The Bachelor, Ben Flajnik, sent Chicago girl Elyse Myers packing tonight. It happens. I have (almost) nothing to say about it other than these two things: 1) “What did I do wrong” is “the wrong.” Going there, blaming ourselves for “over,” is our single biggest mistake when we’re rejected; 2) Boca, all of Boca Raton, FL—aside from those with oxygen tanks—looks like this:

Sorry, but it’s true. I’m only 7 months in, and even at this point, I’m also sorry to say, it’s nauseating to look at her, to look at all the “hers”in Boca. Why? Seriously, what is it that’s such a turn off to me? She’s only 24, but she looks like a cougar. I actually feel terrible saying it because I’m sure she’s a lovely person and I don’t mean to take Florida out on the poor girl. But this is mostly what I meet here in Boca. What is it about her that screams Boca, and not, for example, LA? Perhaps it’s not just her photo here, but something else about her on The Bachelor? I doubt it though. When I see the overly tan brunette I think of Boca and half of Turtle Bay apartments in NY (Midtown, East Side – recent grads from Delaware and Syracuse).

At least we have phenomenal  weather. Seriously, to be wearing flip-flops and tanks in January is heavenly. Just dreamy. I don’t like the sun and prefer rainy days, but not having my snot freeze is such a joy. By the way, this is me trying to do positive.

A Pink Escalade Pulls Up To A Nail Salon Demanding a Shellac Manicure

You can tell just about all there is to know about a city based on the goods it sells roadside. Forget the country-wide offerings at seasonal fruit and vegetable stands. Never mind sleeves of multicolored roses, Good Humor umbrellas, or metal carts stuffed with Falafel or street meat. Philly with its cheesesteaks. Aside from pashminas, jewelry, and knockoff everything, the city corners of New York are home to dirty water dogs, jumbo pretzels, and roasted chestnuts (they always smell better than they taste). But beyond its city, “side of the road” doesn’t exist in New York until you wind through bucolic settings that you’ll never associate with New York anyway.

In Austin, on the side of an expressway, there’s a man with teeth as yellow as margarine who sells jerky under a tent. That says it all, no? No? Okay, I’ll play along. Know what else they sell roadside in Austin? CROSSES. No, not fatal accident memorial offerings but decorative crosses for the home, plus an extensive line of ornamental ironworks, including, but not limited to, Lone Stars, metal chickens, and longhorns. Fear not, also for sale: cow hide mirrors and place mats. But if metal and moo aren’t your thang, head north a few miles and you can haggle over Mexican Talavera pottery.

In South Florida, you can pull off to the shoulder and buy oysters and stone crabs out of the back of a man’s truck. This, I can live with. Only in lieu of Texan Fire Ants, Florida has a shitload of Great Aunts. Though, I’m guessing most of them you won’t find roadside.

Know what else? The Costco in Boca has an enormous KOSHER section, something you won’t find in any part of Texas. Another thing you don’t find often in Texas but can’t keep from finding here in Boca: New Yorkers. Big time.

In New York, we had The Screening Room. In Austin, Alamo Drafthouse and Gold Class Cinemas. In South Florida, we have Cinemark Palace 20–which, to my delight, offers a flat rate fee of $9.00 per child for 4, count them FOUR, hours of babysitting. I will be living at this theater.

Next week, I’m back in NY for the week, where I’ll likely be too tired to make (un)sexy city comparisons. Now, for the next two weeks of full-time me, I’m playing the part of Montessori Mama. Sandpaper letters, odds and evens, scissor work, tracing, stencils, and lots of reading. We could spend days at the bookstore and library… in any city (though we especially love reading in a fort, with a rain stick and flashlights–something I see us doing a lot in this  Tropical Storm Warning town). Also, I fell in head-over-heels love with Library Lion the other day. It makes me think of childhood, exploring, and security… that sense that nothing bad could happen on a pollywog, and especially not in a library. Just love it.

