The Funeral

No, nobody died. Not yet, anyway. I haven't written all week because I've been sick. Actually, I'm terribly sick right now. To say I'm typing this feverishly would be entirely accurate. I should just lay back and go to bed, but I wanted to put my thoughts out there, however delirious they might seem when I'm back in the pink of health.

To escape from the pain of my sickbed, I grabbed my laptop and viewed the finale of Gossip Girl. Yes, it is this generation's Dynasty, but they do make some good musical choices. I happened to hear a cover of my favorite Band of Horses song, "The Funeral."

It's an amazing song, though it's a simple one. I saw Band of Horses not too long ago at their free "secret" show at Grand Central, and hearing them play this song live made an hour of standing there trying to see the band through a grandstand and a camera crew worthwhile. I started to think about what it meant to be "ready for the funeral" at any occasion. On a surface level, it could mean always wearing black, which I pretty much do anyway. But I like to interpret this lyric as one symbolizing an awareness of our own mortality. At any occasion, I'll be ready for my own funeral. Essentially, it means I've made my peace with the fact that I'm going to die at some point.

Pop music tends to project the opposite message in general ("Forever Young"). Radio hits are driven by infectious melodies and rallying beats that lift us up from the drudgery of life and appeal to our inner teenager (the one who doesn't care about anything and believes that she is immortal). There are exceptions, of course, but generally morbid music makes its appeal to brooding outsiders.

What I love about "The Funeral" is that it makes the eventuality of death a beautiful thing. It's the essence of folk music; the constant mourning juxtaposed with the sense that life is truly dear. I have in my music collection a compilation entitled People Take Warning! Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs, 1913-1938. It's a rare chance to connect with history. There are train wrecks, epidemics, high-profile killings, and even the sinking of the Titanic chronicled in this rather depressing box set. These tragedies often end with a hopeful note, however- perhaps the deceased looking down from heaven, or a vindictive glimpse of the murderer as he ascends the scaffold. This is the musical world I dwell in.

Sure, I'll join in for a chorus of "Don't Stop Believin'" on karaoke night. In fact, 80s hair metal is sometimes the only thing that gets me through a slow day at work. But when I'm in the mood to really listen, I seek songs that tell a story, songs that tell the truth. The truth is, we should always be ready for the funeral. We'll go to enough of them in our lives. To constantly think about our eventual death may seem morbid to some, but I think it makes life all the more precious and worth living. My cousin and I were discussing the issue of mortality this weekend on our drive back from the Poconos, and I mentioned an article I had read about a scientist who claims to be working on cellular research with an eye to ultimately conquering death. My cousin, a physician, was not impressed. "It would be one thing to cure cancer," she said, "but I don't know that I would have anything to live for if I knew I would never die."

So a dreamy indie-rock ballad has become my motivator. I think of my short time on Earth and am thankful that I have the chance to experience it yet. I think of my family, of my husband, of my badly-behaved little cat, and the sentiments wash over me. I think of how grand my story will sound in future reiterations- a young writer moving to New York City and living on instant mashed potatoes and ramen, communing with cockroaches in a college dorm that was formerly the cheap hotel where Kerouac wrote of his interracial love affair. And I have to admit, I do have some amazing stories. So yes, I'd say I'm ready. Just please give me the chance to write up the playlist for my funeral before I go.

-B.S.

Review: CAN I REALLY DATE A GUY WHO WEARS A YARMULKE?

I'm taking a break from my usual sour diatribe to make sure you all go to see Can I Really Date a Guy Who Wears a Yarmulke? at the Midtown International Theater Festival while you still have the chance.

