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Hot Chicks in the Slope

September 20, 2010 By admin Filed Under: Photo Op

Christine Seger received notice that her package was ready at the ninth street post office. She expected that it would be considered a strange package: 12 chicks in a small white box. But she was told that it wasn’t unusual at all: that in fact they had seen all sorts of animals such as lizards, snakes and birds at this post office. She took them back to her house, put them in the finished basement under a heat lamp with some food and water and voila a new generation was begun.

Christene, her husband Jim share a henhouse with their next door neighbors Dan Goldman and Pristine Johannessen. It is a 20’ x 8’ structure at the back of the yard that was designed and built by Jim and Christene. They are not farmers, as you would expect, but are instead architects. They live in a typical 4 floor brownstone that they gut renovated and finished beautifully, and with these chickens they have become part of the trend of local food production.

The feeding and upkeep of having a hen house is quite simple. To feed the birds, it takes one 50 pound bag of feed and 50 pound bag of scratch per month, plus an assortment of table scraps and wilted vegetables. They have to clean and repair the cage periodically and also feed and collect the eggs once or twice a day. What they get in return is 3-4 dozen of the most wonderful eggs you could imagine per week, of which they sell just enough to cover the monetary costs of feed and scratch.

The flock of chickens have a wide variety of plumage. It consists of 6 Araucanas, 2 Rhode Island reds and 2 Wyandots which lay eggs in hues of blue, white and brown. They say they purchased the chickens originally to help their kids “get back to nature.” When asked the contributions of the children, they do in fact feed and collect the eggs (albeit on an inconsistent schedule) and they do enjoy having the chickens, especially the baby chicks.

The New Wave of Dancewave

September 20, 2010 By admin Filed Under: The Arts

There is no question that Brooklyn, especially Park Slope, has made its contribution to the arts. It has given rise to great and important film makers, painters, authors, poets and performers. It is home to the glorious arts institutions of Brooklyn Academy of Music and The Brooklyn Museum of Art. We know this, we celebrate and appreciate the fact that Brooklyn is no small contender in contributions to various forms of media.
But why is our neighborhood so artistically fertile?

Why do we have a propensity to establish greatness, or, at the very least, creativity? The answer is simple. Look around. Babies and children dominate the demographic here and the parents of these children are encouraging, if not grooming, our youngest population to become artists, perhaps, even, great ones. We have these opportunities for our children because Park Slope is home to courageous and innovative organizations such as Dancewave.

Dancewave was founded in 1995 by creative and artistic director, Diane Jacobowitz, as a non-profit to create substantially artistic and pre-professional dance education for young people. Not just another dance school that churns out final recitals for parents to video, Dancewave’s dance companies (not the classes, some of which are held at the Old First Church on Seventh Avenue and Carroll Street) are audition-based and the organization is serious about students continuing their dance education and going to college through its Kids Cafe Goes To College Program. Dancewave is comprised of three dance companies: Dancewave Company for ages 12-18, Dancewave Company II, for more advanced dancers of the same ages who will focus on technique and choreography, and The Young Movers Ensemble, for ages 10-13 so that this precariously impressionable age group can also get a positive and progressive dance education. All students are treated as “real” dancers, or as legitimate young adults, which is clearly evidenced by the fact that choreographers, “real” choreographers, such as Mark Morris and Twyla Tharp, to name but a few, have come in to choreograph and teach these young dancers. So legitimate in fact is this dance school that it was selected to represent the United States in The Aberdeen International Youth Festival in Scotland this summer where young artists, musicians and dancers from all over the world perform. It was the only group selected from the US.

The idea of a dance company for young people originated from a dance performance festival for young people from all over Brooklyn, called Kids Cafe when Diane, who had her own dance company for close to a decade, became a mother. Struggling with the simultaneous challenges of motherhood and running a company she established a happy medium for herself called Kids Cafe. Now, the proud mother of a college freshman, she has seen the fruits of her labor grow exponentially and is helping the young dancers in her company get to college as well through yet another innovative program called Kid’s Cafe Festival Goes To College. The festival, which was hosted by the renown David Dorfman, allows the chairs of leading dance departments from prestigious colleges such as Julliard, NYU and Rutgers and the young dancers to get to know one another and discuss their futures, academic requirements and ambitions. Round table discussions about going to college and master classes are offered as well. Many of the young people in Dancewave would not ordinarily have the chance to consider college since most of the company’s demographic comes from low-income families or poorly performing public schools.

