Nesting and Seeking Cures

I've spent the last few days at home -- because going to work in a healthcare facility housing patients with seriously compromised immune systems is frowned upon when your face is behaving like a faucet and every other breath elicits a coughing fit that leaves you wondering if your insides will stay firmly tethered within your skeleton.  That's not a huge deal, actually, since I like my apartment, have a job that translates well to telecommuting, and am blessed with a terrific team of people who can step up to take on a little more when one of us (me, this time) falters.  But at the same time, I've been in the same 750-square-foot space for most of the last three days and I'm going a little stir crazy. Proven by the fact that I'm still awake at 12:30 in the morning, when I should be totally zonked out with a pair of nursemaid cats cuddled up to my legs.

I love my flat. Sure, it has flaws: a pair of neighbors upstairs (on their way out) who are loud and obnoxious at terribly inconvenient times and are irritatingly inconsistent with disposing of their trash properly (and never learned the meaning of "recycle"); a fifteen-minute walk to the subway which isn't terribly fun after a super-long day (or when carrying 40 pounds of groceries).  But along with those flaws, it has truly terrific features, too: a to-die-for kitchen with a funky-shaped pass-through; wood floors perfect for ballet practice; an enormous back-yard that will be a gorgeous oasis with a few weekends of work; and other, super-sweet neighbors very nearby.

However. A couple of days inside without much reason or inclination to leave (Ravelry last night was lovely, don't get me wrong, but 2 hours out compared with 60 hours in ... you do the math) and a wandering attention to odd little details, coupled with the impending chill of autumn, means that it's time to think about making home more comfortable for winter.

A year ago, when I was first getting really excited about moving to the city, I subscribed to a few dozen urban design blogs. Topics ranged in scope from sustainable urban planning to craftsmanship and interior design to fiber arts showcases, but if there was an element of the domestic involved, I was all over it. What can I say? I'm a Taurus. We bulls are hedonistic about everything, including our space.  I've since dropped nearly all of those subscriptions (hell, who has time to read 137 daily rss feeds when you're living in Gotham?), but there are a few things that I learned to love during my design-aware phase:

• Restoration Hardware
  Maritime-inspired clocks? Leather steamer trunks? A Surveyor's floor lamp? Be still my Steampunk Idolator's heart. (Confession time: the real reason I walk from my office to Union Square twice a week is that I get to walk by the Flatiron store.)
• The Paris Apartment
  I haven't made it to the East Village boutique yet, but the book is one of my favorite "I need to look at something pretty" reads. There have been moments when I've paused with my key in the door, hoping that I would open it to find that my living room had been made over to resemble the Edwardian themes of that of James and Irene's shared space. Alas.
  
• Apartment Therapy
  Not any of the blogs, which I find to be irritatingly pretentious collections of inappropriately cross-marketed advertisements, but the book. A carefully detailed guide for tackling the domestic comfort and aesthetic over a period of time that is short enough to make progress but long enough to not require too huge an outlay at any one time.
  

Dreaming of how to make a space feel more welcoming and cocoonish and luxuriant is clearly one of my greatest pleasures.

Which brings me back to nesting, and the fact that it's fall, and the fact that I have been alone in this flat for going on three days and am going to go stark raving mad if I don't get my voice back very quickly or get up and DO something. To keep myself mentally occupied while staring into space, I've been imagining running the 8-week Home Cure in my bathing room.

I think the bath is a good choice for this project. There are some good bones (love the floor and the tile, and it gets great light), needs some simple repair/maintenance work (the tub and shower need to be re-caulked, the hinges on the door need to be tightened), and could be gorgeous with the right color, hardware, and art -- if placed properly. Plus, with the exception of installing a curved shower rod onto ceramic tile (with "freakishly long gorilla arms" like mine, extra elbow room for hair-washing is greatly desired), I can do all of the work myself.

If I start this weekend, my pre-Thanksgiving week bubble bath will be in an oasis of calm...

In the Kitchen

I'm having a hard time remembering how to cook.

That sounds bizarre, doesn't it? I'm thirty years old; I've enjoyed messing about in the kitchen to feed my friends and family since I was 10 and first made chocolate chip cookies all by myself.  (Mom, Dad, I'm so sorry for mixing up the sugar and salt. Thank you *still* for tasting them with a straight face.) And yet, throughout the almost-six-months that I've lived in the city I have failed to put together a decent meal effortlessly.

My weird eating habits probably don't help, nor does the fact that I gave away 4/5 of my cookbooks prior to moving (Rachel Ray, I *really* miss you right now), nor the fact that I'm suddenly intimidated by sensitive-new-age-guy Alton Brown, nor the fact that I've spent my few real "ooh, let's make a real meal!" cooking evenings trying things I've never made before rather than old favorites. In other words, I'm making an enormous, not-all-that-tasty mess every time I try to feed myself of late, daily habits seem to be making the problem worse, and I'm quite piqued about the whole thing.

So, as with any situation, now that I'm irritated enough I'm taking action. I've subscribed to a couple of food blogs by seemingly ordinary, unpretentious people who knew nothing about cooking when they started and are quite interested in food now that they have a few years of practice under their belts.  And I'm starting at the bginnings of their recipe archives, starting out with simpler, less-intimidating recipes from their earliest record-keeping months.  Have planned my menu and placed my grocery order for this week, and am quite excited about the various cooking forays I have planned.

