Category: glamorous

I’m about to have Thanksgiving at home with my daughter for the first time since her mom and I split ten years ago. Ours is a gender reversal of a typical divorce situation: usually it’s the mom who does the everyday caregiving, and the dad who gets holiday time with the kid(s).

I grew up in an isolated nuclear family. No relatives came for holidays. My dad, who was always off working or away on some mysterious other business, would be physically present for holidays, but his mind was elsewhere. Instead of holiday cooking smells, the house was notable for my dad’s loudly booming classical music.

My mom, who hated “women’s work,” would announce that she had done the very minimum—for instance, quickly boiling chicken instead of slowly baking turkey. “Done, enough, finished!” she’d exclaim, as if we were all rooting for her to get out of that sexist kitchen prison. And we were.

We ate like the animals in “The Fantastic Mr Fox.”

As soon as we could decently say we were finished, my younger brother bolted out of the house to hang out with his many friends, and I retired to my room to draw comics.

…Until I was about thirteen, when I took over the dishwashing so my mom wouldn’t have to bother with it. This wasn’t, as you might think, simply cheerful pitching in. No. I was trying to rescue my mom from her deep depression, and model what I thought was feminist behavior to my dad.

That my dad worked sixty-hour weeks to support us, and was every bit as imprisoned in a thankless role as my mom, somehow didn’t enter my calculations until I was much, much older.

And that both my parents, if they were somehow made differently, could have enjoyed working and doing for their family, was also something I didn’t understand. I didn’t know that doing for those you love could be joyful until I grew up and fell in love. And even then, I didn’t totally understand until I became a father.

…

From my still-bewildered perspective, I had a wonderful marriage with my daughter’s mom until everything suddenly fell apart. It was like plunging into an alternate universe. And felt like falling down an endless well. My love for my daughter, and her need for me to be here—stable and strong—is all that saved me, I know.

During the next ten tumultuous years, one thing was constant: I spent most holidays alone.

Given how little most of them had meant to me growing up, this was less of a problem for me when I just hung out at home, than when I tried to do better by joining other people at their festivities. There is one exception—a gentleman in Chicago whose family makes me feel like one of them, with whom I have passed a joyful Thanksgiving, and where I am always welcome.

But other times, when kind friends and acquaintances opened their homes to me, and I took a subway into another borough, say, to spend the holiday with their friends, whom I did not know, the warm laughing flesh surrounding me actually made me feel my divorced aloneness and temporary childlessness much more profoundly. I really did better just slurping down Ramen alone at home, as sad as that surely sounds to you.

For I had spent many hours as a child alone in my room, drawing, and they were good hours. As a young adult, I spent many hours alone writing unpublished fiction and producing music with no commercial potential that went nowhere except my own headphones. The point being, I don’t mind alone. Alone is familiar. I’m happy parenting. I’ve been happy when I’ve been in love. And I’m also quite happy alone. It’s only the contrast of missing someone that makes it bad.

…

But this Thanksgiving, I’ll be with my daughter. A 14-year-old vegan.

So yesterday, in a low-key way, because doing things up in a big way is not our style, I showed her a dozen or so vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes I’d been saving for probably five or six years, and we picked four of them to make together on the big day. Four simple vegetarian recipes. Not much work or time required. Like momma used to make, only meatless. Things we can make together, because the kitchen belongs to everyone.

Somehow this story, which was supposed to be one sentence—Yesterday my daughter and I planned our small Thanksgiving dinner together—has turned into yet another episode of All About Me. But the day itself will be about us.

…

To those who celebrate, whether alone or together, at home or far from it, Happy Thanksgiving.

For Jim Coudal.

Landed 10:00 PM JFK, picked up baggage after Delta sent everyone to the wrong carousel and an exhausted airport worker before giving up told maybe five passengers about the correct carousel, and those passengers told nobody else because people are selfish, but I am hyper-vigilant about luggage—being anxious and having had some bad experiences—so I spider-heard the airport worker’s whisper from 10,000 feet away, made sure to tell everyone around me that the carousel had changed, and ran to get my bag.

