I’ve been avoiding actually reading the book, fearing that my realization that the Eric Powell of Julie and Eric Powell is actually someone I know will make hearing the details of their marital issues a little uncomfortable.  And it’s true, it does – both because I know him and because MAN do I love hearing about other people’s lives.  The fact that I get this much enjoyment out of essentially spying on a friend is awkward.

When I saw the movie, I had no idea the story involved anyone I knew.   Scott and I saw it together, rushing straight to Barnes and Noble for the cookbook afterwards. The two of us spent some time trying to figure out:

1. How to make this blog read by hundreds and hundreds, ensuring my fame and popularity and reputation as a hilarious and brilliant social critic, leading to wealth and fame and someone adorable playing me on screen, preferably Maggie Gyllehnall

and

2. What kind of year-long project we could possibly take on in order to assure this inevitability.

“There’s nothing I can think of,” Scott moaned.  “I guess … in a year … I could make a whole ZOO of balloon animals!”

Eric and I went to college together, and we weren’t actually friends.  We knew of each other, we had some mutual friends, he lived down the hall at one point.  We became friends at our 10 year reunion:  both of us had married our high school sweethearts, and both of us were watching our marriages fall apart.  We didn’t discuss specifics, but we found each other, and it was comforting. It’s different, when you’ve been with someone since you were 15.

A couple of weeks after seeing the movie, I was lurking about on Facebook and saw that a Julie Powell had left a comment on my friend Michael’s page.  “Whoah,” I thought.  “How does Michael know Julie Powell?”  I clicked to her profile, which was private – but showed our friends-in-common.  “Hey!” I thought.  “Eric knows her too!”  Pause.  “Eric … Powell.”  Pause.  “Like in the movie.”  Pause.

I remembered the last time I had seen Eric, a year or so ago.  He had mentioned that his wife had written a book.  He had mentioned that the book had been optioned.  It was going to be weird, he said, because a lot of the book was about their lives.

Surely, though, if one’s book is being made into a movie with MERYL STREEP – surely, one mentions that.

I started googling “Julie Powell”, “Julie and Eric Powell”, and “the real Eric and Julie Powell.”  And yup, there’s Eric.  Huh.  This movie, this story, this was about someone I knew.

The movie, of course, focused on the blog, on the cooking, on Julia Child herself.  There was an allusion to marital distress, but the down and dirty was left out.  And now I’m listening, in Julie’s voice, to the marriage issues I didn’t hear the details of at Vassar five years ago.

One of my closest friends found out last month that her husband just ended a three-year affair.  She doesn’t know what to do.  She’s in the kind of distress that hurts to just hear about.  I’m three thousand miles away and don’t know what to tell her.

Since that reunion, my marriage has ended, and Eric’s is doing quite well.  This is something, honestly, I cling to – relationships can make it.  “Here’s what’s happened to my friend,” I emailed him a few days ago.  “This is awkward and personal, but is there anything you can tell me that I can pass on?”  “Remember that nothing is as bleak as it seems now,” he replied.

I’m heading to my next reunion in about twelve hours.  Five years ago, when I last saw this campus and these people, I wasn’t doing terribly well.  I was in the death-throes of a fifteen-year relationship. I looked terrible.  That’s changed.  In fact, everything’s changed.  All that was true – I lived in California, I was a teacher – all these things have changed, not just that which was unhappy.

There are days when I think, I am 36, what am I doing?  Is this my life?

There are days I think, I am 36, and this is my life.  This is what I’m doing.

But I’ve been on the 35L when several passengers took great pains to warn incoming riders against a seat recently vacated by a suspiciously damp and smelly gentleman.  I’ve commiserated with seatmates on stalled subway cars, been offered the use of a personal roll of tape at the UPS office, and been caught while falling on a crowded C train.  There’s a man I pass standing in his doorway every morning on my way to yoga.  We’ve never met, but he talks to me as if we have.  No greetings or preambles, he just launches into the middle of the conversation.  “That kid just signed to play for the Major Leagues?  Right from our street.  Lived just there.  Can you imagine?”  Then he waves as I move out of earshot.

Maybe the sheer number of people means there’s more potential to feel disconnected, but can’t it mean there’s more potential to connect as well?

When I got on the F train at 7th Avenue, headed towards Manhattan, it was nearly empty, and I stacked my bags next to me on the double seat at the far end of the train.  Larry the Cat, in a fit of pre-Christmas hysteria, had chosen 4 am to unwrap all the presents under the tree, then drag the tissue around the living room before eating it, so I was sleepy and not paying much attention to the rest of the car.

I closed my eyes, and when I opened them, the train had filled.  An older woman was standing at the bar next to me.  Speedily, I moved my bags to my feet.  “Oh,” she said, as she fell into the seat, “you looked at me and just KNEW I’d had a long day.”

Why, she continued, was everyone so CRANKY today?  Everyone! The post office, the library, everywhere she’d gone.  It was making her feel bad about the world.  “Now I,” she said, “I try to smile at everyone.  I try to be nice to them all.  What’s the point, otherwise?  There’s just no need to be cranky like that.”

Maybe, I postulated, they’d had a really, really terrible day.  Maybe something awful had happened to them and they’re just trying to get by.

