14 Paper Clips

 The first item of clothing to go. Farewell, fitted waistlines.

I am blessed, and I know that. The first trimester of my pregnancy has been easy. The nausea has been limited, and limited to just that: nausea. The only foods I have actively not wanted to eat, sweets and Mexican food, are hardly depriving the little one of valuable nutrients. I've been tired often and a little uncomfortable now and then, but if those are my biggest complaints, well, see sentence # 1.

Overall, it has been a very positive experience so far. I really like being pregnant. I feel fuller, more meaningful. I live a small life, and I can't help but think that creating this baby - and any others that follow it - is probably the most noble thing I will ever do. I feel powerful.

I also feel anxious. I look at my flaws and weaknesses and hate the thought of passing those on to my child, or seeing them affect my child's quality of life. I worry that something will go wrong in the next months, that the brain will stop forming or the umbilical cord will get wrapped around something it shouldn't be wrapped around. And six months? Only six months left to prepare? That seems really close, and a mere four weekends from now it will be five months.

Luckily (again, I'm blessed), my excitement and faith that everything will turn out fine generally win out over the anxieties. The baby is 8 centimeters long already! It weighs around 14 grams (paperclips)! I have heard its heartbeat, and seen it move its arms. This is good.

Loew

Germany played its third game in the World Cup today. I wasn't able to watch, but Oliver filled me in on all the details this evening. They won, and they'll play again this weekend. Woo hoo! Can't wait to watch... and that's in no small part because of this guy:

Joachim Loew, the coach. Look at him! I just love him. Windswept hair, dapper coat... and that scarf! I can't process this. 

...And is that a gold bracelet on his arm?

I grew up with this guy as my archetypal coach:

Oops, mistake. Wrong picture. Sorry about that. I actually meant to post this one here:

Jowls, mustache, heft. Mike Holmgren wouldn't be caught dead in a peacoat.  And he definitely wouldn't wear some fancy little pair of Italian leather loafers. Hand the man a Starter jacket, put a clipboard in his beefy man paws, and he'd be set to go.

Oh Joachim, what will you wear for the next game? Will it be that fitted, cornflower-blue sweater from game 1? A killer suit, perhaps? I look forward to Sunday.

Decompressing

The view in the early evening.

Last weekend we finished up our whirlwind 5-weeks-of-entertaining-and-traveling spectacular. We were in Fargo, North Dakota for a wedding, and it was fantastic. I've got such a cool family; I can't believe I don't see them more often. It's frustrating to live so far from all your relatives. Why can't I just live in Wisconsin, Michigan, North Dakota and Germany all at once? (And somewhere crazy and foreign too. I can't be tied down!) Maybe then visits wouldn't be "an occasion" - they'd just be a Saturday lunch or something equally low key. Maybe then I could actually be a regular part of people's lives, and not just a foreign body that sends the occasional note and shows up for weddings and funerals.

But enough of that. This past week has been my time to decompress, and it has been wonderful. Just as wonderful as all the previous weekends, I think. I've come home from work each night and plopped down on the couch, book in hand. I've been lounging with the windows open (and we have huge windows; I really should take pictures of the apartment sometime), just enjoying the sound of the wind in the trees. Occasionally glancing up at the slowly-darkening blue sky, catching the odd glimpse of a plane on its way somewhere else. Listening to my neighbors as they fire up their grills.

I get my energy from quiet and stillness. That's why I vacation in large, silent spaces. That's why being in big groups for too long makes me short of breath. My evenings on the couch this week then, have been a heavenly pause. There are so many things I want to do this summer! We're going to Martha's Vineyard for the 4th of July. We'll spend a couple weeks in Germany and Denmark come August. The World Cup just started. Manhattan and Brooklyn beckon (come... you haven't finished explooooooring usssss...). I want to spend more time in the Bronx. Can we fit in a hiking trip somewhere in New York State? Commotion, noise and movement promise to be constants. This past week of quiet has made me ready for them.

Memorial Day in Detroit

We had originally planned to go camping over Memorial Day weekend. I even checked out a library book at one point on hikes in Adirondack State Park. Back in March though, I was seized with sudden inspiration. A couple emails to my brother, a heads up to Oliver and it was settled: road trip to Detroit. My brother would drive from Milwaukee, we would drive from New York. Simple. Perfect.

As the weekend approached and I told people where I was going, I got a lot of quizzical looks. Detroit? On purpose? Yes, Detroit. On purpose. I've heard so much about the hard times it's going through. You hear about abandoned buildings, rampant unemployment. I wanted to see it for myself. What is it really like? What's an inaccurate stereotype, and what's real?

I can't say that I've got Detroit nailed down (I imagine it takes a little more than 2 days to do that), but I can say that I really enjoyed it. It's got a Midwest industrial feel to it that feels more "at home" to me than New York often does. It's got killer chili dogs. It has an incredible art museum - after 10 years as an art history buff, I finally got to see a Diego Rivera mural (below). 