Yarmulke is playwright Amy Holson-Schwartz's first production, but it has a sophistication and polish far beyond that of a first-time playwright. The play follows Eleanor, a late-twenties Jewish-but-Atheistic Jane Austen scholar who struggles with her identity when she meets Aaron, a charming young pediatric cardiologist who happens to be Jewish and observant. As their relationship progresses, they delve into what each sees as the other's hypocrisy- Aaron won't flip a light switch on the Sabbath, but he'll eat un-Kosher food at restaurants and is all too happy to engage in pre-marital sex with Eleanor. Conversely, Eleanor loves bacon cheeseburgers and expounds at length on her disdain for her birthright trip to Israel, but checks the "other" box in the racial category of a grant application. There are plenty of laughs along the way as Aaron struggles to overcome Eleanor's aversion to Judaism, but Yarmulke doesn't gloss over the deeper internal battles that occur when one considers mating with someone of differing beliefs. Yes, the play is about Judaism, but I'll venture to predict that even a Zoroastrian could identify with its characters and themes.

Formally, Can I Really Date a Guy Who Wears A Yarmulke? is refreshingly old-fashioned. It has the ease and grace of a Neil Simon comedy, but with a modern bite. The dialogue oozes dry wit, and even though there is a lot of it, I never found my attention wavering. I was reminded of my own experiences back when I was first dating my husband. Though we share a religion, we were raised in different traditions, and during the first few months, we delicately felt out each others' beliefs for compatibility. We danced around issues on which we didn't agree as we got to know each others' minds. It wouldn't have made a play anywhere near as entertaining as Yarmulke, but it enabled me to really experience the range of emotions its characters feel. In our largely secular age, faith is still as important as ever in determining one's mating choices. And the onus to preserve the purity of the Jewish culture is perhaps just as strong as it was 4,000 years ago (unless you happen to have snagged the daughter of a former president, perhaps). Jewtopia exploited this to great comic effect a few years back, but Yarmulke does so with a lot more brains. Let's hope that "one season follows another" and this play gets a full run, but there are still four more performances at the Beckett Theater. Click Here for details.

A Healthy Dose of Salt Air

Today I noticed that my daily Groupon was for salt air therapy treatments at a new salt air spa. What? I had to take a look. I had never heard of this spa treatment before, so I googled it. Apparently salt air breathing is the new ancient ethnic thing that Western allergy sufferers will be spending their money on. One can also obtain a salt inhaler online, which claims that it is based on an "age-old" treatment for asthma, bronchitis, whooping cough, hayfever and colds. Whooping cough? Haven't heard of that in a while. But other websites give a much more scientific explanation of what salt air therapy is (a.k.a speleotherapy from the Greek speleos, meaning cave).

Apparently back in old Russia, if your Uncle Vanya came down with a case of whooping-cough, you would take him up to a cave in the local salt mine to take the cure. The Wieliczka Salt Mine in Poland was active from the 13th century until 2007, and today is a popular tourist destination because of the elaborate rooms that were added to various empty chambers of the mine. You can view splendors such as The Last Supper carved in salt. Just don't bring a horse with you.



But if you're too broke to make a trip to Poland, or too broke to afford spa treatmeants, you can obtain a salt inhaler, or as some saltier web purveyors call them, salt pipes.

Now the term "salt pipe" tends to put me in mind of an ancient, white-bearded, leathery-skinned fisherman standing on the dock regally after a hard day's labor, a plume of smoke rising in the misty Maine air from the tip of his weathered old pipe. Not so. A salt pipe (or inhaler) actually looks like this:



It doesn't look all that interesting, far less so than the Neti Pot. This lady isn't even smiling. She doesn't look excited about her salt pipe at all. She just looks like she's about to pump hand soap into her mouth. It has none of the freakishness of the Neti Pot. I purchased one a few years ago when everyone was obsessed with them, hoping to find relief from my frequent sinus infections. While even my doctor was plugging it at the time, I didn't notice any improvement. Pouring water into my nose only gave me the sensation that I was drowning. I still use it sometimes, but only when I'm desperate for sinus relief. The salt pipe looks a lot easier to use than a Neti Pot, but I still wonder why a salt crystal encased in a piece of plastic with a mouthpiece attached to it should cost $39.95.

Like most holistic health trends, salt air therapy claims to be derived from ancient wisdom, but I would rather get my salt air while sailing or lounging on a white sandy beach. Still, hanging out in a cave sounds appealing. Hanging out in a spa, not so much.