The impact of Dancewave on our community does not stop with Kids Cafe Festival. Dancewave also has garnered city funding and Department of Education support to get inside public schools as a company in residence and offer ten to twelve week classes in public schools throughout the city in diverse neighborhoods. “It has been proven that dance in education improves grades by improving focus and providing something physical,” says Diane and she is adamant that kids of all ages be provided the tools to express themselves physically. “Every human being comes into the world wanting to move and it’s only natural to want to express who you are through ownership of the body,” she states. Diane encourages mothers and fathers, especially parents of boys, to get their kids moving. She says, “it’s a tragedy when gender role stereotypes get pushed down on kids.”

Dancewave’s commitment to getting children to dance, no matter how young, has lead to the newly established Tadpole Dancers Program for babies and toddlers 5 months to 3 years old. “We want them before they’re ten,” says Diane, smiling, “it’s never too early and I wish I had something like this when I was a new mother.” This program offers mothers, fathers, and caregivers the opportunity to bond with their child through movement and meet other new parents in a creative and fun setting. These classes are as much for the adults attending as the children and everyone must participate, so sleep deprived parents and shy people be warned: you will be told to get up and move if you do not on youe own. This babies and tots movement program stands out because the instructors of this age group are particularly well versed in Early Childhood Development and dance education and most are professional dancers themselves. One of the Tadpole Program’s challenges has been competing with nap schedules – but don’t worry, Dancewave has a flexible make-up and payment policy should you find your little one drowsy during drum circle (while props and instruments are sometimes used, the focus of program lies purely on the use of the body as the sole form of expression). Dancewave will host an open house for this program on September 14th at their storefront at 45 Fourth Avenue where parents will be able to take a free class and meet instructors and have any questions answered (pre-registration is required).

Diane Jacobowitz is graceful, yet plucky (she was, after all, born on The Lower East Side) and she speaks about her dancers as if they were here own children. She eminates tranquility and would tell young dancers who are considering quitting, “Dance is a source of peace and self-love and you have the rest of your life to regret not dancing… follow your dreams and your heart and keeps what makes you happy in what you do.” As serene as Diane is, however she is also a tough leader. When a dishonest travel agent swindled the company out of $9,000 for their trip to the Aberdeen International Youth festival she refused to let that dampen the dancers’ spirits; the young adults had worked very hard to raise the money for the air fare, even contributing their own babysitting money, and they were crushed. Diane knew that they would push through and rise above the disappointment; they had no choice. Calls for help went out and eventually not only did they get the money back from the dirty agent, they carried on and raised an additional $20, 000.

Partnerships with local businesses and more opportunities for the public to view the ensembles’ performances are in the works and will certainly ensure Dancewave’s continued impact on our community. In the meantime we Park Slopers should be proud to have yet another great venue of arts and arts education in our very own neighborhood.

To learn more about Dancewave or to catch a performance please visit www.dancewave.org.

Baby Yourself

September 20, 2010 By admin Filed Under: Healthy Living

It was quite early in the morning on March 27, 1953 when Alva Cohen arrived at Columbia Women’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. quite late into her labor. So late, in fact, that she started to give birth in the hospital elevator. Even though her labor was going along normally—and quickly—approximately ten minutes before her child was born, she was administered Sodium Pentathol—a drug that has also been used as a truth serum and, in large doses, for lethal injection—as a matter of hospital procedure. When she woke, she had a healthy daughter, Janet. But she had missed the moment of her birth.

Alva would give birth to three children, all in the hospital, and participate in none of their births; Janet would give birth to two, both naturally at home with midwife assistance, and participate in both. “I felt very comfortable with both my midwives,” Janet said recently, recounting the births. “But I definitely had a better idea of what to expect from the whole experience the second time.”

Janet represents a very small minority of women who have chosen home birthing in the United States in recent years. A 2008 New York Times article, “Baby, You’re Home,” reports that “home births have been around as long as humans, but since the 1950s, the overwhelming majority of American women have chosen to give birth in hospitals.” While births in New York hospitals still outnumber home births, local midwives have recently seen their workload has increase. One reason for the change can be attributed to The Business of Being Born, a 2008 documentary produced by former talk show host Ricki Lake, which has become an underground hit among expectant parents.