She looked suspicious.  “Well, now, that’s a thought.  But all of them?  I don’t know.”

She settled back, adjusted her scarf, and kept talking.  I tried to participate in the conversation – see!  Not everyone’s unfriendly! – but it wasn’t really necessary.  She just wanted to chat, it didn’t matter if I chatted back or not.

She lives in Harlem now, but that was a mistake, moving out of Brooklyn.  And what’s the point, since she still goes back to Brooklyn for everything she needs anyway?  That’s where the stores are she knows.  Look at her, on the train for an hour just to get home from running her errands.  She lives alone, but she likes that.  The kids are grown, and it’s nice to have some quiet.  She’s abstinent now, also.  Might as well be, at her age, but she has an ex-boyfriend who keeps sniffing around, thinking he knows where X marks the spot.  “I told him, honey, you just need to dig elsewhere.  I gave up on all that, because I want to find myself.”  She paused.  “Well, no.  I found myself a long time ago – I just want to confirm it.”

Her stop came before mine, and she stood, trailing off in the middle of a story about her son, waving goodbye, hoping I had a good night.  And the train was quiet.

In fairy tales, the sisters meet an old woman:  by the well, asking for a drink of water; by a stream, asking for help across; in a forest, asking for a bite of bread.  She’s really a fairy, and the sister who ignores her is punished, the sister who listens, rewarded.  What if this is our equivalent – the woman on the subway wanting a chat?  What if our test is not to offer a drink of water, but to be willing to put down the phone or the book and be together, in the same space?  To be willing to say hello?  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the old woman by the well now wanders New York’s subway lines, sitting beside commuters to see how they’ll react?

Fairy tales tend to have pretty basic morals.  There’s no reason to not pay attention to them, still:

Follow through on your promises.  Don’t try to kill your stepdaughter or your wife.  Don’t underestimate the youngest son.  And be nice to everyone, because you never know who’s a fairy in disguise.

Now I live here.  Take THAT Coney Island – you can’t keep me away.

Was it all I had hoped?  Well, there were bras made of koosh balls, yes.

Participants kept things topical:

It was kind of hard to see, especially that fifteen minutes of standing my ground while a tiny Asian lady tried to body slam me out of my place.  Sure showed her.  These guys didn’t have that problem.

In general, there were remarkably few topless participants.  And really, wasn’t that why we were all there?

I did have my first mango-on-a-stick

just before the cart was closed down.

The Russian pirate-themed sushi place we ended up at was pretty nifty too.  Although I don’t like beer, so I didn’t have one of the impressive liter jugs.

New York is neat.

Still, there are moments in which everything comes together in a beautiful and harmonious and magical way.

Why, yes, that is a bucket-perched evangelist taking a break from his screaming argument with a group of androgynous teenagers beside a crowd of singing Amish whilst the Free Hugs guy leaps about in the midst.

And you can’t even SEE the clown passed out on the sidewalk behind me.

So it’s true, I guess, in some ways.  I mean, there aren’t a lot of Amish in California.

Of course, who doesn’t like finger puppets?  They’re festive, accessible, portable, and easy to find.  With little to no effort, one can find (and I have) plastic pigs, Jesus, Frida Kahlo, the naked king from “the Emperor’s New Clothes”, Lao Tzu, and either Romeo or a Pirate, depending on how you look at him.

Today, my package from oytoys.com arrived with my brand new Passover Ten Plagues Finger Puppet Set.

Words cannot express the many, many things I feel about this.

Why, yes, that is me, smugly showing off my dead baby finger puppet.

There are, of course, some artistic choices that puzzle me.

The hair on the boils – ok.  I can see that.  But hail appears to have a tail.  And his head is on fire, which seems unlikely, since he’s made of water.

And why is the louse masturbating?  Isn’t he too busy for that, what with being a plague and all?

These are excellent gifts for children, all around.  Perhaps my nephew needs a set.

feeling more and more stabby every week.

I suppose one could argue it’s marginally better than the place next door:

but I suspect I’m the kind of girl who prefers tainted drink to poor grammar.

Everyone should have a hobby.  I am so pleased you have found one.  I do wish, however, you had not chosen clogging, which is the only explanation I can find for the intervals of consistent rhythmic pounding – with occasional crashes – taking place above my head this afternoon.

I like Law & Order too, which I think is pretty common knowledge.  That BUM BUM, thing, though – it’s kind of loud.  It’s especially loud when the TV is turned up to full volume.  It’s especially, especially loud when the TV is turned up to full volume and pressed against the window to the airshaft right outside my bedroom.  It’s not terribly pleasant waking up because you think Mariska Hargitay is breaking into your apartment.

And, finally,

Love is a wonderful thing.  As is sex, with or without the former.  I am especially pleased that you have chosen to think about your health and play it safe.  But really – are trash cans so hard to come by, on the upper floors?  Is there really a pressing need to drop your used condoms onto my fire escape?  What if I had a plant out there, man?

Please remember the ground floor dwellers,

Yours,

Gina

Single gloves, they’re everywhere.

All winter, a small army, waving from fenceposts.

“Hello, winter.”

“Goodbye.”