Macaroni, Redux

I posted this on Father’s Day almost fifteen years back, but it still holds as true today. This year, even if we’re socially distanced to opposite coasts, I’m sending my father transcontinental love and best wishes. I’ve been glad to celebrate so many Father’s Days with him – and even more glad to have him in my life for all the days in between them – and I look forward to hopefully many, many more years, celebrating live and in person, ahead.

When I was growing up, I loved macaroni and cheese. But, for some reason, I believed the dish was best served for breakfast. The strange preference passed to my younger brother as well, and on most weekends, he and I would put in a request for macaroni brunch.

Complicating matters further, however, I liked Kraft’s Deluxe, which featured a large packet of congealed Velveeta, while my brother remained partial to Kraft Dinner and its powdery (even once cooked) orange ‘cheese’.

So, in an act of kindness and child-humoring that astounds me even to this day, my father (official school lunch and breakfast preparer of our family) would brew up two parallel pots, one of each, for my brother and me.

I think of this each Fathers’ Day, and of the countless other big and small wonderful things my father Andrew did (and still does) for us, and realize that, as far as dads go, my brother and I got it really, really, remarkably good.

June 21, 2020

Connected

“Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.”
– Henry Thoreau, Walden

In the academic psychology world, there are two particularly famous, large-scale studies of health and happiness – the Terman Study and the Grant Study, each of which followed cohorts throughout almost the entirety of their lives. And both, in the end, reached similar conclusions: your relationships, and the people in your life, are indeed what matter most. But not just from a happiness perspective; even in terms of longevity, the Terman study observed “connecting with and helping others is more important than obsessing over a rigorous exercise program,” and the Grant study discovered the single best predictor of whether someone would still be alive and thriving at 80 was whether there was currently “someone they would feel comfortable phoning at four in the morning to tell their troubles to.”

Yet modern life – and particularly modern, urban life – seems to transpire against maintaining connections. In the two decades since graduating college, my friends have spread across the country, started families, dived deep into demanding jobs. All of which has made it far more difficult to stay close, especially when my own life and schedule are just as densely packed.

Still, whether in friendships, or for work (where the old ‘it’s who you know’ adage applies as much as ever), trying to maintain those relationships nonetheless has long been important to me. So, as with many other areas of my life, I’ve depended on technology for an assist. For years, I used the CRM system Contactually; since it pivoted towards the real estate world (eventually being acquired by mega-brokerage Compass), I switched to the similar Cloze instead.

The idea of Cloze is simple: you bucket your contacts into groups (whether friends and family or loose connections, customers or vendors, etc.), and then set a frequency with which you’d like to stay in touch with members of that group. Cloze watches your emails and calendar and text messages and calls, and automatically maintains a timeline of your interactions with each contact. And, if the time since the last exchange drifts beyond the interval that you’ve set, Cloze automatically reminds you to reach out.

In normal times, I spend a few minutes each day pinging the people Cloze flags, and I’ve done my best to keep that up despite the lockdown, with emails or texts or calls to a cousin in LA, a former colleague in Tel Aviv, an old friend down in Miami Beach, and dozens of others. Mostly, I’ve just sent best wishes and healthy vibes, my hopes that they’re staying safe and sane through this all. And, in return, I’ve gotten updates on how each is navigating these crazy times, along with kind words and well-wishes in return.

Especially here in NYC, where we’re deep into full terrarium, it’s been excellent to remember how far the world – and my ties to it – extends beyond these walls; to be reminded how lucky I am to have those friends and family, even at a distance. They make the latitudes and longitudes, indeed.

April 27, 2020

TWO

Back in the summer of 2015, after eight years of marriage, I found myself suddenly and unexpectedly single.  Friends and family argued it was for the best, but it still felt like a gut punch.  So I wallowed for a few months.  And then, I got up, shook myself off, and decided to head out on some dates.