The Business of Being Born presents some surprising statistics: In 1900, 95 percent of births in the United States took place at home. Then—partially due to a smear campaign against midwives portraying them as unprofessional and uneducated vestiges of the old country—by 1938, only half of all births took place at home. By 1955, less than one percent took place at home; it remains this number today. The Business of Being Born also says that midwives attend over 70 percent of births in Europe and Japan; in the U.S. just under eight percent. Still, the United States has the second worst newborn death rate in the developed world and also one of the highest maternal mortality rates among industrialized countries. Patricia Burkhardt, Clinical Associate Professor at the NYU Midwifery Program, who was interviewed in the documentary, pointed out that “hospitals are businesses; they want those beds filled and emptied,” and Dr. Jacques Moritz, an Ob/Gyn at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt hospital, added, “Midwives do a better job at the normal deliveries than we do. For normal low-risk women, it’s overkill going to a doctor.”

But those New Yorkers who were planning to have a home birth may very well need to change their plans. The recent closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital on April 30 could severely affect the home-birthing trend in the New York Area, as 22 midwives, seven of whom practiced home-birthing, are left without a corresponding hospital. According to New York State law, midwives who practice home births must partner with a doctor or hospital, and St. Vincent’s was the only hospital in the city that supported home birthing.

There are still a few options for natural birth in a hospital setting, such as St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital’s Birthing Center, which opened in 1996 and was Manhattan’s first in-hospital birthing center. Birthing centers in hospitals offer some of the freedom and comfort of a home birth with very close proximity to hospital technology and maternal-fetal medicine specialists in case of difficulty during delivery. St. Luke’s-Roosevelt’s Birthing Center, however, does not take Medicaid. On November 6, 2009, the New York Times article “Bellevue Natural-Birth Center, Haven for Poor Women, Closes” points out that Bellevue’s Birth Center, which was considered a landmark achievement for the natural-birth movement in New York City when it opened in 1998, was the only one of its kind that accommodated both affluent trend-conscious New Yorkers and poor women on Medicaid who wanted the option of natural birth. WNYC’s Brian Lehrer pointed out, on “Birthing Options,” on December 10, 2009, that with the close of Bellevue Birth Center, the range of choices in childbirth in New York City directly relates to economic standing. With the closure of St. Vincent’s, the birthing options for low-income women are narrowing significantly.

And still, despite growing strictures, the interest in home birthing continues to grow, especially here in Park Slope. The New York Times notes that home birth is becoming a more popular choice among professionals like lawyers and bankers, and that home birth is no longer just for back-to-nature types. (As a resident of the area, I’m guessing that, in our case, it’s back-to-nature types who also happen to be trend-conscious lawyers). “We believe that women should give birth wherever they will be safest and most comfortable,” said Jada Shapiro, co-founder the Bellevue Birth Center Volunteer Doula Program and co-founder of Birth Day Presence, a service located in Park Slope that provides birth and postpartum doulas, as well as classes in childbirth preparation, breastfeeding, newborn care and infant CPR. “Park Slope residents tend to be highly informed and educated consumers,” Shapiro said. “There are also many women here who would prefer as few interventions during birth as possible. Hospitals are geared toward medication and intervention.” Shapiro adds, “Home is definitely not for everyone, but for low-risk women it may be the best option.”

Diana Kane English, of Park Slope, said home birth was one of the best choices she ever made. “I was so blown away by how spectacular it was that I was really sad for people who didn’t know they had this choice.” Diana was attended by midwife Miriam Schwartzchild, “We don’t clutch crystals, keep our fingers crossed and pray to the goddesses,” Schwartzchild said. “We have medical training; we have to pass a national exam to be a certified midwives. Home births are as safe, if not safer, than hospital births.”

“A woman really doesn’t need to be rescued,” Cara Muhlhahn, Certified Nurse Midwife, says, in The Business of Being Born. “It’s not the place for a knight in shining armor.” Midwives and doulas stress the idea that a woman needs to be an active participant in the birthing process, rather than on her back with her legs in stirrups, a position that shrinks the pelvis and makes it easy for sometimes unnecessary intervention, such as the use of forceps, which can cause damage to the baby and to the mother. This position also makes it more difficult for the woman to use her stomach muscles to push.

