fact that I’m doing it means I’m visiting my old haunts, a part of myself that still only lives in South Florida, and not the part I said good riddance to when I moved away.  

My mother loves to drive, my father drives faster than he should, and my boyfriend does both of those things (though the latter not while I’m in the car because he knows better). I’m happy to let them take the wheel when they want to. Driving is like a pair of shoes I like but never wear because I don’t have the occasion: they’re nice, but they mostly sit in my closet. I’m glad I have them, and I enjoy wearing them when I have the opportunity, but it’s also okay with me that I don’t wear them too often. So I’m happy to be the passenger, especially if I know someone else will do a better job driving than I will. 

I didn’t get my license until I was 17, the August before I left for college. I took driving lessons first with my parents, who made no pretenses about holding on for dear life when I was behind the wheel; and then with an uncle who was a former driving instructor and told me a car is a weapon that can kill you and needs about the length of a roller skate to do significant damage; and finally with a mild-mannered man in a VW bug who never flinched if I made an error but instead asked me to try again. I failed my first driving test because, and I swear I will never forget these words as long as I live, I “brushed a cone” getting out of a parking space, which meant I failed no matter what else I did right during the test (which, apparently, was everything). I came home and sat in the sun in my heavy school uniform, totally ashamed. But I went back a few months later after practicing, practicing, practicing, and this time had two judges in the car, one woman in training and another already certified. “Well, uh, I can’t see anything she did wrong,” the trainee said. “That sounds about right to me,” the certified one said. And so I was given my license, the same one I have today. The picture is now 12 years old and whenever I get carded at bars people give it a double-take. I’m wearing an Old Navy t-shirt in it, and facing the camera straight on, which I never do now because it makes my nose look like a faucet. Maybe one day I will get a new photo. Maybe one day I’ll drive more.

I wish I could say I missed driving when I’m in New York, but what I really think I miss is having the windows down and the music playing, the cool air rolling around in my hair, brushing past my cheeks on a long ride home on a usually busy street that’s silent at 2am save for my car. Those things happen when I’m driving, yes, but to me they were always something more. 

Wildlife

It was about 1am on Thanksgiving, when the blinds moved in my mother's bedroom, at my parents' house in Florida. At first we thought nothing of it. We were watching Milk Money, that awesome movie where Melanie Griffith plays a hooker who ends up in the suburbs and falls in love with science teacher Ed Harris. But then it happened again. And it wasn't a "it was the wind"-kind of movement. It was the movement the blinds used to make when our dearly departed cat would walk through them. Something living was behind the blinds.

We didn't know what to do--what if it was something poisonous??--but eventually my mom, brave as she is, went and opened the blind, and I saw it. A slimy little brown frog, half the size of the palm of my hand, was clinging to one of the white blinds for dear life, its little frog toes spread out like one of those sticky hands you used to get for 25 cents in hard plastic bubbles from vending machines.

Growing up in South Florida, I had become accustomed, as we all do, to all manner of bugs, reptiles,  and other strange, tropical creatures, but I never, ever got used to frogs. They make my heart thump in fear the way no other animal does. Upon seeing the creature in the house, my mom and I both gasped, and I definitely screamed like a little girl. I had only visions of the story my mother once told me of one of these frogs that had sprayed poison out of its mouth and killed my aunt's dog some 40 years ago. I didn't know if it was one of these frogs, neither of us did, but we knew we didn't want to get close to it or touch it. As my mother opened the blind to get closer, the frog leapt onto the ground. I screamed again as it bounded through the air, probably more scared of us than we were of it. It made its way toward my mother's closet, and I immobilized by fear. "Shit," my mother said. "I really don't want your father to put on his shoes tomorrow morning and step in frog." She was far less scared than I was. But the frog had disappeared into the closet. "Put on the light!" I said to her. I sat up on the bed and we both looked at the closet, waiting for it to come out. When eventually the frog stepped into the closet's pool of light, it stayed for a moment and, reflexes barely able to catch up with my brain, I threw an old blanket in its general direction and miraculously the blanket landed right on top of it. "Good show, Lyss!" my mother said, only to follow it with, "But what do we do now?"

We stared down at the blanket. My mother sat down for a second to catch her breath. We didn't want to kill the thing, we just wanted it out of the house. How on earth did the damned thing get in here, anyway? The occasional gecko on the house's exterior we were used to, but they were always outside and totally harmless.

There was an extra square of carpet in the closet, close to the blanketed frog. "Why don't we make a, uh, sort of sandwich?" I suggested, moving the carpet square under the blanket. My mother did this, wrapping the whole thing in a towel and moving toward the door. She threw the whole thing on the ground outside and slowly the frog emerged and casually hopped away into the night, as if nothing ever happened.

