for the love of spring...

I realized this morning that my last few posts have been a bit, um, cynical. Cynicism, in my opinion, is really just laziness in disguise-- in much the same way profanity is really just a lack of linguistic creativity. Now, don't get me wrong--there is a time and place for both. Cynicism is perfectly appropriate during the last month of winter in northeastern Ohio and profanity is appropriate--maybe even required-- in any situation regardless of the calendar month where the car--or third car--your dad bought you and a tricky garage door are involved.

However, today is the first day of Spring, so...

There seems to be much smack being talked about Cleveland lately. Admittedly, it's an easy thing to do:

1. We have the worst weather in the country--namely an utter lack of sunlight and snow accumulation that approaches the obscene, both of which cause a peculiar set of symptoms involving a paradoxical mix of sluggishness and depression due to widespread Vitamin D deficiency and a twitching, stir crazy kind of hyperactivity brought on by cabin fever.

2. While many cities are reinstating their farmers' markets, our food options this time of year fall into one of two categories: fish dinners and pancake breakfasts. If it isn't Friday night or Saturday morning, well, you're out of luck... (and don't EVEN get me started on the Girl Scout cookie fiasco in these parts...)

3. We have the second worst high school graduation rate in the country, which is strange since surely our students attend more days of school than most as our school administration is all but entirely IMMUNE to blizzards and snow squalls that bury small children (and Girl Scouts) waiting for the bus in the morning.

4. We seem to have a disproportionately high incidence of roads named after a serial killer. There's Bundy Street. Bundy Avenue. Bundy Way. Bundy Circle. Need I continue?

5. We seem to have a disproportionately high incidence of signs along the roads that say "Raise your plow." Huh?

6. We also have that little problem of how to proceed exactly whenever we see smoke and flames in the Cleveland sky as smoke and flames in the Cleveland sky could signify
a-nothing--two of the 30 steel factories are, after all, still open
b-the river is performing an encore
c-your house is in fact on fire soyoubettermoveitnowinevitablespeedingticketandpotholesthesizeofparkinglotsbedamned (go ahead, reread it, you'll get it).

I could go on, but I'm so over even pretending like I pay any attention to sports and so, in the name of--Ok I'm about to make up this word--equinoxical optimism I won't.

What I'm really trying to say is that Vegas and places like it have nothing us on days like today. No one, and I mean NO ONE can appreciate one of the first warm, sunny days of the year like we can.

So there.

as luck would have it...

Let me speak plainly. I am not overly upset by the fact that on Wednesday, without one drink dyed green mind you, I wrecked my car pulling out of the garage (or pulling into the garage, as the case may be since I'm uncertain at what moment precisely the damage occurred because well--are you listening, All State and Dad?--common sense tells you that if your car is lodged--as in stuck-- against the frame of the garage door you have two options: wreck it moving forward or wreck it backing out).

I am also not overly upset by the fact that on Wednesday the Dean of the English Department decided to drop by my class for what she likes to call an "impromptu" observation with nary a warning. (I, of course, call this something else)

Nor am I overly upset that this week alone I lost one of my lucky silver charms, an hour of perfectly good sleep due to this Spring Forward nonsense and all hope that I will get to eat one--just one! please!--Girl Scout cookie before I grow old and develop diabetes (I'm wondering if giving up something for Lent can be done retroactively and still count at this point...thoughts, anyone?)

What I am overly upset about is that Sandra Bullock's husband cheated on her.

No, really, I am.

I am tired of hearing about men cheating on their accomplished wives and girlfriends.

I am tired of hearing about men leaving their accomplished wives and girlfriends for women who are less so.

Trading up is human. Trading down seems organically wrong to me. I mean, c'mon guys, you don't trade in your Wii for an Atari. You don't trade in your 2009 Saab for a 2004 Huffy Ten Speed. So, if there is anyone out there who can explain this strange phenomenon to me, please please do so. Psychobabble welcomed.

Herein Lies the Problem or The Appellation Trail Part 3

If only my mother had named me Sloane, or Candace, or Tai, or Adrienne, or some other name glamorous enough to permit me entry into the world of grown up coffee tables and Vanity Fair bylines.

I don't think it was too much to ask.

Some people dream of their names lit up in lights or laminated on baseball cards. In comparison, all I wanted was was a half inch of space on the editorial masthead--my name squeezed in demurely between Winter Cavendish and Fiona Leopold. Granted, I did score that internship at the art magazine despite my name, but that was only because there was a 99.9% chance that no one there actually knew my name (the .1% I'm leaving to chance is due to the harsh reality that no one actually spoke to me the entire year I was there--save the saffron velvet and lightbulb command, which was more like barking than speaking--so I cannot prove beyond a doubt whether anyone knew my name or not).

