An American, Lake Wobegon, Glassporter Childhood

Wayne Terwilliger.

Second baseman, minor-league manager, major-league coach with a fun-to-say name that keeps popping up when I’m reading.

First, of course, is “Terwilliger Bunts One,” the story that sparked my love for Annie Dillard freshman year of college. Today, I’m reading “Lake Wobegon Summer 1956″ by Garrison Keillor, and through an entire sequence in the first chapter, the radio announcer keeps updating the main character on “Twig’s” performance at the plate.

Why the literary references to Terwilliger? Some deep meaning I need to seek out? Just a name that rolls off the tongue, bringing joy to the speaker, like the word “serendipitous” or “thesaurus” (the latter of which brings me joy only because I celebrate each time I pronounce it properly).

It’s time to update the baseball player with the fun-to-say name, so for my novels, short stories, poems…maybe epitaph even…who’s it going to be?

Easy.

Andy Van Slyke.

Tomorrow calls for Halloween cookies.

It’s a good day when you’re G-chatted at work and invited to a mac&cheese dinner in the east village. S’mac serves only variations on a theme, and my macaroni with brie, figs, mushrooms and rosemary was quite parisienne — and delicious.

“Come to my friend’s fundraiser,” my tall friend Erin said. She was considerably tall tonight, as she towered about in the heels she’d worn all day at work at Ralph Lauren. A fashionista and a truly perfect friend, she left me with a slight fear I’d not quite add up. Hell, that’s normal. With cheap drinks and dozens of quirky personalities, the thai-restaurant-turned-bar was a hub of happening, and laughing and crying ensued — I was there to comfort and converse…”Because I don’t really invest my emotions in anything, so I listen to other people’s.”

Mamoun’s Falafel for a $2.50 falafel sandwich at 1:23 a.m.

The Q train took forever. Yoga is helping me balance on the train without holding the bars.

Erin gets sleepy on the train. The digital schedule said we were going to Brooklyn. Someone wasn’t from New York, and he didn’t understand. 

Yes, I can help you sir, I’m from here.

From the N’s 30th Avenue station, 14 blocks to 45th Street. A day-old squid on the sidewalk outside the fish market. A conversation about a pair of jeans a girl bought in Nashville in 2003 and has been wearing since. Size 26, from Guess.

And should I go to The Quays, two doors away and have a Magners? Pass. My couch sounds more appealing than a barstool.

30th Avenue changes faces at 2 a.m. Steel doors cover the front of the salumeria and the bakery, the wine store and metro pharmacy. The ATM alarm at Bank of America ceased to buzz, after 6 days of nonstop noise.

I’m looking forward to a friend who can a. drink without wanting to still be in college and b. drink two without falling asleep. Like that best pal of mine says, “You need Bain and Novak, T.”

Wrapping up my night with a long phone convo with said best pal. That one who finishes conversations with “Yeah, and that’s everything I thought about today.” Few people like that. Seeking out a place for myself outside my living room. But here, now, I’m OK. 

Welcome to 45th street, Astoria, Queens, 2:19 a.m. on a Friday night.

So, time to go?

It’s been a while since I’ve been wrong this many times in one day. Leave it to the real world to make me feel like everyone’s smarter than me. Haven’t felt this crappy since high school when I’d be talked down to by my closest friends. Really nice, people. Is it 5?

After all these years.

Nope. Still nuts. Still can’t be corrected on something trivial without feeling totally worthless and dumb. And now I don’t want to talk for the rest of the day.

Correct me on my writing, the work I’m doing, I’m fine. Correct me on my pronounciation of a spell in Harry Potter and then patronize me for claiming to be a fan, and I’m worthless.

Lame. Lame lame lame.

I think this is the crash from the cupcake sugar rush I had all morning.

Lunch break. T-minus 3 hours.

 

There’s a little angry voice inside of me that screams at the back of my eyeballs every now and again. This week, it’s at the people distressed to say goodbye to summer.

 

Today is the coldest day in New York City since May. I say, as it should be, it’s the 17^th of October, nearly one month after the vernal equinox. They say, too chilly.

 

Autumn in New York has arrived. My heart is torn between the mountains – and hearts within mountains – of western New York that bear the gorgeous colors everywhere I turn, and the collective groups of trees I stumble upon in midtown or in Queens, slowly changing colors. These trees like to act as if they’ve never changed before. Looking shifty-eyed at the tree down the block – has she changed yet? I won’t change until she does – in comparison to the veterans in the Catskills or the Adirondacks.

 

This is what I’ve waited for. Spring and summer I’ve seen. Always the same. Always overpollenated, always hot, always always. We’re coming now to the seasons of New York City. Falling leaves in Central Park. A nine-ton Christmas tree in the center of Midtown. It’s the stuff from films and from the mind of every romantic.

 

So on tap for the coming weekend? A trip to the beer garden, to sip (take that as you may) heavy ale and cider to keep me warm within the massive walls of the outdoor bar; autumn vegetables direct from the farmers market – nothing begs the leaves to change like a squash-arugula-pomegranate salad; a pumpkin, which we’ll carve and set on our fire escape to stare at our tree and beg it to turn; toasted pumpkin seeds; an apple pie? I’m getting ambitious but I’m buying apples by the peck.

 

Last weekend it was the October I’ve gotten familiar with the past few years – the October of EBC jugs of beer and reunions far better than one can ever plan for. And this weekend? It’s the October I’ve always wanted to be familiar with. So on this complicated and severely enjoyable journey I’m taking, I hereby welcome myself to New York City, the “real world,” and it’s beautiful.

Sucker-punching Steve Jobs

Dear Apple,

Thank you. Thank you so much for releasing a brand new MacBook model literally SIX (6) days after I purchased a MacBook for myself. That “Genius” in the Apple store was certainly kind in helping me choose (or not choose) a printer, but could he have said, “Mayyybe wait until next week?”

Kyle Jones in the blue T-shirt, you better have gotten a lovely commission on that sale.

Regards,

Tanya

Really, what’s the password?

I’ve been saying I’m putting off writing until I get a desk. A place I can sit – that isn’t the floor – and focus on what’s pouring through my brain and put it on paper…or in my case, in a blog.

 

But is that what’s keeping me?