--

Friday night is a different kind of wildlife encounter. J, Z and I are at Lagniappe, a bar of sorts in Miami. They have both since moved to the area from their previous homes closer to me, so I am seeing their lives down here for the first time, the creatures in their natural habitat, if you will. Lagniappe is their usual haunt--good for both dates and hangouts with friends, they tell me. It is not a regular bar, but in a good way--in front of the cash registers, there are both refrigerators (with white wines/bubbles) and wine racks (red wines), where you purchase a bottle and you're given glasses. Then, you go outside to the space's massive patio that's attired with patio furniture leftover from Hurricane Andrew and lit up with strings of those yellow lightbulb lights and you find a table. Barely any two chairs or tables are alike, and they're all sort of pushed together in different corners of the patio in a sort of perfect chaos. Even so, there are some tables you don't want, J tells me--of one that's empty but in a very high-traffic area, she tells me if you sit there you get everyone's butt rubbed against your head. Not really what either of us were looking for this evening. We find another in a corner that overlooks the entire patio. It's booming with people, all sitting and enjoying their wine and plates of meats and cheese. We observe, making shady comments about the people around us, often punctuated with exclamations like, "Gurrrrrrrrrl," and "Oh NO, bitch. Oh NO." It's just like old times.

The crowd gathering for the five-minute rainstorm.

At one point, tiny droplets begin falling from the sky. First they're small enough to ignore, a light sprinkling, but then the drops get heavier, louder. Everyone either stays put or gathers under the bar's large overhang, but nobody leaves because we all know it's South Florida, it will be over in five minutes. And surely enough, it is. We sit down, seats a little wet but nothing drastic, and resume our discussion.

Eventually we embark on our own meat and cheese platter. Just as with the wine, you pick out your meats and cheeses and pay for them, then the kitchen assembles them for you on a platter with sliced baguette, jam, and olives if you so desire. I chose black truffle pecorino, drunken goat, and brie alongside capicola and proscuitto, and they were soon given back to me, blooming gorgeously on a silver tray. I carried it off back to our table and we dug in. In between three or four bottles of wine we discuss the trials and tribulations of dating as a twenty-something in the Tinder/Grindr/texting era and gossip about people we went to high school with. So, yes, it's just like old times, but with more wine.

--

The day I am leaving Florida, the blinds overlooking the backyard are open. Standing there in the grass like a statue is a bright green iguana that's about two feet long. It has spiky fringe on the back of its head and dark scales around its long-clawed feet. It is positively prehistoric, and it's just hanging out in my backyard. Don't get a whole lot of that in the big city, I think to myself, recalling the pigeons and rats that make up New York's "wildlife." There was an iguana by the house one other time a few years ago, a lime green thing clinging to the screen on the exterior of the house, but it was skinny and small in comparison. This one now was definitely a small dinosaur. I snapped a bunch of pictures, shaking my head in disbelief. Only in South Florida.

Feeling Radio-Active

Sitting outside today on Las Olas Boulevard, sipping a tea latte in front of a fountain (New Yorkers, my apologies if I've just boiled your blood a bit...) and staring at palm trees swathed in Christmas lights, I knew a Florida post was on the horizon. After a long and leisurely lunch and gossip session with my near and dear JS, I made my way to a place that was really one of my second homes as a budding music nerd down here: Radio-Active Records.

Selling everything from new and used vinyl (LPs, 45s, etc.) and any possible accessory to go with it, as well as new and used CDs, posters, magazines, and more, Radio-Active Records is not really a gem but an entire diamond mine of an independent music store. Nestled in the same shopping center as a tattoo parlor, a gay bar and an art gallery, it's a record store that has happily and effortlessly maintained that hipness all music stores once had: that positive, these-people-know-what-they're-talking-about-but-aren't-dicks-about-it vibe that makes for a good business and a stellar community built around it. In addition to their awesome selection of tuneage (Shannon on the Clams on vinyl, whaaat! In addition to obscure Maria Muldaur albums and an utterly rad David Bowie 45 where he sings "Heroes" in French...that last one I picked up for myself, thank you very much), Radio-Active also hosts cool, up-and-coming bands in their store: recent performances include blues rockers Deap Vally and punk outfit Remembering Never).

Even a swirling land of corporate music retailers, I always chose Radio-Active instead. The staff is friendly and helpful, not like Jack Black's character in High Fidelity who will balk at your distaste of The Jesus and Mary Chain despite your love of Echo and the Bunnymen. Plus, it's great to get into a conversation with someone who not only has varied tastes and can recommend you sounds you might like, but someone who is also willing to learn from you! (Thank you to R-A's Scott today, who told me about Burial and The Vaccines, and was willing to listen about my interest in Brooklyn band Parquet Courts). And of course I will admit it feels great when they heartily approve of your day's purchases, that my own good taste in music is hardly a figment of my own imagination.

