The General Situation

"Relax... Your... Body..."

A few days after I announced that I would shut down Tribeca Citizen if I couldn't sell it, I was swimming, or rather taking a break from swimming, when I overheard a guy in the next lane ask another guy if he was Tribeca Citizen. (I had occasionally mentioned on the site that I swam at Asphalt Green in the mornings.) The other guy was mystified by the question ("I live in Battery Park City...?"), so I jumped in, and we had a pleasant exchange.

I guess he told his brother that he was upset the blog might close down, and his brother—with whom I worked at Fortune magazine in the early 2000s—figured out that I was behind it. My former colleague, who now works at LinkedIn, encouraged me to write an article about hyperlocal journalism, which I finally got around to doing. I don't know that it'll be of any use to me, as I'm not dying to work in hyperlocal again, but synthesizing what I learned over the years felt like a kind of closure.

My former colleague's brother, the swimmer, sent me a message about the article. I couldn't help pointing out that these days I'm swimming outside, while the sun rises, palm trees sway, and seagulls fly overhead. ("Unfair! You aren't allowed to rub it in until at least we get to spring.") Well, karma sure bit me in the ass this morning: No sooner had I jumped in the water than the pool was closed due to lightning. A day that was already going to be long—I woke up at 4:30 a.m., Adam is in Amsterdam for work, and the forecast was rainy and gray—grew epic in length. I couldn't even assuage the sitch with a coffee, because nothing opens till 7 a.m.

All of which is to say that I need to find something to do. The handover of Tribeca Citizen is more or less done, and the days ahead are empty. My dad sent me a nice note about keeping mentally and physically active after retirement, but I don't think I'm done working just yet. The question is: What? As I mentioned, hyperlocal doesn't hold a lot of appeal, although I can imagine a website about Santa Barbara food or real estate. The problem is that I come to those topics from a place of enthusiasm, not expertise, and the latter makes a much stronger foundation. And it would be a good idea for me to work with other people again; blogging is lonely business.

In the meantime, I will find an organization to volunteer at. The farmer's market remains a longshot, so my next target is the group that manages the hiking trails around here. What it needs right now is help repairing storm-damaged trails, which we can't do till the rain stops and things dry out. (Above: That used to be a dirt road, wide enough and smooth enough for a car.)

P.S. The day wasn't all despair. Adam left Li-Lac chocolate hearts in my swim bag—did I mention it's Valentine's Day?—and I had booked a massage, using a Christmas gift card from my parents, as a reward for getting through the swim workout. Naturally, I went anyway. It wasn't the best massage I've ever had, but it was hardly among the worst. (I'm thinking of the New York City therapist who made my ribs ache for four days; the Brazilian "therapist" who spent five minutes palpating my stomach; the Hawaiian therapist who wore little finger condoms; the "four-hand" massage at a fancy bathhouse where the therapists had me keep my wet bathing suit on, reaching up into it....) The only odd thing this therapist did was slowly whisper "Relax... your... body..." twice, right into my left ear. If relaxation were that easy, I wouldn't have to pay for it.

P.P.S. I heard from two friends who have male dental hygienists.

P.P.P.S. The upside to all this rain: I had time to read an entire New Yorker feature, an exposé evisceration of novelist/pathological liar Dan Mallory (The Woman in the Window). Fans of The Talented Mr. Ripley should check it out.

A Visit to the Dentist

One of the things that truly stinks about moving somewhere new is leaving doctors you trust—and, worse, trying to find new doctors, particularly when you can't rely on referrals. Online research is maddening, so at some point, you make the appointment and hope for the best.

A few weeks ago, Adam and I went to different primary care physicians at the same facility, Sansum Clinic, for an introductory visit. Adam's doctor did practically nothing, while mine gave me a full physical, including a skin check, and had me get blood work and an EKG done. And yet mine is still on probation. The main thing I ask of a doctor is that he/she listen. Corollary: When I tell you I don't care about football, you must stop talking about it.

