2009 Wrap-Up

I thought I'd try to do one of those sagacious and tenderly humorous end-of-year wrap-ups, but I realized a couple of things before I started: One, that it hasn't been such a hot year for anyone (except maybe for performance artist extraordinaire Lady GaGa), and Two, I'm not Garrison Keillor.

So, I've decided instead to tell you 20 things that are on my refrigerator. Hey, in this era of excessive navel-gazing, when 70% of Americans actually believe that they can become famous (hello, Salahis!) based on their ability to do exactly nothing, isn't one end-of-decade list as good as the next?

And so, I give you the accumulated refrigerator detritus of Jane. Make of it what you will.

1) Assorted magnets of various vacations I've taken: Alaska, Montreal, Captiva Island, Colorado, Washington DC, Boston, New Orleans, Yosemite. I'm clearly still deep into exploring our North American continent.

2) An Indian Larry commemorative sticker.

3) A full-page magazine headshot of George Clinton in all his multi-hued dreadlocked glory. Make my funk the P-funk, I wants to get funked up.

4) An article from the NY Times Book Review about a biography of Darryl Strawberry. It has what I think may be the funniest headline ever written: "Buy Me Some Peanuts and Crack." I think it was Jerry Lewis who said, "funny better be sad somewhere." Well, there it all is, in six little words.

5) A quote from Augusten Burroughs: "I like flaws and the people who have them. I myself am made of nothing but flaws, stitched together with good intentions."

6) A snapshot of Miss Midwesterly's dog Sprocket, sprawled in what looks like total doggy bliss.

7) One of those buy-after-you-ride shots of Roni and me on the Coney Island Cyclone. Both of my hands are thrown in the air and I am grinning like my face is about to split open. Roni's eyes are squinched shut and her mouth is open like Ms Pacman. She is holding on with both hands and her arms look a million times better than Michelle Obama's. I am wearing an oversized Penguins tee shirt and look a little chubby, to be honest.

8) A snapshot of me, on my bicycle about 50 miles outside of Fairbanks, Alaska, taken in August 2000. I was rider number 107, and the expression on my face is joy. (Had I known what John McCain would dig out of Alaska's primordial ooze eight short years later, maybe I wouldn't look so happy.)

9) A snapshot of Roni and me, dressed as mermaids in 2007. I am wearing my turquoise Louise Brooks wig. We are in a bar, next to the jukebox, and I'm sure we are both probably pretty drunk.

10) Another column from the NY Times in which my Pittsburgh childhood pronunciation of a famous philanthropist/robber baron's name is validated by none other than the corporation AND the university that bear his name. It's "Car-NAY-gie," people.

11) My NYS Supreme Court Juror Pass. Serving on a jury was one of the most important things I've ever done, and I'm grateful that I did it. People may say that bringing a life into the world is the greatest responsibility you will ever undertake -- I believe that essentially taking away a man's life is greater. A man murdered his wife and we put him away for 25 years.

12) Miscellaneous ticket stubs that I've saved for no real reason -- Blues Traveler at Irving Plaza, some Mets game in 2004 in which I remember Mike Piazza had an important hit, the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, Rent, Lestat, Lee Oskar and Magic Dick at BB King's, and la creme de la creme, a ticket stub for the Cream reunion concert of 2005 which I am pretty sure I saved simply because of its ridiculous face value of $354.50. (No business transactions or sexual favors were exchanged for that ticket, and what I remember most about that concert was that the audience consisted primarily of suburban white guys in relaxed-fit jeans, blinding white sneakers that had obviously never been used in any kind of sport, and leather bomber jackets, the kind with the knit waistband. You know, the basic uni of the guy who has been "given permission" by his wife to go out on a school night. Oh, and Jack Bruce was wearing leather pants, which I found oddly upsetting.)

13) A tiny classified ad from The Daily News, placed by someone selling purebred puppies. "Shit Tzus," to be exact. I'm still tickled that an excretive expletive made it into the newspaper.

14) A Colorado bookmark. Think I miss it much?

15) A windy Cary Tennis excerpt that boils down to, "Jesus, get OVER yourself!"

16) A Lynda Barry cartoon clipped from the Village Voice in 89 or 90. Ernie Pook's Comeek, "Report on Love." The best distillation of love I've ever seen boiled down to four cartoon panels.

17) A tiny photo of Jake Langbehn, who died last year in Malibu

18) A really old photo of me on the beach in Puerto Rico. My body at its most slammin' -- I had a 24-inch waist!!!

19) A quote from my friend Bill Repsher, who said to me in 1990, "Love is a test of sanity. We'd all fail miserably if life wasn't graded on such a generous curve." Genius.

20) The only poem anyone ever wrote for me, with the opening lines, "To the bartender: Be sure that when you mix my drink/the water is holy/And blessed by barmaid/ assassins trained by the Vatican to cross their hearts/before overpowering defenseless men." I kept the poem but for the life of me I have NO idea of the guy's name who wrote that poem.

Well, there you have it, Jane's "I Survived This Awful Decade" list of 20 things that I have on my refrigerator.