Another fun part about today is that their 45s sale on this weekend (and hurrah, I got to support during Small Business Saturday!). There were crates upon crates upon boxes upon boxes filled with the things, all for $1 apiece. They were given to the store by a woman who had purchased all of them in hopes of filling a jukebox she never purchased. I managed to wrangle some oldie-but-goodies (Johnnie Ray, Tavares, The Seekers, and other divinities) from the crates, as well as my aforementioned David Bowie 45. I listened to the latter on their gorgeous sound system, headphones canceling all exterior noise and allowing me to lose myself in, forgive the Phil Spector reference, a wall of sound. Bowie swooned and lamented to me, the tune sweeping in a hopeful upswing through my ears. I must listen to my records more often, I said to myself. A good music store, a store like Radio-Active Records, will (and should) have that effect on you. See below for a photo of their sweet postcard with all of their contact info. If you're out of state, you can follow their radness on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, where they're really good at showing what's up at the store.

A Refrigerator Full of Jam

My mother reaches into her terracotta leather purse and pulls out her silver and black cigarette case. She presses the case open and removes a Winston, lighting it while the car windows are still closed. Smoke circulates in the vehicle for a few seconds as the window slowly descends into the door. Cool summer breeze sweeps through the car as we head home down Oakland Park Boulevard, past the same fast food restaurants and mechanics and motels that have always been there. To me, though, they are beautiful; beautiful where they weren’t before.

It’s strange, being home in Florida this time I am seeing the beauty in the mundane, the joy in the everyday details that I do not at all appreciate on my own in New York. We have to stop at the bank and buy dinner for Daddy whose stomach is bothering him. We get him brown rice and orange chicken, and an iced coffee for ourselves as a treat. A man puts our groceries in brown paper bags that crunch inside the cart as we wheel them to the car. My mother pops the trunk open and on the inside it is charcoal black felt, littered with treasures with her previous shopping ventures like cat oven mitts and Raisinets that have probably melted in the heat of the trunk exposed to the Florida summer sun. I put my feet up on the dashboard as we drive home.

At home, the refrigerator is bursting with food before we even put anything new in it. Three shelves’ worth of items I am always surprised do not fall out and break—cottage cheeses my mother says are still good even though they expired in February, age-old Lingonberry jam from Ikea that goes with the age-old Swedish meatballs from Ikea that are still in the freezer, Wolferman’s English muffins ordered special from a Wolferman’s English muffin catalog, eggs, and Flagels (flat bagels from the Brooklyn Water Bagel company, a company that imports water from Brooklyn to make their bagels then sells them here in Florida), just to name a few.

I think of my own refrigerator in New York, which is only filled with jam, an old bottle of Snapple Iced Tea left over from a party many moons ago, and a tiny bottle of Svedka vodka, give or take another few items. I am more used to seeing the back wall of my refrigerator than not, though here in Florida it is the polar opposite. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen the back of the one down here. We unpack the car and I stack the brown crunchy paper bags on the counter, readying them for the eventual evacuation of their contents into their new, cold home.

There is nothing special about this, but it is special that I get to do it in a new place. I think it was today that my mother asked me if I was taking a World Wildlife Foundation calendar home with me. I knew what she meant, but I also remember when she refused to call Pittsburgh home, let alone Manhattan. I do think it’s possible, however, to have two homes, and I consider myself lucky. Some friends I went to college with don’t even have a room in their parents’ homes anymore and instead sleep on the couch when they visit—they don’t have a real ‘home’ to go home to.

For every “Lyss, come here!” and exasperated groan I elicit upon hearing such a phrase yelled in from where my father is watching television or where my mother is on the computer, there’s also a tiny voice inside my head that says, ‘Aren’t you glad you get to hear that again?’ I know my response of “WHAT DO YOU WANT?” sounds annoyed, but there’s love in there, too.

When I was in high school, all I wanted to do was find the space to get away. A moment, a minute, an hour to myself to breathe. After living by myself for a few months, and even for a few days, I see the beauty in always hearing my name yelled from another room. When I am home, there is always a hug when I need it. There was a day last week in New York when that was all I needed. I didn’t need a refrigerator full of treats, I didn’t need my feet on the dashboard, I didn’t need anything but the arms of someone who loves me wrapped tight around me, my face buried in their shoulder. That’s one of the things we take for granted in New York—we have these fabulous activities, restaurants, cultural phenomena at our disposal whenever we want them, but how often do we have the ability to hold someone close? People who live with their loved ones do, but what about the rest of us?

Dinner is “catch-as-catch-can” night, meaning everyone picks something different, and probably eats it at different times. While my father tears into his brown rice and chicken, my mother and I join him at the kitchen table and try to finish the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle. I get a few clues right—‘sprays’ for a small floral arrangement; ‘ing’ for a participle suffix; ‘ideals’ for high standards. And my parents nod or say ‘Aahh!’ as I fill in the little white boxes with my mother’s blue pen. Nearby is her white-out, because she says only wusses do the puzzle in pencil.