I had better luck with my dentist, whom I visited for the first time this morning. I had narrowed the choice to two offices, one nearby in Montecito, and the other in downtown Santa Barbara. I wanted to prefer the Montecito office, but I hated its website. That shouldn't be a compelling reason, but what else did I have to go on? At the Santa Barbara office, meanwhile, one of the doctors is named Erik. While that's obviously in his favor—and maybe he'd take extra care with me—his bio mentions his church, a turn-off in any scenario. I ended up going with the Santa Barbara office, but I let the receptionist pick the doctor; she assigned me to the non-Erik.

Because honesty is one of my primary virtues, when Adam asked what I knew about my dentist, I said that based on his photo, he might be physically attractive. (Provocation can be a useful way to confirm that your spouse is paying attention.) When Adam got huffy, I explained that the dentist seemed more likely to be generically attractive than specifically attractive to me. Moreover, I pointed out, becoming a dental patient would not be the best way to go about wooing someone. (Or would it?)

Well, the dentist listened carefully to my explanation of my dental history (partially detailed here), and he didn't talk to me like I'm an idiot. He resisted taking any new X-rays because it made sense to wait till next time, when insurance would cover it, and he said I could come every four months instead of three, as I did in New York. And nobody asked me if I floss! (It occurs to me now that they may have had some warning about that. A few years ago, I lashed out at my dental hygienist because she asked me if I floss. "I never floss!" I said. "I haven't flossed in years because my periodontist told me not to. And I explain this every single time I come here." On my subsequent visit, she showed me where she had added to my record: "DO NOT ASK ABOUT FLOSSING.") All in all, I was as happy as you can be with a trip to the dentist, and it had little to nothing to do with his appearance.

He did throw me for a loop when he told me to close my mouth while the suction tube was still in it. I bit when I was apparently supposed to only close my lips, surprising us both. Later, after the hygienist also confounded me with this command, I admitted that I had never heard of such a thing. "How do they get the water out?" she asked, and before I could answer, she continued, "I think they used to have sinks you'd spit into. But they're impossible to sanitize." Every dentist I've ever gone to has such a sink! Is sanitization really a concern? Were patients licking the porcelain?

P.S. Has anyone ever seen a male hygienist? Not because I want one—just curious.

P.P.S. "A Visit to the Dentist" is the worst headline ever, but I hate the puns I've been running.

New Kids on the Block

The Newcomers introductory meeting was last night. That's the group for people new to the Santa Barbara area to meet each other. (You're kicked out after two years.) It was not as dreadful as I feared, although (a) we were made to wear name tags; (b) a few attendees could totally star in a Newcomers mockumentary; and (c) there might be nothing I like less—which is saying something—than a meeting that begins with everyone sharing a few words about him- or herself. I suspect that's how you're greeted in hell. Last night, the emcee even said people could take up to 30 seconds, and there were 50 of us. Luckily, almost everyone kept it brief. Adam went before me, without introducing me as his husband and stealing my line about the farmers' market, so I was left making a joke that we're married, not brothers, which went over about as well as you might guess. At least I didn't mention drinking as an interest, like a lot of people did. ("I like wine—a lot of wine," said one.)

Will we meet anyone through Newcomers? I don't know, maybe, it can't hurt. I do think starting a friendship is easier if you're coming at it from the same general place (i.e., knowing no one). Most of the "committees"—subgroups about shared interests, such as bunco, golf, and foreign policy discussion—are not for me, but I could see us going hiking or kayaking. My mom will be chagrined to learn I won't be signing up for the contract bridge committee; she's convinced the game is a terrific way to meet people. The problem isn't just that I don't know how to play bridge, or want to, but that when I looked around the room, I was drawn to the people who are younger than I am. I can't quite persuade myself that the appeal will be mutual.

While the blue asterisk on my name tag is a nice touch of flair, I didn't do it myself. It indicates that I'm a "newbie," in my first 90 days of membership. Technically, we haven't joined yet, though. One of the things I love about Adam is that rather than just sign up now, he wants to game the system a bit by waiting till after he goes to Amsterdam and we both go to New York, so we can maximize our newbie benefits.

