What's In A Name?

People still call them coffee shops. The places with formica tables, plastic, colored, leatherette seats, sandwiches, soups (you're in luck if  they're homemade), chilis, bouffant desserts-and coffee-endless cups from a waiter or waitress who might just call you hon.

 Oh and the food's cheap, without being ethnic (unless it's Greek but that's another story) .  The menu doesn't focus on trendy or newly discovered to be healthy ingredients (pigs cheek, truffle oil, wheatgrass, amaranth or gluten-free anything). And there's a lot of food. Sometimes the food is very, very good and sometimes it's not. Busy, noisy and usually badly decorated, coffee shops are unlikely ever to be fashionable.

In New York City, they were around before Starbucks around before one-off coffee places with curated beans and maybe even before (but here I'm not sure) the Italian cafes called “coffee houses” in the Village (Greenwich ) and Brooklyn (pre-hipster, pre-boho). These "coffee houses" still serve great Italian espresso in small cups with lemon zest wrapped around the rim imparting its oily, acid flavor to the drink and provide sweet pastry, great or not- depending on the place. I'm partial to the cannoli.

Other old time places to get coffee and a light meal have fallen by the wayside. The wonderful Horn and Hardart Automats, which were like self-service toy shops in which food appeared seemingly by magic in little glass windows, are gone. Likewise, Schraft's, a chain of lunchrooms where my grandmother would meet other ladies, clad like her in Chanel inspired suits and white gloves . They'd eat nondescript, refined and not very memorable food followed by yummy ice cream, those visits displaying eating as an assertion of taste and class, as it so often is.  Unless you count Starbucks for its shine and chrome, and I wouldn't, the Automats alas have not been replaced. Nor has Schraft's.

Th newer coffee places, frequently with brown or dark green sofas and original  paintings for sale on the walls, have their charms, not least among them comfort and wifi. They're great places to go when you want to write a blog, meet a friend or chat with the curly haired guy with soulful eyes at the next table. I prefer the homey, simple ones to the sweet looking, overpriced frou frou type my grandmother might have preferred (maybe I was wrong about Schraft's not being replaced). But none of them are coffee shops. They lack the bustle, familiarity, large-enough-to-drown-in menus and quickly moving patrons and wait staff.

Coffee shops are unique snapshots of the city, although they're a little harder to find than they used to be.  And they welcome everyone. Inside you'll find breakfast regulars, tourists, lunch pals from the office and people in a rush going God knows where,who can't wait another minute to eat something - sometimes at 10 o'clock at night. And emerging from the maws of an unseen kitchen come homemade bean and chicken soups, mammoth portions of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and string beans, endless varieties of eggs and the biggest piece of apple pie you've ever seen, all at breakneck speed and sometimes if you're lucky, delicious. In a nod to modern tastes and appetites you might even get a veggie burger if you ask for one, maybe even a chopped salad. Always open,usually rushed but with someone always ready to pour you another cup free - and offer you a mint at the cash register. Don't forget to leave a good tip.

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Home Sweet Home

I live in a place where people mostly live in houses, not apartments. Many have lived in the same neighborhood, not just town or city, for generations. Most people live with another or several others. I live alone. It's the kind of place where when I tell people I lived somewhere else, they ask if I “moved back.” I didn't. Minute differences are acutely observed here. A neighbor remarked upon the fact that I use my front door and not my back to enter and exit. Gardens, local sports teams and restaurants that closed two decades ago are subjects of lively discussion. Sometimes I feel a little lost, a little off kilter. I come from a city with millions of inhabitants, large apartment buildings and, a lively, loud, but friendly street life (New York City) and lived for nine years in a charming,beautiful much more formal one (Paris). You can be ignored in both and I miss a sense of discovery, anonymity and bigness.

In times of personal turmoil and chaos, when my daily assumptions were shattered, or even when I just needed to refresh myself, I would go for long walks in both and lose myself in new streets and unknown faces.

I remember back before SOHO in Manhattan was SOHO, my boyfriend and I used to go down  there occasionally to visit our friends Tony,an artist, and his wife Hatsie in their loft  apartment in a former warehouse. We'd play poker with a loose knit group of friends.  They were like homesteaders on the frontier surrounded by warehouses.  The warehouses were empty and untended looking against the night sky, seeming to lack any context. An Italian bakery was the only homey thing in sight.  Even then, I found the strange, unsettling skyscape somehow soothing and comforting, as if it spoke to something in my soul.