My qualifications for choosing a recipe: do I love the ingredients, or am I familiar with many while one piques my curiosity? Can the amounts be reduced, or will the meal hold up for left-overs or lunches? Can I salvage something if it goes horribly wrong?

• Jeanne's Roast Chicken with apples and onions
  I adore chicken, and now that it's cool enough to have the oven on for two hours, it's time for a roaster (and stock-making)
  
• Mushroom-Barley Soup (porcini and pearls)
  Have never successfully made barley soup
  
• Chopped Veggie Salad
  Calls for chicken *and* avocado; how can you go wrong?
  
• Pasta Carbonara
  Reading made me realize that I would love to hang with the guys from The Paupered Chef.
  Also, the recipe calls for wine and I want to learn how to drink the stuff without choking.
  

Pancakes are my fall-back if anything goes to hell. Delicious fallback! I also have serious plans to make pita sandwiches from leftover chicken, steel-cut oatmeal with fresh fruit for breakfast now that the weather has turned chill, and a pair of Bosc pairs to braise in remnants of the Seneca Lake wine.

Friends are welcome; entrance fee is music and laughter.

(Read more on "Learn to Cook. Really cook." at 43Things)

Ballet

One of the things that I love best about New York City is the wealth of opportunity to discover something new, something previously unknown.  For the last decade I've heard so many stories about people who wandered one block over from a place they'd lived for years only to find some gem of a shop that they'd never heard of before.  I'll be honest -- I didn't get it. How could you possibly live in a place and not know what existed in the building right around the corner? I don't have an answer yet, but I do understand that it can happen.

Friday was drizzly and gray in the city and dusk crept over us early; fall seems to have arrived suddenly, catching our attention like a change in the wind.  School is back in session, so the subway cars are packed full of more people than have been in place all summer. Between dripping umbrellas, squeaking galoshes, and cranky children, everyone was distracted -- which is a plausibly tidy explanation for why I happened to exit the subway (a different line than I usually take) one stop earlier than I should have. I love my neighborhood so walking through all of it (rather than a mere half) was no real hardship, especially considering that my pirate rain boots and vibrant purple umbrella kept me comfortably dry and happy.

That walk is the best decision that I have made in weeks. A few blocks into my walk, crossing a rather busy thoroughfare, I was distracted by a rather gigantic bunch of soggy but happy-looking balloons tied to the handle of a large, plate glass door. (I still can't get over the quantity of giant panes of reflective glass in this city.)  Unable to resist peeking inside, I saw fliers advertising a dance school open house. Even with that, I nearly walked on -- until I noticed a red and white page taped in the window, titled "Weekly Adult Class Schedule". Thus my love for the Mark Morris Dance Center was born.

Yes, THAT Mark Morris. Ballet choreographer extraordinaire. The brilliance behind Die Fledermaus (operatic choreography), Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes (an absolutely exquisite ballet that I've seen three times), Non Troppo (if only it were possible to pass as a principal dancer in drag), and Sylvia (the only reason I can imagine wanting to travel to San Francisco). The man who, when forming his dance group and realizing the need for a physical space to house the group didn't even consider a formal conservatory, but instead built a Community Dance Center, funded by a designated foundation.

A Center that makes studio, rehearsal, and performance space available for absolutely minimal fees, to anyone with a need for them. A Center that partners with schools, non-profits, healthcare programs, and public housing authorities to provide free classes for youth, seniors, and people with disabilities and their caregivers. A Center that provides a full instructional program for children ages 4 to 17 at minimal cost to families. A Center that provides drop-in classes in all types of dance for adults from bare beginner to professional levels. A Center that is a true home for the Mark Morris Dance Group, where company members interact and share space with instructors, students, and community members of all ages.  A Center where there is a space designated specifically to health and wellness, and another to cross-cultural awareness.

I attended the Open House on Saturday.

I saw a gorgeous series of performances -- a class of tiny children studying Rhythm and Motion; an intermediate student class of lyrical modern; an advanced student ballet duet; and two movements of a new production performed by the MMDG, Modern dance heavily influenced by percussive West African styles.  It was during the performances that I learned about the aspect of dance instruction that made me cry: every class is accompanied by live musicians. The 6 year-olds and the Company danced to a drum circle and a flutist. The other classes to a Piano/Cello/Violin trio.

I took a class in Baroque and Rococo dance, learning the leading steps for the minuet (and then proceeded to dream of dancing as Mr. Darcy through all of Saturday night), which allowed me to realize just how horrendous my posture has become in the last three years of sitting at a computer for 12 hours a day.  And I tested for ballet placement, where I was gently told that my posture, form, and lack of tone would be holding me back for awhile. Nothing I didn't anticipate, but I did feel inspired to pull a book off the shelf to practice shoulder set and neck elongation last night....

Needless to say, I have enrolled as a student in the Adult Advanced Beginner Ballet class, which take place every Thursday from 7-8:30, and in the 18th Century Class, which takes place on the first Saturday of every month and is taught by visiting dance scholars from the New York Baroque Dance Company. I'm still shocked at how much I remembered when the instructor tested me for class placement, and can't wait for my first class next week. More importantly, I am leaping out of my skin with excitement and enthusiasm and the determination to enjoy every single moment.

Weekend agenda: shopping for leotards, tights, and new laces for my split-soles (which are no worse for having been stored in a box for the better part of ten years). If I didn't have enough to do, I might even crochet myself a pair of pink legwarmers, like the pair I lived in the winter Nicole and I danced in The Nutcracker...