If you’ve ever wondered why people in cities like New York, Chicago and Boston wear dark colors in the winter (and often in the summer, too), it’s because we don’t see the sun. Color doesn’t seem to go with a sunless sky. Travel to a southern clime, say Miami, the Caribbean or Mexico, and the streets are popping with color.
Phooey, I say. Black, brown, navy and charcoal may be sophisticated, but color is happy, uplifting and beautiful, especially on a rainy day. This morning, I popped on my orange slicker from San Francisco Clothing and hot turquoise Hunter rain boots and away I went. While most everyone was looking as dreary as they probably felt, my colorful gear made me feel perky. It even solicited a few smiles.
You don’t have to be at all wacky (my nephew, Max, calls me “Wacky Aunt Geri”) to wear color. Try it. It’s fun. It’s definitely a way to be FOF.
Neil was in my eighth grade homeroom class and he made my heart flutter whenever I thought about him. He was shorter than I, but he had the cutest face in the world. When we took a class trip to Washington, DC, he told me I was a “nice girl” as we were exiting the bus to see the Lincoln Memorial. I was beside myself. I stared incessantly at the trip photos for months. I vaguely remember Neil to this day.
By tenth or eleventh grade, my heart moved onto to Fred. He was heads taller than Neil, a bit gawky, but oh so cute. I recall his straight dark hair and dark eyes. We were friends but he was definitely not physically attracted to me.
Smart and well mannered, Mark was attracted to me in twelfth grade, and I heard that he wanted to ask me to the prom. Sadly, I wasn’t attracted to him. I went to the prom with some friends.
David asked me out the first day of classes at NYU and we dated for months. He thought I was the world’s greatest beauty, and acted like a puppy around me, but I couldn’t will myself to return the feelings. He was cute, with curly dark hair and a round face, but I just didn’t feel the spark. When I told him I thought we should stop dating, he looked like the world ended. I still remember his face when I gave him the news.
I met gorgeous Barry when I was a sophomore at NYU. He had blond hair and blue eyes, fair Irish skin and a drop-dead smile. I thought I would faint when he wanted to have sex with me (his girlfriend was away), but nice Jewish girls, in 1966, weren’t sleeping with anyone before marriage, no less Irish Catholic boys. I don’t know how I ever got over Barry. He married his girlfriend.
Douglas, another blue-eyed blond, asked me out when I was a junior and I was attracted to him right away. This was the first time I paid attention to traits other than looks . Douglas made me laugh, he was smarter than I and he lived in Manhattan, which I thought was pretty cool. We married, had two children, divorced and are now friends. I still like his face.
Edgar’s face got me from hello on the plane ride from Atlanta to New York. Even when we parted 12 years later and he was grossly overweight and lived with Beverly behind my back, his face still got to me.
Leon looked like Robert De Niro. Enough said. But we didn’t last because I met David.
David and I connected through match.com. When I first saw him, I was disappointed. He’s completely bald with a big nose. I later learned he wasn’t attracted to me either, because he thought my curly hair, and outfit, made me look a little like a wild woman. We’ve been together over eight years.
What’s really behind our faces?
When I moved to the upper east side of Manhattan 20 years ago, it didn’t resemble a strip mall. Now, the following massive stores have opened, all within one block of each other: Staples, Best Buy, Sephora, Barnes & Noble, Petco, Verizon, H&M. There also are five huge drug stores steps from each other, including two Duane Reades.
The emergence of Wal-Mart in the seventies sounded the death knell for mom and mom stores. Remember the local housewares/hardware store, where you could buy everything from a hammer to a hair dryer, knew the owner and trusted his advice about the best widget for a job you were doing around the house? Or the local gift shop where you could find the perfect present for Aunt Sue’s birthday? I loved the local bookstore, too, because it felt like a book club.
Stores today aren’t only massive; they’re stuffing themselves with so much stuff, you can barely tell what they are. CVS added grocery cases stocked with everything from milk to prepared salads and frozen pizza. Barnes & Noble sells board games, stuffed animals and Godiva. I’m sure Petco is trying to figure out what to add to steal customers from Sephora. (Buy your lipstick when you’re buying your kitty’s litter box.) Costco sells $30,000 diamond rings next to the bulk toilet paper and Staples sells cleaning supplies next to the copiers.
It’s a big mess. I have no idea how all these places manage to survive, but I predict many of them will be history soon enough. Chaos has a way of sorting itself out. It’s the storm before the calm, something we all need.
What if your daughter (or another young woman you dearly loved) called hysterically to tell you she and her long-term boyfriend, fiancé or husband were ending their relationship?
On one hand, you might be secretly glad because you never liked him, anyway, and don’t believe he’s worthy of her. On the other, you might be secretly hysterical, too, because you think he’s the greatest but thought she’d screw something up because she can be difficult. Then again, you’re completely surprised because you thought they had a relationship made in heaven.
Chances are, you’ll be saying the wrong thing, no matter what you utter. She’ll need time, more than anything, to get over the shock, disappointment, trauma, hurt, and whatever else she’s feeling. I went into full hysteria mode when my college boyfriend, Douglas, told me he was breaking up. My mother comforted me with these words: “Don’t worry. You’ll get married someday.” I did get married someday, to Douglas, so she was right, but her words were about as soothing as an injection prior to a wisdom tooth extraction. I don’t remember what she told me when I announced we were divorcing, but it was probably along the lines of: “Don’t worry. You’ll get remarried.”
“When I told my mom that Joel and I were calling it quits, she advised me to ‘take it slow, not to rush out to find someone else,’” Lina said. “I did just the opposite,” she remembered with a chuckle. FOF mom, Terry, actually cried after she heard the news because she was so fond of Joel, but Lina didn’t know about that till later. The couple reconciled and are now married and parents to 16-month old Edie. Everyone is happy.