And when I lived in Paris, I'd sometimes get off at unknown metro stations in unfamiliar neighborhoods, sometimes in immigrant areas with North African accented French and see spice and garment stores where I knew the names and uses of nothing and loved being wrapped up briefly in another world.

And now, here I am in a place that lends itself more to discovery by car than on foot, and where so much is different from what I've been used to.  And so, I have adapted. At first, when I was in turmoil or in need of refreshment, I didn't know what to do. But I have found a solution. I have discovered a parallel to the soothing, walks I used to take on crowded streets of strangers.

Here, I take a ride. It needs to be far, past suburbs to small towns and hamlets onto 55 mile an hour two lane roads with simple, clapboard houses standing by the roadside. And then,  in isolated hamlets and onlittle used roads, I feel at peace. It's the same kind of peace I used to feel when I walked unexpected streets in New York or Paris and saw rundown warehouses or stores with foreign writing selling things I'd never seen before. And then I can come home and feel it it really might be home. And that feels good.

Scarier Than the News

Even more depressing than watching the news on TV is watching the ads that go with it.

Hawkers of hemorrhoid remedies, ED cures, adult diapers, affordable funeral homes, drugs to slow memory loss, false teeth cleaners and home nursing services march through my living room hawking their wares and a vision of present or future misery.  All of which they promise their remedies will help to make more bearable—or at least less expensive when it comes to the funeral home.

Hale and hearty as most of my ancestors have been, I'm less likely than most of my friends to need a majority of these services,  but they still cast a sad shadow over my evening, as I think of friends less genetically blessed and the sad fate awaiting them and maybe even me to be totally honest.

It also makes me wonder who is watching, or who the networks think is watching ,the nightly news.

Have the networks simply determined that the demographic watching the news is  a sub group of people over a certain age  which consists of those who  are deaf, incontinent, lack memory, have no money and are planning their imminent departure from this vale of tears.  Although I'm no expert, with ads like these I can't believe their target demographic is any younger than 50  ( even 100 might be too young).

If I'm right, what an insult. Whatever the age range they're targeting, the networks'  prejudices are certainly showing.  With an aunt who at 90 quizzed me about the developmental stages my young son was going through, I know what dangerous garbage age stereotyping is.  Even more scary is what this scenario, if the age assumptions are true, says about the US TV news audience as a whole.  Young people and those in early middle age aren't watching. And given the current state of the newspaper industry, they're probably not reading the news either. And that is even scarier  than both the ads and the news. Because informed citizens are essential for a healthy democracy.  So I can only hope the networks and advertisers are wrong.

Walking the Walk

If you are passionately committed to a goal, it really focuses your efforts.  My infant son so desperately wanted to walk that even when he crawled it looked like he was impatient to walk--and he managed to at 10 months.  But he didn't do it alone.  He had the very active and vocal support of those around him, especially his family.
Businesses and organizations also require support, both external and internal, to achieve their goals.
I've been doing some reading lately about different organizational models of how to make businesses and other organizations more effective and efficient.  Here too commitment and passion--in this case coming from the leadership-- really count, but so too do mobilizing all levels of the organization involved in achieving that goal. 
Doing so effectively depends in large measure on the quality of the relationships within an organization.
Trust, individual accountability and respect are all key components and I believe they depend on the little, everyday things: knowing that the agenda presented to the group is for real and not a pretense: trusting that the communication requested by leadership to accomplish a mission will in fact be welcome, even if some of the content doesn't paint a rosy picture of the current situation; feeling that cross-departmental work groups really exist to provide feedback, not just to comply with some external consultant's recommendations.  Leadership, communication and training can all help ensure the kind of quality I'm talking about.  And while no organization can ever achieve perfection in this regard, this kind of functioning is itself an organizational goal worth striving for.  We can always do better, but that's a reason to try harder, not to give up.

"Smart" Love

When is a phone not a phone? When it's really a mini-computer with a phone stuffed inside that you have to find the icon for and place in the right place even to make a phone call- and when doing this doesn't really matter for a lot of people, because they just want to use the internet connection part of the computer and don't really care about the "phone" at all.

And I discovered this recently when, as a late adopter I got and fell madly in love with my new "smart" phone--although its intelligence is at least debatable, it can certainly put me in touch with all the information, photos, music, movies and anything else our smart and stupid world produces in more places, times and ways than anything else I can think of. And despite my recently discovered addiction to Angry Birds (I swear this time it's uninstalled for good) and my vast new knowledge of more news about friends acquaintances and strangers, celebrity trivia and world events than could ever be useful, I am in awe of this tiny miracle.