“I remember I was in my room, walking around a lot,” Janet Schweig told me over the phone the other day, recounting with sharp lucidity what she had described before as the “amazing” and “surreal” experience she’d undergone without painkillers (and without health insurance) just over twenty-five years ago.

Then she paused and added, “I also just wanted to have it over with.”

Thanks, Mom.

Thanks, Ma.

Adults Can Go Back to School, Too

September 20, 2010 By admin Filed Under: Community

I never liked school as a kid. As an adult, however, I love taking all sorts of classes that take my mind off of daily obligations. With school starting again, there’s no better time to build career skills, meet like-minded neighbors, explore extracurricular passions, and just plain enjoy yourself. This guide only scratches the surface of the wide range of classes, programs and lectures that exist in Park Slope. Use it as inspiration for further research!

The Body

Prospect Park Tennis
www.prospectpark.org/visit/activities/tennis • 718-436-2500
The Prospect Park Tennis Center offers classes for both adults and kids. Contact the park for details and pricing for group and individual classes.
Pop Quiz: What movie is set in Park Slope and starts with a mean game of tennis?
Answer: “The Squid and the Whale.”

Bootcamp Republic
www.bootcamprepublic.com • 646-460-6787
This green-friendly boot camp uses the environment and people’s own body weight to get in shape. Classes often take place in picturesque venues such as local parks, river promenades and beaches. Three-week boot camp sessions costs $250 and include nine hours of training.
Bonus Point: Bootcamp Republic has generously offered readers a 30% discount by signing up at www.bootcamprepublic.com and entering the capital-sensitive code: PSREADER. This code will expire 30 days after publication and is valid for outdoor or indoor sessions through December 2010.

Captain Quinn’s Fitness Boot Camp
www.captainquinnsbootcamp.com • 888-850-1674
This group exercise class “combines the camaraderie and results of military-style group workouts with school yard fun,” according to Jon Quinn, an Air Force veteran and the boot camp’s fearless leader. A typical 45-minute workout costs $10-15/session. Also ask about supplemental nutrition coaching, advanced training, and online programs.
“Paychecks don’t motivate me to get up at 5 a.m. every morning,” says Jon. “It’s about the joy of helping one person at a time, one class at a time, one day at a time to get healthier, happier, and yes: ‘hotter.’”

Take Me To The Water
takemetothewater.com • 212-371-9500
This swim school offers private and small-group lessons, warm pools and expert instructors with years of teaching experience. This semester will be held at the Berkley-Carroll School, which has a four-lane, 25-yard pool. Classes are held Saturday afternoons from September 25 through December 18.
Pop Quiz: Who said, “it’s only when the tide goes out that you learn who’s been swimming naked.” (1) Tony Blair, (2) Michael Phelps, (3) Warren Buffet, (4) David Mamet.
Answer: Warren Buffet.

Yee’s Hung Ga
yeeshung-ga.com
At this martial arts studio, students learn the southern style of Chinese kung fu called Hung Ga, as well as “Yang style Tai Chi Chuan,” which focuses on slow, graceful movements that cultivate Qi (energy). Yee’s has taught traditional Chinese martial arts in Park Slope for over 15 years. Classes are available for both adults and children.
Pop Quiz: What was the original meaning “grandmaster” when it entered the English language?
Answer: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it meant “the chief officer of a royal household.”

The Mind and Spirit

Brooklyn Brainery
brooklynbrainery.com • twitter : @bkbrains
Wikipedia takes on human form at the Brooklyn Brainery, which organizes courses that its Web site says “don’t have real teachers.” Classes are highly collaborative; participants share their knowledge and experiences, and are guided by amateur experts or enthusiasts who keep courses on track. The 90-minute classes run for either two or four weeks and generally cost $25.
“Some of our most popular classes have been on perfume and anything related to food or drinks,” says Brooklyn Brainery’s co-founder Jen Messier. “ We’re about to start a class on coffee, which has been super popular, and last semester we did a seasonal cooking class that sold out in about two hours.”

Vajadhara Meditation Center
www.brooklynmeditation.org • 347-715-6999
Learn about meditation and Buddhist teachings. Get started with Vajradhara’s free, introductory talk “Meditation, Enjoyment and the Spiritual Path” on September 9. General classes cost $12 and are structured by an introductory guided meditation and talk, Q&A session and concluding meditation. The center itself has a small bookstore, Buddhist shrine and lounge area for socializing.
“The teachings themselves are presented in a practical, down-to-earth and lighthearted fashion,” says resident teacher Matthew Riechers. “This sometimes has a profound effect on people’s minds as they find themselves encountering a living spiritual tradition that meets them right where they are.”