P.S. Eventually, I'll run out of trees to rhapsodize about. Until then, here's the Wardholme Torrey pine in Carpinteria, across from the Lucky Llama, the café I visit after swimming in Carp. From Atlas Obscura: "It started as a seedling in 1888, planted by local Carpinteria resident Judge Thomas Ward as part of a contest to see who could grow the largest Torrey pine tree. The Wardholme Torrey Pine now stands a proud 126 feet tall, with a 130 feet branch spread and a more than 20-foot circumference, making it the largest known example of its kind." Last week, I was staring up at the the tree, noticing the many nests, when I saw two great blue herons walking along a branch. Impossible to get a photo of them, alas.

Gates of Heaven

The house we're renting is in Montecito, east of Santa Barbara. Montecito is one of the prettiest places I've ever seen: The land itself is beautiful, and then instead of getting crapped up like so much of California, it got preserved and even improved. Exploring it is endlessly rewarding to the eye, with a mix of architecture and wildly varied—and established—flora. Palm trees are next to pines, eucalyptus trees are surrounded by citrus trees, and so on. As you can see above, there are oak trees everywhere; as you can see below, people go to great lengths to let them be (because you get in trouble if you don't).

Whether Montecito is right for us remains an open question. There's more to life than beauty, probably, and I'm still not sure we belong here—or, more to the point, that we'll be welcomed. Not because we're gay, but because I don't know how we'll ever come into contact with other people. The human aspect of Montecito is not what I would call warm: People's walls are up. Literally! Most houses have gates, and while I don't like them in principle—in part because they make good housepeeking difficult—some of them are gorgeous.

The move out West wasn't just meant to be somewhere different, but to live differently. Despite the fact that I'm typing this now, I'd like to spend less time at a computer, and more time outside. Swimming doesn't count, even though swimming outside can be transcendentally beautiful. (Perhaps I'll wax poetic about that some other day.) So this afternoon, when Adam went for a hike—I declined because we're not supposed to hike on muddy trails—I took a walk. One of the ways that Montecito has retained its unsuburban charm is that there really aren't sidewalks, making a walk stressful at times, but not compared to New York.

Our house abuts a part of town that real estate brokers, and likely no one else, call the Golden Quadrangle, which sounds like part of a Harry Potter title or something Edward Gorey could spin a tale around. I don't find it especially special, but it does have a ton of excellent gates. The older the wall and ironwork, the more excited I get. Paging Norma Desmond....

Sometimes the trees get me as much as the gates.

The cloudy photo above was actually from the day before, but the trees are so good I had to include it. And look at this heavenly oak-lined allée.

And this little pedestrian gate....

I even like the ones you can't see.

But I wouldn't want to live behind one, particularly a grand one. My style is more this carport flanked by trees.

P.S. Doesn't it seem like a good idea to let emergency vehicles through the front door? Or however they heck they want?

P.P.S. I'm serious about the carport. And as "God" is my witness, I will one day paint a mailbox. Zebra is not out of the question.

Look Who's Stalking

Before going to the big Saturday farmer's market, Adam I inevitably stop at the French Press coffee shop across the street. The other morning, we had to sit inside, because there had been rain earlier. "Check out the man at the counter," Adam said. "The way that orchid is positioned, it looks like it's tucked behind his ear." I took a quick peek, chuckling as I turned back toward Adam—he was right—and that's when I realized that the man was the manager of the market, who continues to resist my pleas to volunteer. Now he probably thinks I was laughing at him.

Unfortunately, ways to help the market keep coming to me, so I think I'll write a Hail Mary letter. If specific, constructive suggestions don't appeal, I'll move on. And I won't hold it against the market, which continues to be a highlight of the week. This time, we bought more Satsuma tangerines; spigarello, a rabe-ish green that the New York restaurant Hemlock would memorably roast; "fancy" medjool dates, so tender you can hardly believe they're dates; avocados, of course; celery; a bunch of luscious lettuces; fava beans; and two bottles of wine from Piedrasassi, a winemaker that the folks at Racines in Tribeca had recommended to Adam. He's always on the hunt for local wines that aren't big and fruity.