The last time I had been single, online dating was still very much in its infancy.  But by 2015, there were more dating sites than I could count.  Over the years, however, I had always loved OK Trends, the great data science / dating psychology blog penned by the founders of OK Cupid.  So, that seeming as good a choice as any, I signed up.

Like other dating sites, OK Cupid allowed users to post pictures, profiles, and personal specifics (age, location, etc.).  But, uniquely, it also presented a huge battery of multiple choice questions.  The queries (like “how often do you make your bed?” or “in a certain light, wouldn’t nuclear war be exciting?”) ran the gamut of relationship-relevant topics, from values and lifestyle, to spirituality and sex.  To sign up for the site, you needed to answer a first 25 or so questions.  Then, as you browsed the site, you could see the full list of questions that any other user had answered. But – and here was the brilliant stroke – if you wanted to see how someone had *answered* any of those questions, you needed to answer (or have already answered) the same question yourself.  Pretty quickly, just by browsing through others’ profiles, most users amassed hundreds of answers.

For each question, OKC also asked which responses you’d accept from a partner, and how important the question was to you in choosing a partner.  From which information the site could use a Bayesian algorithm, and kick out a ‘match score’ between any two users.  In my experience, the algorithm was impressively spot-on.  Anyone with whom I matched at 80% or up would make for a totally pleasant date; above 90%, and it seemed like there might be relationship potential.

So I was particularly intrigued to discover a very cute redhead with whom I was a ‘perfect’ 99% match (the site’s highest possible score).

I spent far too much time crafting an effortlessly casual first message to her.  And, miraculously (even more so once I eventually saw the daily deluge of messages she received, and to how few of those she responded), she quickly wrote back.  After a couple of email exchanges, we set a date for the next week: drinks at a wine bar in the West Village.

I have to admit, I had a crush on her before we even met live – enough so that I spent much of the week nervous that she would cancel.  But, she showed up.  Even prettier in person, she also turned out to be funny, articulate, smart, and well-read.  She had recently moved to NYC after finishing a masters degree in classical vocal performance, so we overlapped on a love of music, and of art of all kinds.  But she was also sporty and outdoorsy, read existentialist philosophy for fun, was a foodie and a dog-lover, dreamed of both adventurous international travel and weekend afternoons on NYC beaches just a subway ride away.  She kept up with my drinking, and my mile-a-minute talking style, matching both in spades.  I was pretty much smitten right away.

On our third or fourth date, we headed to a rock concert at Bowery Ballroom, stopping for dinner before at Freeman’s, a great semi-secret restaurant nearby.  According to her OKC profile, she was “mostly vegetarian,” so I started suggesting veggie-based dishes that we might share. What looked good to her? “The filet mignon.”  But didn’t her profile say she was a vegetarian?  “Well,” she smiled, “it does say mostly.”

After a month or two, we were spending more and more time together.  One evening, sitting together on the couch, I tried to ask, basically, if she would be my girlfriend.  Except I liked her so much that my brain sort of melted down in the process, and I became a completely inarticulate, babbling moron.  I’m pretty sure she had absolutely no idea what I was asking, but she stuck around nonetheless.  We started seeing each other even more frequently.  We headed off to Atlantic City for a long weekend; though the city was terrible (as my brother accurately describes it, “Vegas in a trash can”), we had a truly excellent time together, and I was sad to drop her off at her own apartment at the end, even after dozens and dozens of hours straight in each other’s company.  For Valentine’s day, based on her long-standing love of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, we headed to Montauk.  She found a Clementine-colored hoodie, and, true to the film, even managed to get a mug custom-printed with her photo as a Valentine’s gift.

We started knocking off hikes and climbs of the tallest peaks within driving / training distance of NYC.  We ate our way around NYC, dining in holes-in-the-wall (hole-in-the-walls?) and fine establishments (like a birthday dinner at Contra; along with the truly excellent wine flight, perhaps the finest meal of my life).  We ran the Hudson River trail, cooked brunch, went to jazz shows and art museums, got lost in the stacks of the Strand (like any bookstore, a dangerous place to bring her, as she invariably refuses to leave).