But alas, my mother (bless her sweet Irish soul!)named me Molly and I was, without any input whatsoever, forever relegated to the world of livestock and golden retrievers. I was, without any say whatsover, destined to be associated with best case scenario: large, handsome women who are not sinkable or that Molly Bloom character created by that author who is too confusing for anyone to even want to read or worst case scenario: an Irish band interested in some sort of sadomasochistic flogging. Or a bucket.

Yes, I was sentenced to an old-fashioned moniker that lacks the pedigree or classicalness of say, Ann, or the Biblical cred of say, Mary. And it certainly isn't an old name that is coming into vogue again like, oh I don't know, Esther. Sure, my name does connote a certain patriotic resourcefulness, but in an Encyclopedia Brown's kid sister sort of way rather than in, say, a Bond Girl kind of way. I mean, I highly doubt that 007 has ever taken a Molly to his chateau in the Swiss Alps to seduce her right prior to her being revealed as a double agent.

Yes, mom, I know, I know: Molly is a perfect name for three year olds with blonde pigtails. But then, of course, as the course tends to go, all the little Mollys grow up and want to write something with a little more heft than their own name for a publication that is a little more respected than Sister Leona's chalkboard.

Yes, No. 4 Refers to Me, and No, Mom, I Don't Have a Coffee Table or Child Yet (or The Appellation Trail Part 2)

Out West (compound prop.noun) is not just a longitudinal direction. It's an attitudinal* direction. So, when I packed up and headed west three years ago despite my mother's plea that I needed to stay put for like two seconds**, I wasn't worried. I mean, COME ON, I pointed out to her, I was in good company: Christopher Columbus, the pilgrims, the gold rushers, the Mafia and other visionaries, retired Hollywood cowboys, stoned journalists and most recently crime scene investigators.

And, truth be told: the fact that I felt the need to head out west was all her fault anyways.

Back East I had had a dream of living in one of those TriBeCa lofts where the elevator door would glide open and directly deliver into my living room something other than the fourth! Victoria's Secret Semi-Annual Sale catalog this month (I'm no math professor, neither is Bar, Allesandra nor Leilani--I understand this--but how is this even possible?). Namely, the door would open and out would come glamorous friends, witty editors, morose (but brilliant) photographers, and brilliant (albeit morose) art directors armed with complex Cabernets from the Loire Valley and little boxes of nuanced truffles from SoHo's Vosges promptly at 7:30 every Thursday evening.

In this dream of mine, we would gather around my very grown up coffee table and complain about the incompetence of the interns*** at the magazine (I SAID A VENTI TRIPLE HALF CAF HALF DECAF MOCHA GREEN TEA LATTE WITH SUGAR FREE CINNEMON DULCE SYRUP EXTRA WHIP EXTRA DOUBLE HOT NO ROOM BECAUSE IT'S THURSDAY, DILL WEED) where we all worked together and then would move on to a more civilized discussion about the merits of the mock turtleneck versus a real turtleneck, Woody Allen, and then perhaps Rick Moody and post-modernism.

I also imagined small, but stylish photos of me on the contributor page of other equally relevant magazines. I must have fashioned these portraits in my mind a thousand times. They were to be expertly composed, but never obvious or strained. They were to allude ever so subtly to the very real and envy-inducing possibility that well, yes, I do just happen to be standing against this sun-splashed wall wearing a custom-fitted Brooks Brother white shirt with a cashmere sweater playfully wrapped around my shoulders at the US Open and well, yes, that does just happen to be Tom Ford, JD Salinger, and Princess Diana behind me playing croquet on this lovely little piece of violet-strewn heaven that, well, yes, is the front lawn of my house in the Hamptons. I admit I sometimes didn't pay much attention to the logistics of the dreams--the point was supposed to be yes, people, the world has just opened up to me and my pen.

In these photos, I wouldn't be smiling, but my expression would belie a secret life beneath the serious demeanor--a secret life of said coffee table conversations and morning jaunts for Dean and DeLuca coffee and crepes. Over time, I conjured up more sophisticated snapshots--there were hammocks and a frothy ocean behind me, a YSL tuxedo jacket and my boyfriend's jeans. Often, a small purebred dog or two would be involved. And always always always the caption beneath the photo would read: She lives and writes in New York City.

Tomorrow: Herein Lies the Problem or The Appellation Trail Part 3

*I am aware of the fact that attitudinal is not a real word. But if my students can make up words, so can I.

**or two months...

***OK. OK. Admittedly in reality I was usually the intern--though I had the special pleasure of fetching things like saffron-colored velvet fabric that was "neither too yellow nor too not yellow" and "the craziest, most unique, UNROUND lightbulbs you can find. In bulk!" Um, yeah. Mr. Sam Bennet, oh I'm sorry, I mean Mr. Publisher and Editor in Chief, if you are reading this, I want you to know that attempting and actually finding these things for you in Chinatown in less than two hours is one of the greatest accomplishments of my life and yet it is wholly unlistable on my resume, jerk.