More drama at the cab stand. A pirate in a three-piece suit tried to steer me into his air conditioned sedan, claiming he worked for Uber (but then why would he be standing around instead of cruising and waiting for a signal?). The cab drivers then called him a crook and told him to fuck himself and he directed them likewise and it looked like a hot night fistfight at JFK was going to break out like the rash I felt growing on my sweaty back, but then I made a decision and got into a hot cab with duct-tape-patched seats and the driver sat down to drive, and the dispatcher, who hated all of us, after a great show of delay and neglect, eventually reluctantly gave the cab driver permission to drive me, and we drove for 30 sweaty minutes with the windows open, blowing humid NYC air into our faces, and then before midnight I was home, sweet, home. I ?? NY.

IN MARCH of this year, I had the honor to serve as a Juror in a civil case in the New York court system. In the months since I served, the city and state have been trying to honor me over and over again. And so, on a hectic Friday where I should have been at my desk, working, I found myself heading to the New York State Supreme Court.

The rule is, after you serve, you’re excused from serving again for six years. Yet a month after my service, I received a second summons. I responded logically, by returning the summons with a copy of my proof of service and a cordial explanatory letter. A few weeks later, I received a third summons stating in red capital letters that I was now in violation and absolutely had to present myself at 60 Centre Street or suffer the consequences.

I was too busy to go, and, after all, I had served. Then this morning, a free U.S. postal digital service I subscribe to (which emails you scans of postal mail you are about to receive) showed that I was about to get yet another summons. So I hustled to the bottom of Manhattan Island to throw myself on the mercy of the court … clerk.

Have mercy

At 60 Centre Street, I went through Security, walked down a hall, and within a few minutes was speaking with a very nice, overworked, underpaid, exhausted clerk, who, in spite of those things, treated me with courtesy, compassion, and respect, and took the time to help me understand what had happened.

Turns out New York can’t deal with my having a first and middle name. Specifically, the fact that my parents named me Lewis but called me Jeffrey (long story) apparently broke all the computers in the New York courts. The court thought that Lewis Zeldman, Lewis Jeffrey Zeldman, L. Jeffrey Zeldman, and Jeffrey Zeldman were four different people, each of whom was required to do jury duty.

This kindly clerk sorted it all for me in under ten minutes. As we were finishing, I asked her what to do about the summons that was still headed my way (per the US Postal Service). She didn’t know the post office offered that service, so we talked about that first. Then she punched her computer keys for a while, and told me nothing from the State or City courts was on its way to me. If yet another bogus summons was en route to my mailbox, it must be from the Federal Courts. “Since you’re down here already,” she advised me to cross the street and talk to her counterpart in the Federal Court system, whom she believed would do me the same solid service she had just performed for me.

So I did.

No country for old men

In contrast to the sleepy but fairly friendly backwater from which I’d just emerged, the Federal Courthouse was a fluorescent nightmare of angrily wisecracking security guards who behaved as if any first-time visitor unfamiliar with their unique security procedures was mentally defective, and who loudly commented on my shortcomings in my hearing. (“He thinks I’m his Mommy and I’m supposed to watch his stuff for him,” one guard complained after I laid my hoody on a counter because I thought that’s what she had just told me to do.)

They made me hand in my phone and yelled at me again for leaving my hoody on a counter and told me to go to a room number that didn’t exist.

I felt like I was in a different country. One court was New York. The other was Federal America. The air was ripe with sullen triumph.

Eventually I found a clerk who could and would help me. But when I tried to explain my problem, he gave me that same withering “you pathetic mental case” look and cut me off at every other word. The situation was a bit complicated. I wasn’t trying to over-explain, only to tell him what he needed to know to understand my problem.