After dinner, my father sits on the couch in our living room in his old Bahamas t-shirt that we got at the oh-so-touristy straw market, probably haggled down to $5 from $10, or some such deal. He tucks his t-shirt into his jeans and wears a belt even in the house. He rests his bare feet with clean, trimmed toenails on the green glass cocktail table my mother designed. The remote is in his left hand, the pillow reading ‘My Heart Belongs to Daddy’ under his left elbow. The pillow’s embroidery has worn thin in the spot where the center of his elbow lands. This is the way my dad always looks when he sits in front of the television, though there is more silver by his earlobes than there used to be. “It’s his wisdom,” my mother says, smiling.

For someone who just wanted to get out of Florida to find change and speed and adventure, I’ve also noticed that the lack of those things is also profoundly delightful. But, every so often, the change we need is not necessarily the change we chase and it’s nice to return to a place where life is always as you’ve remembered it. Plus, it’s not so bad to have good, free food whenever you want it.

Thanksgiving (Not) in New York

Since my Thanksgivings usually happen down south, I cannot tell you what a typical Thanksgiving in New York is like. In South Florida, it’s 80 degrees and sunny. There are no leaves on the ground. But trust me, I’m not complaining—I’m going to the beach on Sunday.

Every Thanksgiving I’ve ever had, though, always involves a piece of New York. That’s because my family always watches the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC. I grew up seeing the world famous Rockettes kicking their faces in front of Macy’s before the parade arrived at Herald Square, along with the ever-popular Snoopy balloon, Garfield, Kermit, and many more. And somehow, at 23, I still haven’t tired of it. Yes, my comments during the parade have grown consistently snarkier as I’ve aged—ugh…what saccharine faux-popstar have they attached to this float now?—but it’s okay, because I’ve realized that my dad has actually been doing this all along. Yesterday he wondered where the wind was going to take Neil Diamond’s toupee as the singer lip-synched his song “Coming to America” atop the North Dakota float. “Everywhere around the world…” Diamond growled, with his usual Jewish Elvis bravado, arms reaching forth Greased Lightinin’ style. We laughed. This parade really is for all ages.

My parents are both New Yorkers by birth, though only my mom has ever gone to the parade. She sits on our big, terracotta-colored leather couch in one of her signature homemade caftans (today it’s the one patterned with ocean life), telling stories about watching it. Her eyes light up as if she was sitting there once more. Her stepfather was the head buyer for the men’s and boys’ departments at Macy’s, so she was able to go for six years, starting when she was five, and sometimes accompanied by childhood friends Janie and Amy (who I both now refer to as “Aunt”). And they had good seats, too, directly on 34th Street and Herald Square, between 6th and 7th Avenues. Not those seats where you see people on TV, though, behind all the action—those people only see the backs of everyone because the parade was being filmed on the other side. But where my mother used to sit, there were no cameras, so everyone in the parade sang for them.

I wanted nothing more than to one day go to the parade for myself, but I have to say that I don’t think I’d still want to go. Maybe if I could see it the way my mother did, but not if I was just some rando on the parade route from  77th Street and Central Park West all the way down to Herald Square, where Macy’s is located. I’d much rather sit in my living room in South Florida, every so often glancing at the still-green hedges out back, the pool twinkling in the sunlight.

The parade has been televised locally since 1946, and nationally since 1947, though the original parade was first held in 1924. This year marked the 85^th Anniversary of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, originally called the Macy’s Christmas Parade. The arrival of Santa Claus at the end of the parade is said to start the holiday season. This year it seems especially true since exactly one month from Thanksgiving (on 11/24) it will be Christmas Eve (12/24). Dispersed throughout the parade are commercials about Black Friday sales, which used to start at 6am, but now start at 4am, 2am, and even 10pm the night of Thanksgiving. I wonder what the world is coming to—the thought of going anywhere near a shopping venue on Black Friday is utterly nauseating; and I’m sure as bad as it is in South Florida, it is far, far worse in New York. I don’t think there has ever been something I’ve wanted so badly that I would risk my sanity to stand in line and wait for it. Unless of course they’re handing out magazine staffwriting gigs.

Perhaps one of these days I will have a New York Thanksgiving, but I don’t really know if I want it. To me, Thanksgiving means coming home to South Florida—it’s the traveling part of it, the knowing that for a few days my life will be just a little bit different than they are normally.  While I do without a doubt cherish New York and hope our marriage will be a long and happy one, nothing can replace the feeling I get exiting the Fort Lauderdale airport to a rush of heat and the sound of Beyonce blasting from convertibles.