Maybe it's the size- computers, netbooks, even ipads are too big to be cute and cuddly or to slip in your pocket and take wherever you go. Or maybe it's the sense that I am provided for, looked after and connected at all times through its many services and ministrations (I have a mirror and flashlight, an alarm and a phone, music and news even when I'm in bed at night). Or maybe, since I lived in France for 9 years and it feels like my second home, being able to listen to my favorite French radio stations on Paris time anywhere-as if transported back there by magic is what does it for me.

In fact, I think it's the magical aspect of the whole thing that gets to me.

Although you could make an argument that the addictive, connected at any cost, focus inhibiting ability to connect, scan, dissect everything and anything is destructive of attention spans, real human connections and serious work, I would say there's still something magical to it. As someone who grew up in the twentieth century, having access to people and things that are important to me, even at a distance, at the moment I am longing for them, being able to discover, even at a remove, people places and ideas I would not otherwise encounter, at least with such a sense of immediacy, is magical. And I am very happy to have that magic, even if, like all magic, it is in part based on illusion.

Negotiating Reality: Or Why I Don't Fold The Laundry

Negotiating Reality: Or Why I Don’t Fold the Laundry

When I first started to write this blog, I thought the subject was too provocative. I think I still feel a little guilty that I don’t do it. After all, part of what I do is encourage people to practice the self-discipline to achieve goals.

But, since choosing which goals we want to achieve is part of the joy of being a grown up, I decided to reveal my “dirty little secret”. Of course, that doesn’t mean we can do whatever we want to do. I wouldn’t recommend deciding not to shower or bathe, or not throwing out the moldy thing in the fridge that you left there 3 or 4 weeks ago, to anyone living with others, for example.

Anyway, to get back to my subject -- I don’t like folding the laundry. I don’t like doing the laundry either, but since I don’t want to smell like I spent the night in a garbage can, I do it anyway.

I was raised to believe that even if you can afford to hire someone to do your laundry and fold it for you, you should learn how to do it yourself so you can be self-sufficient and not spoiled brats.

Well, I didn’t become a spoiled brat, but I don’t fold laundry. If it needs to be hung so it doesn’t wrinkle, I do it (reluctantly, without joy and as slowly as possible). The rest of the stuff gets stuffed in drawers. Does it wrinkle? Not the sweaters – and I never really notice if my undergarments are slightly creased –although I have heard tales of people who (shudder) iron them.

Recently, I got this great idea, I’ll buy a set of large, attractive hampers with lids that can line my bedroom walls instead of dressers and drop the laundry in there, nothing crumpled, everything gained. No fuss no muss and attractive (to me) bedroom furniture at the same time!

So, why am I writing about this? No, it’s not because I want to share my deepest self or start a not folding movement. And it’s not because I want to eliminate those prospective clients/employers/friends or suitors who would be horrified by my lack of laundry etiquette, although I may have done so.

But I did want to share something I’ve learned about reality: Sometimes, it can be negotiated. If you examine your assumptions about what things mean (not folding= you’re spoiled, for example) you may discover some ideas you take for granted that you don’t really believe anymore, just like I did.

While there are some things I have to do even though I don’t like to, because of the costs of the consequences in terms of health, housing, morality or legal problems (cleaning the house, paying the bills, etc.) and there are some I love doing (writing, cooking, traveling, etc.) there are a lot of things that I don’t like doing that are negotiable.

They’re the things I may be able to get out of, if I examine my preconceptions about what I should do or should want to do.

In this vein, I remember when my son was tiny and he lectured me because, according to Barney, I’d left the faucet turned on too long. I didn’t like his doing that.

I’m all for water conservation, but I didn’t want my behavior at home legislated by some imaginary being on television. And, similarly, we don’t need the things we do in our lives legislated by some imaginary rulebook that we’ve incorporated internally but which was originally written by our parents, neighbors, friends or employers. Even if the rulebook comes from ourselves, it’s a good idea to re-examine it from time to time. We change and so do our ideas and circumstances.

If you hate doing something or don’t do it well, maybe you don’t have to do it at all. Or maybe, you can get away with doing it well enough to get by, and focus on spending time on the things that are important to you.