It has a lively downtown, and great architecture. And yes, it has abandoned buildings. Lots of them. Some of them are surrounded by vacant lots. One building in particular really caught our attention: Michigan Central Station.

 Michigan Central Station was once a major railroad terminal. Today it is 18 stories of nothing. Completely abandoned and going to seed. Every inch of the inside is covered in graffiti, and scavengers have spent the last 20 years pulling out copper tubing, stair railings, and anything else that might have value.

And how do I know that every inch of the inside is covered in graffiti? That's right, my friend. Oliver, my brother and I snuck into the building. We found a piece of loose fencing, crawled under it, and ran for it. A few pictures to help you understand what it was like in there (and I apologize for the blurry ones: we only had a camera phone):

 The entrance, walking into the main hall. Such an amazing space.

 My brother and I walking through one of the many hallways. We had actually joined a "black ops" tour at this point - I'm not sure where these people came from, but the leader was a local guy who comes to the station all the time. He has done painstaking research, and could tell us what just about every room was used for. He has also been cited by the police several times for entering the building.

 A view out a stairwell window - to the bridge to Canada. 15th floor perhaps? No glass in the windows, of course.

 Top floor. The whole floor was one room with these enormous windows running along both sides. I can only imagine what it looked like in its heyday.

The view from the roof.

Oh, the agony.

Do you have a period of time where everything happens at once and totally overwhelms you? That time, for me, is now. I'm overwhelmed in positive ways (mostly), but drained just the same. I've been coming home from work and crashing on the couch, unable to even get up the strength to read a book. And honestly, the strength that compelled me, just a few minutes ago, to write a little bit here is quickly fading. Couch... couch...

The dishes are piling up. I spilled a little oatmeal on the floor this morning and didn't bother cleaning it up. Didn't have the energy. My library books sit on the coffee table, two weeks overdue. Yes, the library is a 5-minute walk from my apartment. No, I will not be going tonight either.

I'll snap out of this soon. In the meantime, here are a couple pictures I took this past weekend at the Jersey Shore. The North Atlantic! I really love it. If I could get my act together I'd go on and on about why I love it (the cold, the gray, the places I associate with it), but meh. 

Friday's sightings

I've lived here, in America's celebrity playground, for two years. I have seen very few celebrities. I am told that they are everywhere, but whatever; I don't see them very often. Andy Samberg once walked in front of me and hailed a cab. Kelly Cutrone passed me on the street sometime back, chastising a young assistant. Josh Charles stared at me once in a FedEx-type store - I tell people he was checking me out, but I think he was actually looking at me with a little bit of disdain. Otherwise, nada.

That is, until Friday. I was working in the Village that day, and as I turned up Lafayette Street I was lost in thoughts of the day and weekend ahead. Alongside me, a man and his young son were running down the street with their dog. They were laughing and playing some sort of "hide and seek" game - I smiled at the sight, then suddenly realized I was smiling at the sight of Liev Schreiber. I felt my face turn bright red and all I could think was "do not let him know that you know who he is! Play it cool..." I'm not sure why I thought this. Maybe I wanted to seem like a real New Yorker? In any event, I walked past him, my heart thumping in my chest. He was so tall! And handsome!

Fast forward to the end of the day. Oliver and I had plans to meet for dinner in the East Village, and I went to Tompkins Square Park to wait for him. It was a beautiful Friday evening - sunny and warm but not too warm. I sat on a park bench with my book, loving the fact that it was finally warm enough to pass the time in a park, rather than a coffee house. "Excuse me," I heard. "I'm sorry to bother you, but I like, love you..." Hm, that sounded like someone talking to a celebrity. I looked up oh-so-casually and saw Justin Long. The Mac guy! He was walking right past me, and I would have had no idea if someone else hadn't called out to him! Again trying to (perhaps) look like a real New Yorker, I looked back down at my book. 

So yeah, I played it cool. But squueeeeal! Two celebrity sightings in one day. I've got to pay more attention to my surroundings. Who else is walking past me?

Looking at the calendar

I've been running around making different plans for different weekends this spring / summer. I sat down today, put it all together, and was a little taken aback. Did I really schedule all these things?

Coming up soon: A friend in town for the weekend. We've got more plans than we know what to do with - it promises to be a spectacular, jam-packed time.

The next weekend: a visit from my parents. I'm trying to craft the perfect itinerary, one that inspires them but does not exhaust them. Two Broadway shows will be involved. Also a tour of the Federal Reserve (that one's for my dad). A tour of Chelsea art galleries perhaps. Possibly a day trip somewhere outside the city. Definitely lots of walking.

The weekend after that: Jersey Shore beach weekend with friends. Promises to be amazing in that way that time with old friends is - nothing special has to happen. You just have to be together.

The weekend following: a road trip to Detroit with husband and brother. Give the good people of Detroit a little of our money, see some of the sights. I rarely see my brother too, so it'll be nice to spend time together.

The weekend after that: family wedding in North Dakota. A chance to see some relatives for the first time in nearly three years. Can't wait to catch up.

Dang! I didn't realize I had it in me to be so awesome!