The easiest babysitting job ever

Decided last minute to help my sister out and babysit for my nephew Caleb tonight, since the regular sitter was sick. We went out for Ben & Jerry's, lay in bed and read and played Connect Four--which I actually won. (I'm usually terrible at strategy/spatial relations games.)
What could be nicer?
Ciao--
Paola
P.S. The photo above is of my older nephew, Jordan, who is away at camp right now. They post current photos on the website every day. My how times have changed from the once a week phone call that you had to walk across camp to make in the office.

A Vietnamese dinner--in a Portuguese restaurant in Astoria

"Getting fragged." That term means "getting killed" and it's the slang the troops used in Vietnam in '65. I had dinner with a friend I met a few years ago in Jamaica (the island, not Queens)and we had a really interesting conversation. I learned so much about him that I hadn't known before. He is in his early sixties, a retiree of OTB, grew up in Bed-Stuy; we have very different backgrounds but we really connect as friends, and did from the moment we met. In any case, I discovered that he had been drafted and fought in Vietnam, in Penang (I think) in 1965, just as the war was heating up. He said he hadn't talked about it in 30 or 40 years, it was so traumatic. He described being in a field at night, knowing an attack was coming because you could smell the opium they were smoking. Then they'd just attack with bombs, artillary--he saw people being killed and of the 500 men who'd gone out in his company, only about 200 came back alive. Sounds like he had a serious case of PTSD--he said that no one was in control, everyone's goal was simply to survive, and get as wasted as possible so you could forget where you were because it was so terrifying. He told me about seeing napalm being used (he said if you were down on the ground in an attack you'd be "incinerated" and agent orange. He told me about a very short, underage Polish boy who'd lied his way in and was the pet of the company--he always lagged behind because he was so small but everyone loved him like a little brother. My friend said he had a lot of bravado and felt like he had something to prove, so he signed up for the 101st Airborne--the people who jumped out of helicopters on to the tops of the trees and into the jungle. He was killed 2 weeks into leaving basic training. My friend said "It was 40 years ago but I can SEE him like it was yesterday." He said that a lot of deaths were caused by our own fire because the people in charge were so inexperienced that they would often give incorrect coordinates so our helicopters would fire on us instead of the VC, as he calls them. He also said Vietnan was a beautiful country, especially Penang. He remembered coming back to Brooklyn after basic training in his uniform and have a woman on the street shout at him: "Baby killer!" It was so amazing to hear what feels like history to me in such a personal and immediate way, and the similarities to Iraq are truly striking. Sounds like the same kind of chaos, the same kind of "unintentional" build-up of troops. I was mesmerize. My friend's 89 year old Jamaican mother died 2 weeks ago, and they were very close--he said she was always cooking up akee and jerk fish--so we went from talking about that death to Vietnam. Intense, but I feel as if I've really gotten to know him better and understand his life a bit more. He's in a good place now, but I think post-war, he had a really hard time of it. He said that you couldn't apply for a job and tell people you were a Vietnam vet--people assumed you were an addict. And, he added, you usually were.

In any case, I woke up feeling extremely down in the dumps this morning, and wasn't looking forward to schlepping out to Queens, and I'm so glad I did. We had a sad conversation, but it felt very rich and genuine and it felt good to make a connection and get out of my head. I have to force myself to go out and interact when I'm feeling down because I inevitably feel better afterward; I find interacting with other people mostly energizing.

So, this day which started as a Bad day has morphed into a Very Good day.
Ciao,
Paola
P.S. That's little Mira, above, in Montauk this weekend. She is recently five.

Happy Birthday to me!