The favas lacked flavor, but their springy greenness was welcome in the fava mint crostini pictured above. The star so far has been the celery, which we used in this excellent salad by Joshua McFadden of the Six Seasons cookbook. Real celery—versus that Foxy crap at the supermarket—is so herbaceous and interesting that it'll blow your mind. And the rest of the salad is a classic Franny's combination (McFadden worked there for a while): a little crunchy (almonds), a little salty (Parmesan), a little spicy (red pepper flakes), a little acidic (lemon juice), and a little sweet (dates).

P.S. Can we encourage the phone companies to stop putting random digits above the random codes texted as two-factor authentication? (And now Chase is sending out eight-digit numbers, without a space or a dash to break them up.) It must be a nightmare for anyone with dyscalculia, which I just learned is "generally seen as the mathematical equivalent to dyslexia."

Get the Party Started

Last night, in an effort to meet people, Adam and I went to a wine dinner. We didn't know anything about the winemaker, but we like the restaurant, so it was worth a shot.

We arrived five minutes late to find no space at the table. Someone had brought extra people, and the restaurant didn't realize we had yet to show up. We were afraid the staff would seat us somewhere else, alone—not at all the point of the outing—but they found room to add a two-top and chairs at one end.

The other guests all knew each other: One couple, who belonged to the winery's club, had invited everyone else. The folks to our left were fun and friendly. We got along well, and I managed to curb my don't-get-out-enough mania. (They both work from home; it's possible we were all manic.) They shared restaurant and real estate advice, and all four of us floated out the possibility of seeing each other again. And I hope it happens! The ball is in their court.

So far, it was as good as we could hope for. Then a man from the other end of the table came over to join us. He was personable, with the confidence of someone who's used to being liked. We chatted for a while. He and the woman near me talked about when they were going to make leather goods again—a mutual hobby—and he showed us the bag he had made for his wife, which he had with him, which only seems strange in retrospect. In any event, that got Adam to telling this rather tangential story about former neighbors of ours who ran an S&M leather store out of their apartment. He made the mistake of saying the company's actual name, which led to our new acquaintances looking at the website for far longer than they really should have, exclaiming, "Floggers!" and "Ball stretchers!" every now and then. Adam and I both noticed that they were physically demonstrative with each other to a degree that we're not with our friends. Then the guy turned toward us....

Guy: Do you like to party?

Me: I guess that depends?

Adam: I don't know what you mean, but the answer is probably no.

This morning, Adam found an explanation on Moving to LA Today: "When someone asks if you 'party,' they are asking if you do drugs. They are not talking about marijuana because marijuana is so common that it is not considered to be a drug. [...] They are asking if you do cocaine or meth." It rang a bell from my wild-oats days, not that I was into that stuff, so I'm pretty confident that's what this was about. "If you do and you say yes," the post continued, "you’ll probably make a new friend on the spot. If you don’t, say goodbye forever because people who 'party' rarely hang out with people who don’t." On one hand, our new friendship might be over before it had even really begun. On the other hand, always better to be invited than not!

P.S. The food was delicious. Below: a pizza with absinthe béchamel and local mussels. Too rich to eat more than a slice, perhaps two.

Meeting in the Middle

I met a friend, Amy, for lunch today. We know each other from New York City, but she and her family moved to the area a couple of years ago. The venue was fascinating: The Waypoint Cafe, alongside the Camarillo airport, and sort of midway between us. The restaurant was packed. We arrived at noon and had to wait 20 minutes.

"You're getting one of our best tables," said the hostess.

"Amy, did you tell them who I am?" I said. Dad humor, and I don't even have kids! 

The view of the planes was neat, although the wide openness of the airport sky might also be part of the appeal—it's rare for a restaurant to have that much empty space outside. 

Amy and I nattered at each other like two people who work from home and don't get enough socialization. Her stories were much better than mine. The best one: On a guys' trip, a friend of Amy's husband shared not just a rather outré proclivity, but also photos of him doing it to his wife. Who was visibly pregnant. Amy and I spent a good 10 minutes trying to unpack it all. Later, I emailed her: "Perhaps you should give your husband carte blanche so that next time one of his friends shares a perversion, he can say, 'Oh, Amy is totally into that, too.'" It's nice to make people feel less alone, right?