First days living in a new state have nothing to do with a new state of mind. That is, adjusting isn’t all about your attitude. Yes, people say that happiness parboils down to a positive outlook. That one can carp on the not’s, on the there but not here’s, and the yeah, but back home’s, hemming, or you can pay attention to the brighter spots…

Palm trees, sea mists and food, taking pleasure in the fact that Texas is not the only state to display GARDEN & GUN magazine in waiting rooms. But positive outlooks and bright spot searching don’t come into play until the honeymoon is over.

“Half-full Head” needs to kick in later, when the shine begins to dull and your grass turns brown. Take diets—easy to start, harder to stick with, because that initial excitement and determination wane. Once the novelty wears, once your closets are already organized and you’ve burned through your to-try list, when it’s harder to find the bright spots that’s exactly when it matters.

When you move you believe that you have the ability to create a completely different life. Matching no-slip Huggable Hangers, a sliding drawer of undergarments carefully displayed as if each were an index card of a rolodex rainbow, white lux bath towels and fresh cleaning supplies, a home for everything you’ve ever misplaced—these things, you believe, add up to a fresh start, a new lifestyle of your choosing. But I suspect it’s all fantasy. Because no matter where we move, we take ourselves with us.

When I lived in New York, I was convinced that I’d exercise more in Austin, embrace this outdoor living lifestyle. Dream to the dream. Never happened. Now, in Florida, the dream was to awake each day, drop the kids off at school, then onward ho to the fitness center, where I’d suddenly enjoy exercise. Then in the pool for a dip, a steam shower, a spot of tea as I sit to write and create, then pick up the kids and work on some planned Montessori activities I just so happened to have at the ready. Off to the market, where I’d have them smell and taste herbs one by one, as I grabbed ingredients for the gourmet dinner I’d have assembled on the already-set dinner table, wine chilled, ready to welcome Phil home.

Reality: never ever gonna happen. Except for the herbs part. That, I actually do regularly. But the rest of the items are parts of dreams that happen in just that: parts. Anything you want to do now but aren’t doing now won’t change with a change of address or attitude. It changes when you take the action. When you walk, not talk about the walk.

When I first moved to Texas I met a fellow New Yorker—we’ll call her Lindsay—who couldn’t stop kvetching (dead-on-balls-accurate diction) about all Texas wasn’t. Her body was in Austin, but her mind, and mouth, was still in New Yawk.

“Yeah, but you’re here,” I said. For me, that said it all. Lindsay was acting as if she were stricken with grief, coping with the death of a loved one, and she somehow wanted to prove how much her beloved meant to her by showing, as often as possible, just how miserable she was without him. Because for Lindsay, and for a lot of us, that was proof of love. 

“You know,” I said, “just because you don’t cry at a funeral doesn’t mean you didn’t love the deceased.”
“Huh?”
“It doesn’t make you unfaithful to New York if you get a happy ending out of Austin.” Yes, I love the double entendre.
“Wh-at?!”
“Forget it.”

Lindsay didn’t want to understand. I didn’t get to know her and never went out with her again, but she struck me as the type of friend who’d repeatedly ask for, then totally agree with, your advice but who couldn’t ever follow through. “You’re right. You’re right. I know you’re right.” She didn’t want to be happy.

A lot of us complain for a long time, but when it comes down to it, if we’re not really working to change it, we must not want it enough.

Packing is elevated to a whole new level when half your wardrobe is too big, a quarter too small, half outdated, a portion stained or damaged by pits or wine or the moth problem Phil had in Manhattan (so fcuking gross – he had moths living in his vacuum cleaner bag! And my sweaters have been RUINED because you can’t undo a cashmere hole without looking totally shoddy)…

As I was saying, a quarter too nightclub shorty McSlutTown, and then the majority of clothes that do fit and are in fine condition but that you simply, for whatever reason, just don’t wear… Plus the piles you’ve had stacked on the floor full of comfy college clothes, memory clothes, sweatshirts from old beaus, college orientation shirts, plus all the freebie shirts from conferences and concerts where you said, “I’ll wear it around the house or to work out in.”

