The General Situation

Poseur

When I read that an artist would be drawing portraits at a Tribeca gallery, I figured, Why not? I could write about the experience for my Tribeca blog, and besides, sitting for a portrait was on the long list of life experiences I'd like to have. (And it would have to be less weird than taking a pregnancy test.) The artworks were to end up in a show at the gallery, and I had visions of attending the opening, overhearing people discuss my portrait.

Last night, I confirmed the appointment—we were to meet at 8 a.m. today—and asked how long I should expect my sitting to take. Two hours.

I'll spare you the blow-by-blow. The artist was very nice, though I found her hard to understand, given her accent and the echoiness of the room. Her style is fairly simplistic—on purpose, I'm sure—so I was surprised that she'd need two hours, but then I learned she'd be taping our conversation. Her plan for the exhibit was to play a loop of snippets of the various subjects speaking.

All that sitting in a chair, trying to look straight ahead, was sort of like attending a concert at Carnegie Hall (without the music), but at least there I can sleep. We talked about Tribeca, 9/11, Century 21, the worst gift I ever gave Adam, and who knows what else. At one point, she asked if I wanted to stretch my legs, and I said that I might like to use the restroom. (I'm sure that'll be my snippet: "May I use the restroom?") I checked my phone: We were two hours in. Then I got back to the chair, and she had left the drawing face up. She was a third done, tops.

When she returned from the restroom, she said I looked a bit pale: "Are you OK?"

I nodded weakly.

After another hour, she said we were almost done. Finally, she stood up. And then she placed the drawing on the floor so I could see it. "I still need to work on the chin," she said.

"I don't see the resemblance," I said. Realizing how that sounded, I added, "I mean, I'm not sure I would, though. We all have ideas of how we look, right?"

Have You Ever?

"Traveling Light"

Traveling Light
by Linda Pastan

I'm only leaving you
for a handful of days,
but it feels as though
I'll be gone forever—
the way the door closes

behind me with such solidity,
the way my suitcase
carries everything
I'd need for an eternity
of traveling light.

I've left my hotel number
on your desk, instructions
about the dog
and heating dinner. But
like the weather front

they warn is on its way
with its switchblades
of wind and ice,
our lives have minds
of their own.

I'm Just Saying...

• The cost of a meal is a strange basis for a tip.

• It might be time for the Department of Defense to consider a name change.

• People who work in cafés have different ideas about "morning music" than people who patronize cafés.

• To the person who read 59 pages of this blog today (that's 295 posts): I'm so sorry.

• Car horns should deliver a low-level shock to the person who presses them. If it's really an emergency, you won't mind, right?

• House rule: No one drinks till the pug eats dinner.

• Recipes with chicken stock can't fairly be called vegetarian.

• Ninety-five percent of people who read this blog do so because they've searched "Kristin Scott Thomas."

• Those fake customer-service people ("Hi, I'm Sarah") you see on websites are presumably supposed to inspire confidence, but they do the exact opposite.

• Men in earmuffs confound me.

• The bottom part of an apple has always seemed a little dirty to me.

• Have you ever seen anyone reading "Details" magazine?

What I Learned in the New York Times (April 2011)

4/30: Mayor Bloomberg wants to ban the use of food stamps for soda.

4/29: Hundreds of Tunisians are allowing Libyan refugees to stay in their homes.

4/28: Armadillos can transmit leprosy to humans.

4/27: One third of the central business district in Christchurch, New Zealand, was destroyed in the February earthquake.

4/26: To comply with the Title IX law, universities have been padding their women's teams with fake players.

4/25: The Travel Channel is investing $7.5 million in Oyster.com.

4/24: NASA requires that astronaut candidates be able to swim three lengths of a pool in a flight suit and tennis shoes.

4/23: A Nigerian preacher named Sunday Adelaja has a huge following in Ukraine.

4/22: HBO plans to make Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad into a series.

4/21: Trojan, Durex, and LifeStyles have all started making vibrators.

4/20: Prescription drug addiction is now killing more people than crack cocaine in the 1980s and heroin in the 1970s combined.

4/19: A Republican official in Orange County, Calif., emailed around a photo of President Obama's face Photoshopped onto a baby chimpanzee's body.

4/18: Rabbinical experts can't agree on whether quinoa is kosher for Passover.

4/17: A perfume called Boyfriend is being marketed under actress Kate Walsh's name.

4/16: New York City is getting a new area code (929).

4/15: Professional golfer Kevin Na needed a record 16 strokes to finish a par-4 hole during tournament play.

4/14: The president of the Czech Republic was caught on video surreptitiously pocketing the gem-encrusted pen he used to sign a treaty in Chile.

4/13: The U.S. government has warned against formaldehyde levels in a hair treatment called the Brazilian Blowout.

4/12: Amazon will sell a cheaper Kindle that serves advertising.

4/11: Google is running print ads with the slogan "A Google a Day."

4/10: John Steinbeck's Travels With Charley isn't actually non-fiction.

4/9: Maxwell House's free version of the Haggadah, the text read at Passover, might be the world's most popular.

4/8: A jumper is a type of sleeveless dress.

4/7: France bans surrogate parenting.

4/6: The man who invented the Pringles can had his ashes buried in Pringles one.

4/5: Two art-film theaters will open at Lincoln Center in June.

4/4: Michelle Bachmann's Congressional office has had five chiefs of staff in the last four years.

4/3: The Vietnamese government has been arresting people who publicly challenge it.

4/2: There were zero ads in the Sports and Business sections of the Times.

4/1: GoDaddy's CEO shot an elephant while on vacation in Zimbabwe.