An ex-boyfriend used to say he wanted to do everything he did the best he could. He was shocked that I didn’t feel the same way. Well I don’t. I want to do what I love and care about the best I can. As for the things I don’t like doing, I’ll do them the best I have to or not at all if possible.

Life is short. I don’t know about you, but if I don’t focus on doing the things I care about, I never seem to get around to doing them.

So go ahead, don’t fold the laundry, or vacuum twice a week, or read the right newspaper, or keep up-to-date, or shave or jog – or whatever else it is you don’t really want to do. As long as you’re willing to put up with the consequences, it’s OK. Go ahead and spend the time doing something you really enjoy– or doing nothing at all.

Now that’s a really revolutionary idea!

I welcome your comments. If you enjoyed reading this, please share it with others.

Mechanical Bull

When I lived in France, I taught English to a French engineer whose company had been taken over by an American company in the last year or two.  Apparently, many of his colleagues had left in droves, and it wasn’t because they disliked Americans, it was because they felt uncomfortable and condescended to by the new company’s American style of doing business.

French business people who work together, may eat lunch together or talk about their lives, but they usually don’t become personal friends, and they’re not (or weren’t when I lived in France) expected to express great happiness at seeing each other or extreme concern about one another’s personal lives and well being. Nor are they required to be extremely cheery and outgoing.  What they perceive as enforced jollity and pretended office friendship is something they find off-putting and insulting.  It’s bad enough that they have to spend from 9 to 6 with people who are not their friends, doing something they may or may not love in order to take care of themselves and their families. Forcing them to pretend, as they see it, that they really are close to all these people and extremely eager to see them and share their private lives with them is at best childish play acting, and at worst adding insult to injury.

Which gets me back to the event this French engineer told me about, which was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  It was a get-together – some kind of conclave to build team spirit-with the new team over the ocean – and they had to ride a bull and, worst of all, pretend to like it.

Well, as far as I know,mechanical bull riding is not a corporate rite of passage that we do too much anymore, and Americans are a lot different culturally from Europeans, so why am I even talking about this now?

Well. I guess I’m talking about it because another rite of passage in companies, organizations and mom-and-pop businesses is just around the corner; the office party.

Well, I guess it’s fun, sometimes, and I guess there’s real cheer, sometimes – and for a lot of folks there’s the satisfaction of a good meal, some alcohol and – if they’re lucky – a bonus at the boss’s expense.  Sometimes there may be appreciation, or at least a sense of being treated as more than a cog in the machine, but sometimes, for some of us, it’s just the mechanical bull and another way of paying our dues – and shouldn’t the holidays be about something else than slavery to our work and subordination to or profiting from, our earthly masters?

Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  May something outside of the workaday world open up real abundance to you, yours and all of us.

New York City luxury living

Recently, while driving on the East River drive, I spotted an ad for an apartment complex I used to live in touting it as a “luxury” residence. When I lived there it was primarily inhabited by retired postal workers and teachers and was considered solidly middle class. But hey, that was in the old days, when just anyone could live in our town. But with the real estate boom, low-crime rate and shiny, new image, everything in town seems to be luxury nowadays. So to help newcomers find their way around the bewildering array of housing options in our great city, I am publishing the following guide to luxury living in the big Apple.



You’ve found a real luxury apartment in New York City when:

1. You can plug in a toaster and coffee maker at the same time without shorting out the electricity


2. You get heat most of the time in winter


3. Your apartment has been repainted in the last 8 years


4. Something in the kitchen is granite or looks like it


5. Something in your bathroom is marble or looks like it


6. There are new, poorly installed windows that let in drafts


7. Everybody in the building looks like they make more money than you do


8. You have at least 2 closets


9. There is a postage-stamp size exercise room that nobody uses


10. In the summer, your neighbors complain about the traffic driving in from Amagansett


11. Out of town relatives who come to visit, offer to lend you money so you can “get back on your feet” and move to someplace “decent”


12. Fresh Direct delivers to your neighborhood


13. The lobby reminds you of how your aunt Lucinda remodeled her living room after her trip to Miami


14. There is a decorative cabbage growing in a pot in front of the building


15. There is a tree within walking distance


16. No one says hello in the elevator
17. You have an elevator


18. Everyone in the building wears only black


19. You are paying ½ your income to live here


20. You give the Concierge, whose job is to open the front door, the equivalent of a month’s rent at Christmas time to ensure your packages don’t wind up in the East River