On the drive south, I thought I might overeat, but I controlled myself, ordering just the tuna melt—you don't see those very often, at least in my life—and fries. I had to force myself from wolfing it down, because I had done Master's Swimming this morning, and I was ravenous. I'm not so intimidated by the class anymore, but the jargon remains baffling. Actually, it's a combination of jargon and math. The board we get shown is pictured below. The instructor quickly runs through it at the start, but you try following along at 6 a.m. And then we get told again before each set, when we're exhausted.

I've learned what the numbers mean, but I have trouble with most of the words—and that's true even after I've done the workout. To make matters worse, for the initial 3x100 @+20 set, I thought I understood that we were basically swimming three 100-meter laps in 1:50 (our lane's 1:30 "base time" plus 20 seconds). Then the guy ahead of me kept going after the first lap! I followed along, of course. After the second lap, he stopped and apologized. I'll take any social interaction I can get.

P.S. When my parents were here, Adam cooked steak with, among other things, the marjoram-anchovy "salsa verde" from Ignacio Mattos's Estela cookbook. The "salsa verde" was a bit heavy on the raw garlic, but otherwise delicious, so he made it again the other night. If you love marjoram, like we do, and find it a flavor you don't get often enough, I highly recommend this. Here's the recipe (but you might want to cut back on the garlic): Using a mortar and pestle, pound 1.5 to 2 garlic cloves with a pinch of gray salt until it's almost a paste. (The coarse salt helps break down the garlic.) Add two anchovies and pound to break them down and incorporate them. Stir in the 1/2 cup coarsely chopped marjoram, then pour over enough oil (1/4 cup-ish) to cover. Also, it helps if you have a fabulous mortar and pestle like the big, beautiful one I bought Adam for Christmas.

A New Leaf

Adam's mom, Barbara, came to Montecito for lunch—she moved to the nearby town of Ojai a few years ago—and a postprandial visit to Seaside Gardens in Carpinteria. Barbara had given Adam a gift card for Christmas, and we have a few empty pots that would liven up a barren terrace, if only they had plants inside.

The nursery is spectacular, with dramatic mountain views. (The photos don't show the noise from the adjacent freeway, a small price to pay.)

The colors and textures had me all jazzed up. The plant in the first photo below, in particular, spoke to me. It was fluffy. But Adam was hell-bent on something that flowers.

I spent a while watching the chickens, naturally. This one would hop straight up in an unsuccessful effort to eat something on the plant poking through the fence.

I was feeling the place to such a degree that I weighed whether to buy an owl figurine (before coming back to my senses—obviously you'd have to have at least a dozen to make it work).

I found Adam in the succulent area, because we also need something for two shallow pots that the previous tenant left behind. Succulents love this climate, and they remind us of our old house, which had them all over. Then again, that house had pretty much everything. As one visitor said, "It's like the last owner bought one of everything in the Burpee catalog."

So far, everything I've described is the traditional nursery area, where you can grab a pot of your own. But the three-acre spread also has demonstration gardens, showcasing plants of various regions. While a bit muddy from the recent rain, the paths make for a nice stroll—and the variety of flora is astounding. This is where I found Barbara having a wander. February is early spring in Santa Barbara; as a result, much was in bloom.

I was transfixed by something called a Basterkobas, which is quite attractive when it has leaves (judging from a later Google image search).

But my favorite plant—I made a pilgrimage just to see it—is the Mexican Grass Plant. The photos don't do it justice. It's a perfect sphere, and the blades bob in the breeze.

And I had no idea that it shoots up a huge flower, like an agave (which it probably is).

Back at the counter, Adam was checking out. He said I chose this plant because I said it was pretty—undoubtedly true, but if we bought everything I declared was pretty we'd have more plants that we'd ever know what to do with.

Who Likes to Watch?

Adam: [Blah blah blah] nefarious [blah blah blah].

Me: I think the second syllable might be pronounced fair instead of far.

Adam: No, it's ne-far-ious. That word has come up a lot in my life.

Me: [Laughs hysterically.]