I present to audiences and clients and I’ve written a couple of books. I’m usually pretty good at leaving out extraneous details and communicating quickly and clearly. But here, I was tongue-tied.

No, I said, I hadn’t actually received the federal court summons yet, but I’d been told by the state clerk that the summons I’d seen in my mail program must be federal, and, if it was, it was because the state system had inadvertently created duplicate accounts for me as a result of their difficulty with my name. The system from the post office that lets you preview your mail before you arrive. The New York Supreme Court across the street. Jury Service.

I stammered. I couldn’t get the story out. I couldn’t get my words out. I began to believe that maybe I was crazy. I felt myself sweating. The clerk’s eyes narrowed. He shook his head meaningfully at my every word.

“The New York State—“
“We’re Federal.”
“I know. But I received a—“
“We’re a different system.”
“I understand that. But—“

Eventually, after sufficiently chastising me and telling me he couldn’t do anything for me, the clerk allowed me to go back to the formerly angry man to whom, minutes before, I’d surrendered my phone.

“Out so soon?”
“Yes.”
“Lucky,” he said.

“Are you here with your child?”

It’s a Sunday and my daughter is visiting her mom. I’d spent the morning lugging my daughter’s old clothes and toys to a donation bin, where they’ll be given to some of New York’s neediest kids. Now I was on a photo walk, shooting places in my neighborhood along the East River.

At Saint Vartan Park, where I had gone to shoot the pink cherry blossoms, a large man walked up to me somewhat aggressively.

Saint Vartan is a pocket park near my home. It has a playground area where local families bring their kids. I took Ava there for hours every day until she was six or so. We practically lived there.

The cherry trees overhang a public space adjoining the playground area, and it was there I’d stopped to take photos when the big man put himself in my face.

“Are you here with your child?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“You have to leave,” the man said.

He wasn’t a cop, he just a big white man wearing tee shirt, shorts, and sneakers.

“I’m not doing anything wrong,” I said. “My daughter practically grew up in this park.”

“You said you didn’t have a daughter.”

“I said she isn’t here today. She’s thirteen. I’m a dad, like you. This is a public park. I’ve stopped in to take pictures of the cherry blossoms.”

“You can’t be here without your child,” he said again.

“Really. Is there a sign? I’ve come to this park for years, this is my neighborhood, there’s no rule about who can come to the park.”

“If you don’t have a child here, you have to leave,” he said.

He leaned down closer, emphasizing the difference in our heights.

I could see he was becoming angry. So was I. I had an irrational impulse to punch him in the face.

We were walking, now. He had moved closer to me and was escorting me out of the park. Like he was a cop and I was a criminal. No, not that. Like he was a decent, God-fearing parent, and I was some kind of pervert who got off taking pictures of kids.

Only I wasn’t photographing kids. I was photographing the cherry trees at the edge of the park. It’s the only place in the neighborhood where there are pink cherry blossoms.

He was much bigger than me, but we were both agitated, both ready to fight, both fighting our urge to fight.

We had moved in sync toward the exit, but now I walked past him, showing him that I did not need an escort.

“I’m going to photograph this tree,” I said. And stood with my back to him and took the shot. To prove a point, I guess.

And then I left.

Later, at home again, I saw things from his point of view. He didn’t know me. He saw a guy with a camera not far from where his kid was probably playing, and felt protective. I might have felt the same.

Maybe he wasn’t feeling anything, at first; maybe his partner was anxious and he was acting on their behalf. Maybe he and his partner had been annoying each other, and here was his opportunity to act the hero.

Maybe, as a longtime resident, on a sunny Sunday, I should have known not to enter my neighborhood park with a big honking camera around my neck.

I think of that park as my park. My daughter’s park. It’s as much a part of our family as our favorite neighborhood restaurant. I forgot that my daughter has long outgrown the place, that I don’t know the parents of young kids in my neighborhood as I did when my kid was young. I forgot to imagine how an anxious parent might view a stranger with a camera and no kid.

