Gotham Diary:
“And I Can’t Think Why!”
28 February 2013
Yesterday morning, I could hardly get out of bed. This has been happening a lot lately, and winter is to blame. Winter, and the balcony repairs, and the subway-station construction — but mostly winter. I’ve begun to understand why older people have been migrating to Florida for decades: when winter isn’t merely dreary, it’s really rather frightening. And I am not particularly courageous.
Now, there’s no telling what I might not do to pull someone else out of a bind; my bravery has never been tested. But with regard to myself I tend to be a defeatist. I know that I won’t make it — even though I always do. I’ll be walking along First Avenue, carrying shopping bags home from Agata & Valentina, down at 79th Street, and it will amaze me that I can take another step. Collapse seems imminent, even though I don’t actually feel like collapsing. Collapsing is something that I do in advance — in bed, in the morning. I collapse by not getting up. The ultimate in cowardice.
By the time I finally did get out of bed — my water bottle ran dry, I needed the bathroom, and something was wrong with the refrigerator — I ended up staying up. In retrospect, my hour and a half of drifting in and out of comfy sleep seemed less a failing than a much-needed vacation. I am not somebody who likes to be in bed. I don’t take naps, and I don’t get into bed at night until I’m ready to go to sleep. So, if I can’t get out of bed in the morning, it must be that I need a vacation. There, that sounded much better than pathetic old collapse. I ended up having a most productive day.
***
What was wrong with the refrigerator: the gasket is beginning to fail. It pulls out of the groove at the bottom of the door, and so the door doesn’t close properly. This leads to all sorts of frozen surprises. I put off doing anything about it until it gets so bad that not only does the door not close but the light stays on. At this point I am forced to get down on my knees and push the gasket back into the groove. I’d buy a new refrigerator — what I wouldn’t give for a model with the freezer below, because basically everything in a conventional icebox is barely higher than my waist, and bending is such a bore, but they don’t make them in a size that will fit my kitchen — but I’d have to get someone to remove temporarily the swinging door that I had installed ten-odd years ago.
Everything in the refrigerator, except for a bottle or two of champagne, and two dozen eggs, is in a small plastic crate, more or less easily reached for and removed. Every week, these crates contain less and less food, although I always seem to have an astonishing array of old cheese. The freezer is emptying out as well. This afternoon, I am going to make a quiche; that will clear out a number of items.
***
Not only do I lack courage, but have the wrong kind of confidence. I am confident that people will dislike me. Every now and then, an appraising older woman gives me an appreciative look, because I don’t wear a wedding ring and I dress like Ralph Lauren’s idea of old money (even my socks have polo players), but — well, for that very reason, the way I dress, I attract dislike. I look like someone who belongs on a leafy campus, or at any rate no closer to town than Rye. What kind of New Yorker am I? Then I open my mouth, and promptly alienate all the people who like old money. I can’t please anybody.
Happily, I’ve given up trying. For example, I have to have a word with Fossil Darling this afternoon. He has been invited to a nice party by some people whose nice parties he’s been not showing up at, but this time he’s going to go, because it would be nice for me to see him without actually having to invite him over to my house. (And Mary Todd Lincoln was still in the White House when Fossil gave his last party.)
Fossil left a message yesterday about the death of Van Cliburn. He had somehow taken to thinking of Cliburn as only a few years older than himself, and was spooked by what seemed like a premature passing. It is bracing indeed to sense the cliff of unlikeliness that ever more steeply rises between me and the probability that I’ll still be around in x or y years. It’s something like the reverse of an expectation. Vacations in bed are surprisingly consoling.