Healing Reiki Energy
www.healingreikienergy.com • 917-375-7144 or 914-907-2037
Become a Reiki practitioner. Students at this school learn Japanese techniques to reduce stress, induce relaxation and promote healing. Reiki I and II are the most highly attended classes. The “Crystal Healing Workshop” is also popular. The instructors have used Reiki to center children’s energy, calm animals, treat veterans suffering from PTSD and promote spiritual well-being.
HRE’s master teacher Kristin Reed describes Reiki as “the ‘laying on of hands’ to balance the energy system of the body and can be used for self-healing or the healing and relaxation of another person. Although Reiki is a spiritual practice, it is not a religion and can complement whatever spiritual beliefs you hold and can do no harm.” »

The Arts

Brooklyn-Queens Conservatory of Music
www.bqcm.org • 718-622-3300, ext. 0

Have all sorts of fun at this music school, which offers everything from classical music lessons to R&B vocal workshops and classes on African drumming, music and computers, and music therapy professional development (offered in spring). The jazz vocal workshops and tango classes are especially popular.
“Our building is a Victorian house, it is very cool looking and quite stunning,” says marketing manager Lucy Walters. “It is fun to run up and down the large staircases. The concert hall is a great size, wonderful to see live music because it is intimate. We have a great garden where people come to hang out, which is very relaxed and beautiful when the cherry blossoms come out.”

Textile Arts Center
www.textileartscenter.com • 718-369-0222
Come here to learn and refine weaving, screen-printing, dyeing, embroidery, sewing, quilting, fashion illustration, and felting skills. This weaving studio houses 29 multi-harness floor-looms and 16 table-looms, as well as a fully equipped “surface design lab” for screen-printing and dyeing. Course costs range from $175 to $350 with materials.
This is a new business for Park Slope. “As we get our feet on the ground and plant roots in the neighborhood, we want people to get involved,” says owning partner Owyn Ruck. “We love meeting new people, experienced or novice, and getting involved with everyone who has interest!”

Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop
www.sackettworkshop.com
Look no further for courses on fiction, novel, nonfiction, and poetry writing. Sackett Street also offers MFA Application Prep Workshops, which are especially popular during the fall MFA application season. Last year, more than thirty MFA Workshop participants found acceptance at programs. Sackett Street workshops are limited to eight writers and meet in instructors’ home, lending a “salon” atmosphere to the classes.
Pop Quiz: Which of the following did not make “The Atlantic’s” list of top-ten creative writing graduate programs? (1) Boston University, (2) Brooklyn College, (3) Florida State University, (4) Cornell University.
Answer: Brooklyn College, but it made one of the “five up-and-coming programs.”

Purple Kale Kitchenworks
www.purplekale.com
Chef and owner Ronna Welsh organizes workshops and classes for those wishing to cook more frequently, frugally, thoughtfully at home. She also targets those who view cooking as a chore or anxiety-inducing exercise. Group workshops take place in a Brooklyn brownstone, with sessions spent around an old French farm table or surrounding a wooden chopping block near a modest stove. Also available: at-home small group classes, individual instruction, and workshops.
Pop Quiz: How often do New Yorkers dine out each week?
Answer: An average of 3.0 times per week according to Zagat’s 2010 New York City Restaurant survey of 38,869 local diners.

Spoke the Hub
www.spokethehub.org • 718-408-3234
Artistic director and founder Elise Long calls this eclectic center a “multi-purpose” arts and wellness organization. Classes are wonderfully affordable and range from Pilates instruction focused on back pain to “Hand-Hooked Rugs,” “Candle Making and Beeswax Decoration,” “Your Art on the Internet,” and a cardiodance-strength-and-stretch class called “Macho Girls Super (Fun) Workout.”
One student surprised founder Elise Long when he said he’d “astonished his doctor because he measured in two inches taller than his previous check-up – this was just from taking my ‘Men’s Workout’ for a year, where we concentrated on posture, flexibility and general fitness. “

The Family

Ellen Chuse Childbirth
www.ellenchusechildbirth.com • 718-789-1981
Ellen Chuse has an impressive resume and has offered childbirth classes in Park Slope since 1989. Classes meet in her home on Dean Street and cover topics such as labor, birth, breastfeeding and newborn care. The cost is $375 per couple, with a cap of eight couples.
Ellen says that her classes “are known for creating a wonderful sense of community for her students while providing the tools for them to move through the process of labor, birth and new parenthood with confidence.”