That's for anyone out there who misses the conversations I used to post. I'd love to include more, but we come into contact with so few people, and Adam has his guard up more now that he knows I'm always on the sniff for new material. (For the record, I was right.)

Unrelatedly, in the past couple of years, I've noticed that every time I see someone socially we end up talking about which TV shows we're watching. On one hand, we could all use some direction, given the sheer amount of programming out there. On the other hand, I don't want to talk about TV! I don't generally want to watch it! And yet Adam and I seem to be watching it more than ever. As for whether this is a new golden age of television, I'll admit that there's more good television now than in past decades. I do wonder, however, whether the proportion of decent shows to dreck has changed all that much.

Better to have something to say than nothing, though, right? In which case, should someone ask what I like these days, I'd recommend two shows, both on Netflix. The first is "Sex Education." I swore long ago that I was over anything set in a high school—Jesus, who cares?—but the show gets by on the charm of its characters and the actors who portray them. (The plotting can be painful.) A special shout-out goes to Gillian Anderson, as the smart, sexy mom—it's about as far as she can get from "The X-Files," and she's tremendous.

The second show is "Call My Agent," or "Dix pour cent" (Ten Percent) as it was originally called in France. The director, Cedric Klapisch, is the man behind L'Auberge Espagnole and its two sequels. I love that movie! And "Call My Agent"—imagine "L.A. Law" about agents—has a similar brisk sensibility, although to be honest, I've only seen the first episode.

Then again, if you're on Netflix, you should really watch Bull Durham while it's available. I was thinking recently about how much I loved that movie, and how I always wish it would play on airplanes, so I was beyond delighted to see it resurface. Everything about it, except for Kevin Costner's baggy chinos, has held up beautifully. The comedy—and romance—come from the characters, not the situation, something we don't see enough of these days. And it's incredibly sexy. This would be the most famous scene:

Last but not least, if you like a good art movie, I highly recommend Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War, and it benefits greatly from a large screen, so see it soon. I don't recall another film that manages to be so hot and so cool, simultaneously.

Lost in the Supermarket

My diet plan, such as it is, has two main principles: Don't buy stuff you know is bad for you; and exercise often, ideally first thing in the morning and before eating anything. Ever since I've been working from home, the first rule has become even more important—when I get stuck or bored, I'll inevitably wander into the kitchen to see what there is to eat. Not that I have to look, because I can tell you everything that's edible in my kitchen at any given time, particularly foods that don't require preparation. The corollary to rule #1 is that if you buy healthy stuff, you'll eat it—especially if you hate wastefulness—so I also try to make sure there are apples and nuts around at all times.

Alas, there has been backsliding since we moved. First, my sister brought a box of Wheat Thins (Adam's kryptonite) and a basket of other treats. Then, to ease the transition, I went through a phase of picking up little indulgences. Back in New York, it was easy not to purchase, say, Pepperidge Farm Bordeaux cookies: Whole Foods doesn't sell them, so I rarely would've had the opportunity, except perhaps for the food aisle of a Duane Reade or Walgreens, which is akin to what you'd find in a gas station. In Santa Barbara, I've had to get used to a new supermarket—two new supermarkets, because one is on the way home from the pool—which means going down every aisle searching for items, which leads to buying cookies. (What about those biscotti? I hear you asking. Rationing anything I bake is easy. I don't want to have to do it again.)

Anyway, I can't deny enjoying the Bordeaux cookies, the Nabisco Chocolate Wafers (like Oreos, minus the filling), the Sun-Maid raisin bread, and the McConnell's peppermint ice cream with Nabisco Chocolate Wafers crushed on top. And I frequently get a kick out of the packaging, which offers a window into contemporary America. 

One can only imagine the focus groups with millennials sharing that they didn't realize how English muffins work.

P.S. The Vons supermarket in Montecito—and perhaps other locations—hires developmentally disabled men and women to do the bagging, which is fantastic. I've always enjoyed bagging my own groceries, so it has taken significant will power to stand uselessly while someone else does it. But I do get more time to look at the magazines.... Are there really people who will pay $7 for real estate listings?