Today is my 44th birthday, a nice even number, smack in the middle of my life. (I could see living to 88, most of my grandparents did.)
Life is good.
Shared the weekend with friends at our favorite Montauk digs, the Sunrise Guesthouse. The forecast was forboding: thunderstorms from Friday afternoon to Sunday. Never happened. We spent the entire time on the beach, going for walks and swimming (water was warm and not too rough). Had lobster at Duryea's a dockside byob place on a bay, ate pancakes and ice cream cones, did yoga on the sand. (It was very SELF-y in some ways--and un SELF-y in others, I must admit.
This weekend has some pain in it, because my birthday (or the night before) was my anniversary with the ex. But I felt surrounded by people who cared about me, grateful for the found-sunny weekend, and excited about the next few months finishing up the book. I'm actually almost there--I have 28 essays in! Need to buckle down and finish up, but it feels like pleasure, not business.

I would like to find love this year, or at least get to flirt a lot!
Ciao amici--
Paola

A meeting of the minds, in suits! (bathing suits, that is)

Yesterday, a group of SELF editors convened at a sun-filled spot to engage in some very SELF-y activities: workout, play tennis, run, swim laps, eat salads (and dessert!), read, talk, gossip about celebs and appreciate each other and the magazine we work for. It was extremely energizing, and relaxing. A good way to work-and-play on a summer day.

Ciao!
Paola

Wanna read about the day from the perspective of SELF's editor, Lucy Danziger? Check out her blog.http://www.self.com/livingwell/blogs/editor/

That gratitude thing again

I had an amazing talk with a friend in D.C. tonight. I was feeling blue all day, bruised (a bit) by reentering the dating fray, and even a beautiful run around the reservoir in Central Park couldn't cure me. Then the phone rang, and it was my friend, who had wise and comforting things to say about breakups. He reminded me that breaking up doesn't mean the love never happened, and that nobody can take that away. He said how lucky I was that I've been able to experience transcendent love several times in my life when some people never feel it once. It sounds a bit basic, but I realized that it was a nicer way of looking at the breakup--through the prism of what I gained rather than lost. (It's that gratitude thing again--it's the hot new emotion among happiness researchers.) And I gained a lot, including things that enabled me to come up with a book about sex (Behind the Bedroom Door) and spend two months working on it in Rome. The absence of it is hard, but now I will hopefully get to experience it again, for the first time, and there is nothing quite like that. I look forward to it.

Ciao!
Paola

P.S. I'm showing off by posting the picture of clouds, above, that I took in Cinque Terre--I thought it was pretty transcendent!

Home improvement

I got a burst of energy this weekend (perhaps because I slept til almost noon on Saturday, and fixed up my apartment. My friend Millicent helped me hang several prints I'd gotten in Europe and rearrange others, then I made a major impulse buy. There is a great new furniture store on around 100th and Broadway with fair-trade furniture. Really unique and beautiful stuff from recycled wood. So I got a chest of drawers/hutch type thing and I've decided I'm going to leave it mostly empty now. I need to make room for another person in my life, so we will see who (or what )fills it. It also feels very luxurious to have a bunch of unused storage space in a New York City apartment. I also rearranged the office portion of my bedroom, moving the bookcase and some photographs. I'm very happy with all the results.

Also hung these two very special photographs I bought in Berlin side by side over my dining room table. They remind me of stained glass windows, only they are fragments of photographs taken by the artist, pieced together. The more you look at them, the more you see.

It's nice to now be surrounded by so many reminders of my trip--Vernazza and Siena in the bedroom, a little more Siena over the couch, some Berlin in the dining nook, with a final large Berlin print from the Bauhaus museum to follow in a few days. It felt very important to make a post-breakup change of significance around this place.

Going on a date with a new guy tonight. Two in one week--I guess I'm really dating. I don't know whether to say YIKES or YIPPEE!
Ciao--
Paola

Mia and Paola

I went on a date tonight!!! So wild and odd and strange and a little scary and sad but also somehow fun to be dating again. That is all I'll say. (There are eyes on this blog, even if only a few pairs of 'em.) Then I got to come home to my cozy apartment and hang out with my friend MP (aka Mia), who is in from Andes (in the Catskills) for the night. And debrief about the date!!! What could be better?
Buona notte amici!
Paola