Here is a tangent that I think you will enjoy: I've never had a good experience at a spa. I'm not fond of the nail salon. Mostly it's because I'm impatient, but it's also because every time I go, I have a bad experience.

My aversion to nail salons stems from an experience I had as a ten year-old. The night before my parents' trip to Curacao, my mom was out getting a mani-pedi. I was at home when the phone rang. "Hello?"

A frantic voice greeted me in broken English. "Your mom... she have a hurt but... she okay, she okay!"

I had no idea what the lady was talking about. "Okay..." I said, and I hung up.

A couple of minutes later, another strange lady rang and asked for my dad. She was a patron at the nail salon who happened to be sitting in the chair next to my mother.. For a few hours I had no idea what was going on, but the story unfolded upon my mother's return from the emergency room.

My mom had been getting a pedicure. The nail technician was using a sharp instrument to remove the calluses from my mom's feet. She cut too deeply and my mom started bleeding. The water was red, and my mom quickly passed out. She awoke to a tiny Vietnamese man patting her hand and calling her name. The paramedics came in. There was tobacco on her toe where one of the salon employees had unrolled a cigarette upon it- some kind of holistic remedy. "Who put that shit there?" one of the paramedics barked. "She'll get sepsis!" A medic fit my mother with an oxygen mask. The air inside the mask was metallic and it made her feel sick. Her consciousness started to waver. One of the parademics checked the tank. "This tank is empty!" They loaded my mom up and took her to the hospital. Her toe was okay and she was able to go on her vacation the next day as planned, but she promptly found a new nail place upon her return. I, however, have never had a desire to put my toes at someone else's mercy.

One thing I used to permit at the nail salon was the simple waxing of my eyebrows. My eyebrows started to grow unruly when I hit puberty, so it was an easy solution, considering I was always waiting for my my mom at the nail salon anyway. By the age of 16 I was quite used to it. Then I washed my face one morning after getting a wax the night before. I was shocked to discover that a huge chunk of my left eyebrow was simply no longer there. The hair had somehow been smoothed with lotion to cover up the bald spot before I left the salon, but after scrubbing my face, there it was, a gaping hole in the middle of my brow. I had to fill it in with eyeliner for three weeks.

Then there was the en suite massage that came with our honeymoon package at our hotel in St. Lucia. It was the only professional massage I'd ever received, and it mostly felt good, except for the part that I remarked on afterward to my husband. "Did they, you know, massage your butt?" (They did.)

The worst spa experience I've had thus far, though, was the well-meaning gift of a facial a few years ago. It started with an electric gun-looking device meant to zap my zits. It felt like a bee repeatedly stinging me in the face. There was one stubborn pimple that hadn't yet formed a head at the crease of my nose, and the esthetician struggled to get it out. She couldn't, but she did manage to make it red, angry, and infected-looking for the next week. After submitting me to this torture, she smoothed my face with mud. Then she put on some form of Celtic Moods CD, rubbed my hands in goo, and stuck blistering hot mitts on both my hands. She left the room to allow me to relax for 20 minutes, but the table was hard, the mitts on my hands were nearly burning my flesh, and the mood CD was profoundly annoying. Yet for some reason, I waited there flat on my back, like a corpse, until my captor returned to free me from my bonds. She showed me a mirror. My face looked like a piece of raw meat. "Your skin is just glowing," she said. For the next week, my face blossomed with enormous zits. It was outrageous.

So you'll forgive me if I've been put off spas for life. I'm just not the type to find those type of things relaxing. I'm not about to pay $25 to get coated in salt air. But I'll imagine doing it and imagine it being relaxing, and I enjoy myself a lot more in my imagination.

The War Within

My brain is always a little slow to start in the mornings, but lately, it's been ridiculous. I could blame the heat, which has us sweating in our underwear as we crank our two little A/C units up to 10. Or an ill-advised ride on the Cyclone at Coney Island this past holiday weekend, which left me with a headache and a strained neck that still feels pretty tender a couple of days later. But allow me to give an example of my own stupidity.