But when my kid was young and that was her park, if a stranger with a camera had triggered my parental anxiety, I would have walked gently up to the middle-aged photographer at the edge of the park and said hi. I would have asked questions, not assumed ill intent. Not taken the other man in hand, like he was a lesser being, an annoyance to be handled.

Maybe that’s because I’m short, but I prefer to think it’s because I’m kind.

My interaction with the big man took all of two minutes. And happened hours ago. I have done many things since then, most of them positive, some even joyous.

But I still want to punch that big fuck right in his big fucking face.

Also published on Medium.

TRAVELED 1400 miles to end up in the same place.

Flew my daughter Ava from NYC Laguardia to Chicago Midway in the morning so she could spend Thanksgiving with her mom. To expedite boarding, Southwest Airlines does not assign seats, and there is only one class—Coach. The sooner you board, the better your chance of securing a decent seat; the more you pay for your ticket, the better your boarding position.

Additionally, line position depends on how quickly you check in online the day before your flight. Check in the first moment you can, and you’ll be first in line. Check in a minute later, and someone else may be in front of you. Hours later, you’re at the end of the line.

I love a pointless challenge. You can bet I’d set alarms to go off 24 hours before our flight so I could be the first to check in. And you know Ava and I were at the front of the line, so we could sit in the front row. I love an aisle seat, but I sat in the middle so Ava could sit by the window. It’s the little things that give you the chance to show someone how much you love them.

Southwest got us to Chicago 40 minutes early. Ava’s mom kindly met us at the gate, and off they went. I turned around to go home. My flight back to Laguardia was not scheduled to leave for another four and a half hours, but Southwest let me switch to an earlier flight with no penalty. There was just enough time to suck down some rice and beans at a fast food burrito stand in the airport’s food court—my first meal of the day—and dash to the gate in time for boarding. I flew back to New York on the same jet I’d flown in on, with the same crew, and sat in the same row: aisle seat this time.

Back home by 3:00, I fed the cats, watched “Jaws” on my iPad (somehow I’d never seen it), and fell asleep during the climactic fight to the death that ends the picture. Hours later, I woke up, confused, and made myself the traditional feast: leftover tofu on quinoa.

And that’s the true story of my Thanksgiving.

Follow me @zeldman. A version of this article appears on Medium.

YESTERDAY I took a bath. Doesn’t sound like much, but it was quite a treat.

I’m staying in a hotel room in Chicago, and there’s a tub here.

I have a tub at home but can never use it, because Snow White, our infantile rescue cat, who wasn’t fully weaned as a kitten, is always sh*tting in our bathtub and p*ssing on our bathroom floor. She has a litter box, and I keep it clean, but that doesn’t matter to her.

Because she was not weaned, she goes through the motions of an adult cat without understanding what they mean—like a Catholic reciting Mass before Vatican II. For instance, after she p*sses on the floor, she bats sand from the litter box all over the floor as well. She knows that sand batting follows p*ssing. She just doesn’t know why. It’s clear to me that her mother tried to teach her how to use a litter box, but she was taken away before the lesson stuck.

To keep our tub at home somewhat clean, I plug it and keep it filled with water. Since cats don’t like water, Snow White refrains from jumping into the tub and sh*tting in it. But the tub is always filled with cold water, which grows dirty over time. You’d think I could drain the tub and bathe in it. But, no.

The tub is hard to plug. Most times, the plug doesn’t work. If I unplug the drain to run a fresh bath, the plug won’t re-plug … water drains silently from the tub, and, while I sleep my innocent sleep, Snow White hops back into the tub and fills it with sh*t. The aromatic, meaty sh*t of cats.

The only way to stop her is to keep the tub plugged and never ever use it. If I think about this, it’s such an overwrought metaphor for so many blocked things in my life, I could scream and never stop.

Instead, I take baths in hotels, when I can, and count myself a lucky fella.