La migra
Not having a green card means:

1. Arriving at JFK in the middle of the night and immediately feeling like a criminal.

2. Spending a chunk of your vacations queuing in the US Embassy to get your paperwork renewed.
3. Crying in the US Embassy at least once a year. Because you’re jet-lagged and they’re fucking with you.
4. Listening to an immigration lawyer who, while excellent, talks at quarter-speed so that you become intensely aware of being on the clock. Restraining yourself from yelling ‘Spit it out, goddamnit!’
5. Eventually marrying your long-term fianc&eacute at eight weeks notice in order to get a crummy student spouse visa.
6. Furtively starting a company under the sketchy ‘Actively managing investments’ spouse visa provision.
7. Having no choice but to work in technology (on the bright side: it saved me from literary publishing, where I might have progressed to refilling the editor’s stapler by now).
8. Listening to white upper-middle class Americans who can’t understand that you don’t have a green card because—whisper it—you’re one of us.
9. Dealing with well-meaning friends who suggest sabbaticals, career changes, major relationship shifts without understanding your indentured slavery.
10. Suppressing your deeply-held belief that you are special and deserve special treatment.
11. Having your social security card stamped with stern warnings about your alien status.
12. Not being able to run for president.
13. Having to explain that no, you can’t just have a baby and become a citizen.
14. Being a stranger in both your homes.

In the Clinton St. park today, a fat baby boomer pushed a three-year-old girl in a stroller. As she passed people sunning themselves on the benches, she barked. I’m scared of dogs, so I looked up immediately to see if the terrier was on a leash. But it was just a little girl with ringlets, barking convincingly and making scary dog faces until we laughed.

In the Clinton St. park today, a fat baby boomer pushed a three-year-old girl in a stroller. As she passed people sunning themselves on the benches, she barked. I’m scared of dogs, so I looked up immediately to see if the terrier was on a leash. But it was just a little girl with ringlets, barking convincingly and making scary dog faces until we laughed.

Makes a nice light snack
My Canadian friend Glen is a close reader of dervala.net. A little Bond villain case of joy arrived by courier today (his birthday!). I’ve already eaten four. Make that five.

Burp, eh?

‘So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.’
Mark is reading The Great Gatsby for the first time. Now I want to read it again too. It never seemed like a period piece, but when I first read it twelve years ago, Gatsby’s world was far-removed. After five years in Silicon Alley, it’s immediate. Parties where no one knows the host. Self-invented men with mysterious money. Lots of observers, and lots of hangers-on. And careless people, like Tom and Daisy, who smash things up and retreat back into their money.

‘Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther….. And one fine morning- ‘

Om
I did my first all-day silent meditation retreat. From 10 until 4, we sat cross-legged in a Chelsea loft. Every half hour or so, the teacher struck a prayer bowl and we minced around the room in an awkward walking meditation. Clasp your hands. Step, watch your heel connect, then the ball of the foot, then your toe. Feel your back knee bend, pushing off into the next step. We beginners stole furtive looks to make sure we were walking just right.

At lunchtime, we filed out in silence and filled our plates. We took our places again and waited for the gong to begin eating. A cajun chicken sandwich in the sangha is surprisingly loud. We ate with heads down, embarrassed by our cud-chewing. The teacher would sound the gong again when everyone had finished, and I wasn’t brave enough to hold up the group with my precious cookie, saved for last, when it turned out to be extra-crunchy oatmeal.

By two o’clock, I was trapped with a madwoman bully who made endless lists and fretted over that cookie. She berated me for my lack of connection but refused to let me stay anywhere for two seconds at a time. She zoomed from the future to the distant past. She sang Love is the Drug over and over, when I was supposed to be pure and centered. If she were my roommate, I would evict her. I tried a chant instead.
  ‘May all beings be happy and free…May they be free from suffering and the causes of suffering…‘
She butted in again, this time with Cameo’s Word Up.

Now all you sucker DJs who think you’re fly
There’s got to be a reason and we know the reason why
Why you put on those airs and you act real cool
Got to realise that you’re acting like fools
If there´s music we can use it
You’re free to dance
We don’t have the time for psychological romance
No romance, no romance, no romance for me mamma
Come on baby tell me what’s the word

My knees ached. There were stabbing pains in my back, as if I’d been hung from a coatrack under each shoulderblade. My left foot was asleep. I wanted to moan. Then somebody did.

 ‘Ohhhhhh….uhhhhhhhhhh…..’

We shifted on our cushions, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. Outside the door, in the sangha changing room? Was this some weird Buddhist thing? The moans continued. It was clear now that our upstairs neighbor was having a better time than we were.

 ‘Ohhhhhhhh……God…..ohhhhh….’

The heating pipes clanked in chorus as she got louder. Sunlight streamed through the loft, and we slouched a little. Breathless was much more interesting than breath. We waited. Was she done? Was she alone? We couldn’t hear anyone else.

She kept going for a quarter of an hour, rising and falling like a Vivid Vixen. By the end, I’d forgotten my breathing completely and was busy sending her thoughtwaves of joy. I think it worked.

Why I haven’t posted lately
I couldn’t register my brand-new Sony laptop in January because the online form didn’t recognize a wireless LAN connection.
‘No dialtone,’ it bleated. ‘Cannot connect!’
‘Well, of course there’s no dialtone,’ I said. ‘You think I would buy a sexy little laptop like you and then hook it up to AOL? This isn’t 1996.’
‘I can’t hear you. Are you plugged into the phone correctly?’ said my laptop.

Next I tried the Sony web site from my work PC. I floundered through their popup windows for twenty minutes before realizing their online registration didn’t cover my model. Their phone support for registration was a 900 number. I gave up.

Because they couldn’t pimp my demographic information, Sony didn’t extend my 90-day warranty. On day 91, the Borgs blew up the laptop on cue. I shipped it back to San Diego, world headquarters of hardware evil, and the service center called me yesterday to ask me to authorize a $768 repair charge on my $900 computer. Plus $27.95 shipping.

I alternate between deep breaths and blind fury. Blind fury feels better.

And since to look at things on Broome
Thirty springs is little room
About Nolita I will go
To see Kate Spade’s new rattan totes

I am going to die on Monday, July 12th, 2032.

This death clock ticker is surprisingly comforting. It reminds me of the AE Houseman poem, Loveliest of Trees, whose nursery rhyme beat hides the precocious wisdom of a twenty-year-old who understands he won’t live forever. No speeding around the cliffs of Monte Carlo in a sportscar for Houseman: he’s going to do the English equivalent of Vermont leaf-peeping instead. And more power to him.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

Manhattan: The New Brooklyn
When I get a weekend phone call from a 212 area code, I get suspicious. ‘Jesus, do I know any bankers or lawyers?’ This week’s Time Out New York confirms it all.

“Tired of living in the shadow of the brave new world across the bridge, Manhattan strikes back.”

The Millionaire Next Door
Now that Vindigo is charging for a (formerly free) service, the nutters are emerging. Our receptionist just sent around this cheery little message:

“I just got a call from a woman who wanted us to make an exception on the March 31st Palm offer [introductory $5 off $24.95]. She expressed her refusal to pay for the full service stating that she wanted to spend $19.95 or zero. To my dismay, she went on to say that she drives a Ferrari and that she doubted that I did.

I encouraged her to sign up for Vindigo 2.0 regardless and told her I had no interest in her taste in automobiles.”

I don’t drive a Ferrari because I spend all my money on Blogger Pro. But I enjoy its creativity with my datestamps.