I hit the snooze button one too many times this morning because I had to take care of some dream business before I returned to waking life. While I can't remember if the dream transaction was ever completed, it did make me late. I am not at my best when in a hurry, for the simple fact that I move at a glacial pace in the morning. I typically rise from my bed, stare at the glass of water on my bureau for a few minutes until I realize I am thirsty and remember how to drink it. I'm usually not quite able to calculate how far I need to tip the glass for water to go into my mouth, so I often dribble on or drench myself in the process. Then I go in to the bathroom and sit on the toilet for a while until I realize I sat down there for a reason. Morning eliminations completed, I wash my hands and then stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and pick sleep sand ponderously out of my eyes. How does all that gunk get in there? Then eventually I get to the business of washing my face and applying the various creams, nasal sprays, and deodorizers that keep my skin functioning at its spotty best. While the deodorant dries on my armpits, I shuffle over to my closet and open it. It's always very dark, so I usually stick my hands in and try to find something to wear by feel until I remember that there is in fact a light in there. Once I locate the switch, which can take upwards of 5 minutes, I then stare at the chaos in front of me and think, "Wow, I have clothes." If I haven't planned what to wear the night before, this process can be interminable. I often overlook things like office appropriateness, the suitability of certain kinds of underwear to certain fabrics, or basic color matching when in my morning stupor. I am utterly unprepared to face thoughts such as, "it's hot outside, but cold in the office."

Then I go put in my contacts, which helps a little, considering I rarely think to stop and put on my glasses when I get out of bed. Make-up application is surprisingly a quick and painless process for me, but wiggling into my final wardrobe selection in the morning can be a difficult process. Pant legs and armholes don't seem to match up to my limbs. Often I forget about clothing features meant to aid in the process of dressing, such as zippers and buttons. Then I look at myself in the mirror and realize my outfit needs immediate revision, so I take another stab at it. This process can be interminable.

After feeding the cat and attending to my own feeding (during which I am almost certain to spill sticky, cereal-laden almond milk into my lap), I enter the bathroom to take care of the last part of my routine- hair. I am really terrible at doing my hair. Usually I just sleep on it after showering at night so that I don't have to wrangle with a hair-dryer, which is difficult enough in a morning stupor, but almost impossible given the fact that I have no electrical outlets in my bathroom. When we moved in, there was an extension cord hanging from the bathroom light that looked extremely hazardous, but fortunately I don't care enough about my hair to risk electrocution. I just run a brush through it a few times and get a good haircut every few months and it usually takes care of itself with the aid of a little hairspray. This morning, however, I uncapped a can of hairspray, looked at it, depressed the button and shot a burst of it straight into my left eye. Strangely it didn't really burn, but I did have to rinse out my contact and flush the eye for safety. It still feels a little sticky.

Then, it comes times to transfer items into a purse that matches my ensemble. This is the most hazardous part of the routine. I run down the list. Phone, iPod, book, lipstick, wallet, hand sanitizer, office bathroom key... okay, time to leave. Except, after I have left my apartment building and am crossing the street, I remember what I forgot- my Metrocard. Time to go back upstairs. I shuffle as quickly as I can in whatever insensible footwear I have selected for the day (this morning, it was platform espadrilles). In the courtyard, the lanyard I keep my keys on snags on the ugly chain-link fence around our "lawn" and falls to the pavement. Something is always falling on ground. I pick it up carefully because of my shoes and the fact that my skirt is catching the wind. I go upstairs, briefly wonder why I am in my apartment instead of the subway, and pause for a minute to try to remember my reasons for this alteration in routine. I locate the missing essential object and off I go to work, where I am always ten or fifteen minutes late. Except when I forget the essential object I need and fail to double back for the lunch I packed, which will greet me with a rancid stench upon my return.

Why am I so stupid in the morning? Some may think I'm just not a morning person, but I'm a sourpuss. I'm not an evening person or an afternoon person or a middle-of-the-night person, either. So here's my latest theory: I am schizophrenic, and my other identity is constantly trying to avenge itself because it is not my dominant personality. Sounds far fetched, I know, but there's really no a better explanation.

-B.S.