Somewhere along the way, she apparently agreed to my inarticulate ‘let’s go steady’ request, as we moved in together.  My brother (who loves her, as does my whole family), still calls her Jess 99 at times, in honor of that original 99% OK Cupid score.  And, indeed, she’s as perfect a match for me as I could ever hope to find.  Smart, funny, literate, thoughtful, beautiful, articulate, kind.

As of today (or maybe yesterday? it’s a matter of some record-keeping dispute), Jess and I are now two years in, and going strong.  I am, in short, exceedingly in love, and unbelievably lucky to have found her.  Further special thanks go to the fine folks at OKC for the assist; without a doubt, she remains the best online shopping I’ve ever done.

November 2, 2017

Grammy

Back in 2002, I wrote this about my grandmother Anita:

My 80-year-old grandmother makes me look like a slacker and a lazy bum. This is a woman who, living down near Gramercy Park, will regularly walk the hundred block round trip to the Guggenheim Museum. This is a woman who, late in life, returned to NYU not only for a college degree, but for a masters as well. This is a woman who, throughout her 60’s and 70’s, worked at a day facility caring for drug addicts and the mentally disturbed. This is a woman who, now, volunteers at the senior center assisting people ten, fifteen years younger than herself, with absolutely no sense that by all rights she should be the one in the chair being spooned jello rather than the other way around.

And, most recently, this is a woman who, having decided she missed out on her Jewish heritage by not having a bat mitzvah at the customary age of twelve, took it upon herself to learn Hebrew, and, some 68 years later, is holding the traditional ceremony this evening. I’ll be in the audience, wishing her well, and hoping that I inherited some of those genes.

In 2009, I had this update:

On Saturday afternoon, I got a call from my aunt, who was in midtown. By chance, she’d run into my grandmother.

At the time, my grandmother was midway through her afternoon walk. Nearly forty blocks from her apartment where she’d started. Less than five months after she’d been hospitalized and wheelchair-bound for a fractured pelvis.

And, on this, her 94th birthday, I’m thrilled to say she’s still at it. Still sharp, still living on her own in her apartment here in NYC.

I called her mid-morning to ask what she might want for a birthday lunch.

“French fries,” she told me.

Any specific restaurant she had in mind?

“Oh,” she said, pausing. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I was just imagining the french fries.”

We eventually decided on Petite Abeille, an easy jaunt from her apartment. And, indeed, she was pretty psyched about fries. As soon as we’d been seated, a waiter came over to ask if he could get us anything besides water while we looked at the menu.

“I’d love a coffee,” I replied.

“And I’ll take a side of french fries,” she added.

Normally, this is a woman who eats half an apple for lunch. But, today, she was in birthday mode, and socked away all of her order of fries, as well as half of the fries that came with my burger, as well as pretty a gigantic chicken club.

That was apparently more than enough, however; by the time the waiter offered a comped birthday dessert, she couldn’t even look at the menu.

Still, I was thrilled to celebrate with her, and lucky, as ever, to get her wisdom and perspective – after 94 years of living and learning and adventuring, she has amazing insight on so many aspects of life.

So, happiest birthday wishes, Grammy. I (and all of your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren) love you lots.

September 21, 2016

Thankful

Funny-Happy-Thanksgiving-Cartoons-08

This year, as ever, I have a lot to be thankful for. All my love and gratitude to the family and friends who have given me their kindness and support over the last year. Thank you. It means more than I can express.

[And now, as I’m out in California, playing sous chef for my parents’ thirty-person Thanksgiving dinner, it’s time to get cooking. Enjoy your turkey, everyone!]

November 26, 2015

Family Meal

A University of Michigan report that examined how American children spent their time between 1981 and 1997 discovered that “the amount of time children spent eating meals at home was the single biggest predictor of better academic achievement and fewer behavioral problems. Mealtime was more influential than time spent in school, studying, attending religious services, or playing sports.”

November 1, 2015