Birth Day Presence
www.birthdaypresence.net • 917-751-6579
Take classes here for physical and emotional assistance before, during and after childbirth, including postpartum support and professional birth photography. The company is owned by two Park Slope moms, doulas and childbirth educators.
According to co-Director Jada Shapiro, students often “thank us for creating the space to spend enjoyable time with their partners and with the other couples in the classes. Many of our students end up becoming friends for years.”

Everything Else!

Babeland
www.babeland.com/events
This well-known sex shop offers workshops as well as toys! The fall workshops range from “The Art of the Blow Job” on November 14 (a popular workshop in previous seasons) to “Hit the G Spot” (September 12, $35), “Sex During and After Pregnancy” (September 28, free), and “Kinky Crafting: Ho-Ho-Ho-Holiday Cards” (December 7, free).
Pamela Doan, Babeland’s public relations director, explains that many people come to the class “feeling apprehensive about what to expect, and they appreciated the ease and comfortableness of the class. They love the role play; it’s an informative and engaging experience.”

Makeville Studio
www.makeville.com • 917-873-5542
Come here to try shop-class again as an adult. Popular classes include “Getting Started in Furniture Making” and the “Workshop Certification,” (certified students can pay reasonable space rental rates and build projects on their own). A relatively new class called “Bent Lamination Workshop: Make an Eames-Style Chair” is also available.
Owner Robyn Mierzwa feels that many come to Makeville seeking “the unique feeling of satisfaction and creativity that comes with making something with your own hands … people are looking for alternatives to their increasingly ‘virtual’ ways of living, socializing and working.”

Matter of Heart Organizing
www.matterofheartorganizing.com • 917-449-4402
If you struggle with clearing and organizing space, the fall group workshop “I’m Ready to Let Go of Clutter” combines education and opportunities to map out and follow a personalized action plan. Workshops are facilitated by Elizabeth Quincy, a professional organizer who has been featured on Martha Stewart Living radio and as a guest expert on best-selling author Victoria Moran’s teleclass “Come Into Your Own” in 2009 and 2010.
Pop Quiz: Which of the following words is British slang for something that is useless, junk, trash? (1) Dekko, (2) Duff, (3) Bomb, (4) Flutter.
Answer: Duff. It describes a person or object that doesn’t do the job it was intended for. For example, “that politician is duff!”

Brooklyn Botanical Garden
www.bbg.org
This venerable institution’s educational programs include the popular “edible” series, as well as fall classes on foraging and food preservation, rose gardening, preventing/managing rat infestations, and the “Certificate in Horticulture.” For those contemplating new careers in horticulture or floral design, this is a great place to start.
When asked about the garden’s instructors, continuing education coordinator Rachel Ferm said, “they are all very passionate about what they teach, be it soil chemistry, floral design, botanical watercolor painting, garden maintenance, photography—you name it!”

Too Old to Hold

March 16, 2010 By admin Filed Under: Local Literature

Sometimes it is difficult to identify exactly what is at work in a great piece of fiction. Is it the voice? The character? The plot? Often, the better the writing, the harder it is to talk about what makes it so good. Chang works her magic with this piece, leaving the reader hopeful, yet sad, laughing, but reflecting. She has injected into her work that special something, a secret seasoning that is the key to all good writing.

Rachel Ephraim is Founder and Director of FreeBird Workshops. For more information, visit: www.FreeBirdWorkshops.com

My sister’s house was burgled last week. Someone broke in through the window in front of the kitchen sink. They just smashed it right in, she said over the phone, kind of neatly, right into the sink. The cops told her it was one of the tidiest burglaries they had ever seen. They joked that the burglar must have been a pretty nice guy. It looked like he even took off his shoes, they said. Too bad for him that my sister’s a real kook. She doesn’t own a TV. She doesn’t have any jewelry but her wedding ring. She doesn’t even have a full set of silverware. My wife asked her one time, “Why don’t you just buy a TV, even a little one, for Tyler.” My sister said “I don’t want to be reminded that we’re all going to hell for the same reasons.”