It is time, fellow American (and Italian, German, Swedish, Malaysian, and Israeli) readers to purge yourselves of these lies. Time to release “I will” and make it “I do.” I do wear those shoes. I refuse to care about who the designer is or dwell on how costly it was. If I haven’t worn it in the past year, it is OUT.

There will be absolutely no period panties, no bras with broken down elasticity, no shirts or shorts or (cringe) boxers for sleep, and no gym socks that aren’t pure white. I will only sleep, forevermore, in clothes sold in the lounge wear and sleep department of stores. As for the workout clothes, if it’s uncomfortable, it’s outta here. Also, as a general rule, if costume designers and stylists wouldn’t dare put that sweater on Diane Keaton or Rene Russo (particularly in The Thomas Crown Affair), then be done with it! Nothing says I don’t give a shit about myself than slightly yellowed whites or even the smallest hole, so get to it!

I realize I’ve fallen off the planet (aka been in Florida). No, I haven’t been working. I’ve been enjoying, though, which is something. Actually, isn’t it the whole point? Work should feel delicious and make you giddy. Only, I’ve been getting so wrapped up in “the rules” and plot point formulas that writing has stopped feeling fun. It’s strange because with both of my books, I never once thought of plot turns—though they were, after all, memoirs. And while I believe that even memoirs need to have an arc with a clear beginning, middle, and end, you can’t just make shit up to create momentum and suspense. So, right now in the process I feel stuck.

I’ve made a point of not including any of the material in my next book within the pages of this Greek Tragedy blog. So, there’s a lot missing, a lot I’ve been meaning to write, even privately, but haven’t. And while I’m wondering what’s going on with me, I’m also just trying to manage. Man-age. As in, this is exactly how man ages: by juggling.

By remembering to hang the tutu upside-down on the hanger, so it has the “poof factor.” Remembering what time the rehearsal is, then the recital.
Remember each morning to bring their bathing suits to school, so the teachers can change them, and have them ready for a 12:45pm pickup, where I whisk them off to a ten minute swim lesson. Remember that the swim lesson times change next week.
Staging. Look up best ways to stage a spa bathroom, special small touches that make a big difference staging your home.
Convert the media room into a bedroom, and hit up Tuesday Morning.
Buy paints and paint white canvas. Make sure a predominant color in the painting carries throughout the room with coordinating accessories.
Manage this: you’re moving to Florida and you’re actually going to put your house on the market! When did this happen? And where are my boxes?
Find a summer camp for the tots, find a state while you’re at it.
Find a school and a school philosophy you believe in, that comes highly recommended.
Find a couples therapist in Boca.
Find doctors and curly hair stylists and occupational and physical therapists.
Look for babysitters in the big FL.
Find a motherfcuking house to rent in the sunshine state (and remember it’s not about the house, it’s the community and school that matter most)
Remember to tell the handyman to power-wash my mouth out.
Today, get thee to a Weight Watchers meeting (I’m down 24.6 lbs., but I will likely gain a pound today because that’s at least how much managing weighs). Then, get to Abigail’s classroom by 11am for her belated Mother’s Day celebration – remember video cam. Next, pick up Sir Luke at 12:45 and drive the taters to “don’t drown” lessons – cannot be even one minute late! Returns to Gymboree and Old Navy. Call Kids’ Club and let them know we’re coming to the club tonight.
Don’t forget Mahan is coming over tonight, coming to the club with us – make room inside the car.

Of all of it, my favorite part by far is the staging. I know this is true for almost everyone, but why do we make our homes the best they can be once we plan on leaving them? As in, this is good for you, but I’m somehow not worth the effort. Oh, how I love a neat manicured house full of coordinated accessories. New category for this blog to come: STAGE THIS HOUSE, where I’ll be taking your suggestions room by room.