She does this a lot, my sister. She says things that have quick expiration dates. They make sense for a little while because of the way she says them. And then later you go home and you think, What gives? But it’s too late to argue because you’re at home taking out the garbage, and she’s at home making that face that women make sometimes when they’ve just hung up a heavy framed thing with a hammer, two nails, and their own bare hands.

She called me the day after her house was broken into and asked me if I could come over and fix a broken window. I asked her how she broke it, and she said she didn’t break it. I asked her who did–she said she didn’t know. I asked her if she called the cops, she said yes. I asked her what they said. She answered, “They said I got robbed by a pretty nice guy.”

Normally Laurie would never call to ask me for help. She gave up asking for help when she was six years old. Do not be fooled into thinking that my sister is a capable woman. She just gets by with less. If she can’t carry something, she won’t have it. And if she can’t open a jar of something, she won’t eat it. That sort of thing. Her husband Jim is a very handy man, smart too. He likes to fix things for her, the poor guy. He makes things easier for her so that she doesn’t have to give up so often. One time I saw him take a jar of pickles right out of the grocery bag, pop the lid, close it again, and put it in the fridge. Laurie heard the pop and whizzed back in, eyes narrowed, cradling a watermelon in one arm and a bag of onions that looked like a sack of little faceless heads in the other. When I turned around, Jim had the jar back out and was already crunching.

“Just felt like a pickle,” he shrugged.

But Jim was in Montauk for the week, visiting his brother whose diabetes was so bad his hair was falling out. So Laurie asked me to fix the window. But not the way a woman normally asks you to fix a window. She didn’t offer to bake me a pie in return, or tell me if it was too much trouble I shouldn’t bother. She said, “I figure you’ve done it before, so it might be more rewarding for you.”

What gives?

I have fixed a shattered window before: a glass panel in the sunroom of my parents’ house in McLean, Virginia. My parents used to live in a gated community called The Reserve in a town where the lowest salary was earned by the security guards of gated communities. After they retired, my parents transformed from working people into bird people. And bird people of a certain age take birds very seriously. When I lived with my parents, we never chatted at the dinner table about Laurie who was living in Atlanta or my mother’s cirrhosis or the rising prices of produce. We talked squirrel tactics. How could we stop the squirrels from eating all the birdseed? How could we invite one genus of wildlife but repel another? In the war my parents waged against the growing squirrel population, it was hard to say who won and lost each battle. Sometimes our yard was overrun with squirrels pawing at my mother’s birdfeeders and nibbling at whatever fell to the ground. Other times my parents were the victors, shooing the squirrels away with a broom and a broken tennis racquet and then triumphantly waiting for the nervous birds to come back.

One morning in particular, my mother was standing in the sunroom glaring through the window at the squirrels breakfasting in her garden. Out of the blue, she just lashed out at them, pounding the glass with her fist, yelling “Hey! HEY!” until she just smashed right on through it.

So I offered to stay at Laurie’s for a couple of nights. I figured she needed a man in the house to protect her and Tyler from burglars, to fix the broken window, to open new jars of pickles. I told her I would be there around seven but there was traffic on I-95 and I got there at eight. I walked in to see my sister crying her goddamn eyes out. She was sitting in a lumpy chair the color of a ham and cheese sandwich, and her face was all pursed up like a prune. A mug was steaming on the end table next to her, and the stereo looked like it had been playing a CD but wasn’t anymore. A cat was sleeping in the curve of her slumped-over body. She was weeping and her shoulders were quivering and she wasn’t making a sound.

I said, “What are you doing?”

“I don’t want to wake the cat.”

“Are you okay?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s Tyler,” she blubbered through sobs. “He’s too old to h-h-hold.”

She sat there and cried, and I stood there and stood. I took a box of tissues from one end table and moved it to a closer end table and then took my things to the guest room.

It feels like I have been walking in on my sister weeping silently since the day I was born. When we were younger I’d see Laurie sitting at the breakfast table with a cup of tea shedding tears into her Earl Grey, or hunched over outside crying onto a bed of blameless snapdragons. One time when she was home from college, I found Laurie—all knotted up on the stairwell like a pretzel—finishing up a crying spell. I asked her what was wrong. She took a deep breath and said, “My body is so ready to have a baby. I know it. But I can’t just have one myself!” I took a roll of toilet paper from the hall closet and left it on the step below her. I tried to be warm, “Well, that’s a real dilemma.” She was bristly. “Well, it’s nature, Simon.” And she stormed off, leaving the toilet paper roll on the stairs. Do they know they’re crazy? Or do they think they are normal?

My dad jokes that Laurie got another heart where her brain should have been. When she was pregnant with Tyler, Laurie would eat a lot and she would repeat herself a lot. She would call me and sigh into the phone, and say “There’s so much in the world, and I can feel all of it. Everything touches me. I see too much. I hear too much. Everything is always something.” It was hard to hear sometimes amidst all the crunching—she had developed a carrot thing during her last trimester—but she called to tell me so many times that it became a mantra for me. I held Tyler when he was seven pounds and thought, Everything is something. I crack an egg on the edge of a pan in the mornings and think, Everything is something. I drive to the hospital where my mother is always dying and think, Everything is something.

Laurie had already gone to work the next morning, but she left a mushroom omelet, two waffles, and a variety of coffees for me on her kitchen counter. After I finished breakfast, Tyler still hadn’t woken up. He’s an okay kid. Likes to run around a little too much, but what do I care. So I sat down to read the paper and noticed two things. 1) We are all going to hell for the same reasons. 2) It was getting very hot. This wasn’t the kind of dry heat that you forget about sometimes when there’s a breeze or you’ve got a cold drink in your hand. This was thick, viscous heat. Georgia heat—so heavy it clogs your ears like you’re underwater. Laurie has a perfectly functional air conditioning system, but she refuses to turn it on. I visited her in the dead of August last year and cranked it up. The next time I came back to visit she had printed a little sign and taped it over the thermostat. It said, “Do not lower temperature. Think of (y)our environment.”

I sat on the edge of the sink taking out the screws and chipping away at the putty from the old frame. By now my shirt was drenched in sweat, so I threw it on the floor. Shirtless and sticky, with my feet in the empty sink, I stretched to reach a banana from the fruit bowl. A howl of laughter erupted behind me. Tyler was standing in the doorway, wearing a set of pajamas with bubbles on them. When we locked eyes, he ran away shrieking with laughter, “Ohohoho! Monkey Alert! Monkey Alert! Whoowhoo! Monkey Alert!” Surely he understands that body hair is hereditary.
I finished working (fully clothed) at around three o’clock and stepped back to look at my work. It was better than the panel I had replaced for my parents a while back. I hadn’t seen Tyler for most of the day. He would come in to check on me every once in a while when my back was turned. I would hear him stifling giggles, but when I turned around he wasn’t there and all I heard were bare feet pattering on the linoleum. Whoowhoo!

The front door woke me up from my nap. Laurie was back from work and I could hear another voice with her. A woman’s voice, low and musical. I hopped up off the bed, put my jeans on, and walked over to the hall. But as I approached them, something held me back. It was the look on the other woman’s face. She had burnt orange hair and pale eyes. She looked at me, and either she knew something I didn’t know or we both knew something together. I stood at a distance from them. She was hugging Laurie, and Laurie’s back was to me, and the woman kept saying, “I know, honey, I know. There’s always something.” She held Laurie for a long time. Just held her body and swayed a little bit like they were dancing on a cruise ship.

I turned on my heels and slid toward the guest room, not wanting to bother them. I decided to shower, so I got to the bathroom and started stripping down. Were my socks something? Was my shirt something? Were the towels something? Was the sink something? I stood naked in front of the mirror. Was my face something? No. My face was blank as a brick wall. I wanted my face to be something. Like the way Laurie’s face was something when I found her frowning on the stairwell of our old house in McLean. I tried to make my face something. Tried to twist it up the way you wring a wet towel. But I just made that face you make sometimes when you take a whiff of a tub of cottage cheese you left in the back of the fridge for a few months and when you found it again there was something wispy and fuzzy growing in there that you would almost like to eat if you didn’t know it was the opposite of what used to be in there. Everything in Laurie’s body was something. Everything around her body too. But when I looked down at my body, at the stupid hairs all over it, I couldn’t see something. I couldn’t see anything. And all I could hear in my mind was an echo, loud and shrill, “Whoowhoo! Monkey Alert! Whoowhoo! Monkey Alert!”

Elysha Chang lives in New York and is currently an MFA candidate at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She is originally from Virginia.