So last spring I hired a friend to retile the shower with an oversized subway tile. He did a wonderful job and the shower looked fantastic—but for one thing. In contrast with the bright white of the tile, the bathtub was really nasty.

Since moving in, I had tried many times over to get the grime out. Ajax, Bon-Ami, Soft Scrub, bleach, what have you. Nothing worked. I soaked, I sprayed, I scrubbed—no difference. The tub still looked grimy. Behold:

There’s no point in retiling your shower if it makes your bathtub look like a biohazard. I googled tricks for deep-cleaning a tub, and found that the intertubes gave me a lot of advice like this: “I’ve always used baking soda and elbow grease!”

The next day, as my friend was placing the last of the tile, he told me to clean off the grime before he started to grout.

“So, here’s the thing about grime,” I told him. “It will not come off. I’ve tried everything!”

“Oh, come on, you can get this off. All you need is a little elbow grease.”

“That’s exactly what the internet said!”

And I thought to myself: I MUST GET MY HANDS ON A BOTTLE OF THIS MIRACULOUS ELBOW GREASE.

I went to Lowe’s for supplies. Picked up a few other items while I was there, including a couple of bags of cedar mulch, which is where I met a kind elderly salesman sweeping the floor on the other end of the garden center.

“We’re closing up in just a few minutes,” he yelled across the greenhouse. “Can I help you find anything else you need?

“Actually, yeah! I’m looking for elbow grease!” I yelled back.

“Excuse me?”

“What aisle is elbow grease on?”

He cupped his ear and started walking towards me. I figured he was hard of hearing. So I yelled louder:

“WHAT AISLE IS ELBOW GREASE ON?”

He shook his head and kept walking closer. “I’m sorry, did you say, ‘elbow grease’?”

“Yeah, elbow grease.”

By now, he was standing right in front of me. “Oh, my dear, elbow grease is just hard work.”

“Huh?” What did he mean by that? I thought. Too much work and not worth the effort?

The old man began to chuckle and put his hand on my shoulder. “Oh, dear. Who told you to buy elbow grease? They were just pulling your chain,” he said. “It’s just a phrase. It means ‘hard work.’”

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

I am not sure what is worse—that I actually asked a Lowe’s salesman where I could find elbow grease, or that I’ve gone through almost three decades of my life without ever once figuring out what people meant when they said that something required this elusive substance.

I can tell you that I did figure out a way to get the grime out. I found a pumice stone in the same aisle as all of the heavy duty cleaners. It sure wasn’t easy, and I probably scrubbed off whatever remaining enamel was left on tub, but I did manage to clean my tub.

All it took was a little elbow grease.

In case you have not heard, I am getting married.

This means that we are planning a wedding and facing all sorts of decisions. Some of them are small (what will our colors be?) and some large (where do we draw the line on our guest list?) and none of them are easy.

But decisions always seem like they will be easier at the outset. Take wedding photography, for instance. That’s not so hard, right? Get a recommendation from a friend and bingo, you’re done.

Nope. Not that easy. I ended up getting three recommendations and met with three fantastic photographers, all of whom were just wonderful and none of whom I wanted to say no to. And while we were agonizing over that decision, I started questioning whether or not we should really be spending money on photography in the first place. The mental process went something like this:

We want a professional photographer to document our wedding > HOLY GOD THAT IS HOW MUCH IT COSTS?! > maybe we don’t need a professional > our friends are creative! > but what if I have 16 chins in every single photo? > THE PHOTOS WILL BE WHAT WE REMEMBER > let’s get a professional > HOLY GOD THAT IS HOW MUCH IT COSTS?! > well, what if we went with 4 hours of coverage instead of 8? > one photographer instead of two? > our wedding photography will be INCOMPLETE without 8 hours of coverage and two photographers!!! > HOLY GOD, seriously? > what if we were to just ask our friends?

Decisions like this make you go from being the most laid-back person in the world to a bridezilla and back again all in the time it takes to shampoo your graying hair. Thing is, you never realize how many options there are until the decision is smack-dab in your face. And once you learn about your options, you’re suddenly finding yourself wanting things you never knew existed.

Like engagement photos. This is where you go out galavanting in a field with your fiance and have professional photos taken of the two of you just being in love. Prior to the wedding photography decision, I would’ve thought this was icky romantic nonsense. But then I started seeing these amazing shots of people caring so deeply for each other and suddenly this thing went off inside of me and I WANT TO GO TO THERE. Some photographers include engagement photos in their base price; others do not. Yet another thing to decide.

This is also true of buying an airline ticket. You start out telling yourself you will by the cheapest airfare you can find. But then you discover for $50 more, you can depart at 10 a.m. instead of the crack of dawn. And for another $50, you can skip the layover in Phoenix. And for YET ANOTHER $50, you can have 4 inches more legroom and an 8% increase in chair-reclining angle and all of a sudden, you’re buying the cheapest airfare you can find + $150 to make your life a little less hellish for that 6-hour flight across the country.

Anyway. We did decide to hire someone, and, eventually, decided on who to hire. He will take beautiful photos and, with any luck, I will have a single chin in at least 25% of them. From now until September I will be practicing the art of holding my head up a little higher. I think that might increase my odds of having fewer extra chins.

Yours truly,

My Dog “I promise to not be a bridezilla” Is Chelsea

“We really gelled tonight. We came together, got the defense we needed, played real hard on offense. We communicated and had each other’s back. Everyone was hustling. It’s all about teamwork—know what I mean?”

YES. We get it—there is nothing interesting an athlete could possibly say about the way they played once the game is over.

Think about: If he played well, he can’t boast about it or the press will rip him apart. He has to credit his teammates (or God, or his mother, or Coach, or whomever). Case in point: Jeremy Lin. His story is one of a true underdog, which is by its very nature fascinating. Never drafted, Lin came out of nowhere and is, by himself, turning the season around for the New York Knicks. That’s interesting—who doesn’t love a comeback kid? But his post-game interviews? BORING.

Let’s say he missed every single three-point attempt and had double-digit turnovers. What could he possibly say to the press other than his head just wasn’t in the game and he’s working on hustling more and connecting with the basket?

Imagine someone in a slump being honest to the press: “Uh, yeah, the truth is that I am a selfish player who needs to learn how to pass more frequently and make better decisions in the heat of the moment. Coach should bench my sorry ass because I’m bringing the whole team down.” Now that would be interesting, but it would never happen.

So, to all sports journalists everywhere, may I relieve you of the misguided feeling that us fans give a shit about what a player has to say after the game? If we’ve heard one courtside interview, we’ve heard them all. NOBODY CARES. Just let the guys jump in the shower and go on with their lives. They are tired and don’t want to talk to you anyway.

It’s me, MDIC. Remember me?

Guess what? I’m procrastinating.

So I’m back.

See, thing is, I’ve got this story I’ve got to finish up for work. Every December, the company I work for publishes a compilation of our short stories, memoirs, essays and poems.

Last year, my “story” was a hand-drawn comic about why it seems impossible to write even though I AM A WRITER. I write for a living and yet, somewhat predictably, I no longer write for me.

So I’m trying to finish up the story I started (about coming home to New York and the people who make my old neighborhood feel like home even though it’s always changing) and something’s just not quite right about it. I know what’s missing, but getting there seems impossible.

Maybe it’s because New York feels a million billion quadrillion miles away right now. Maybe it’s because the thing that I need to add to my story is more detail about how much the neighborhood has changed, and that’s a topic I don’t much like. Or, maybe it’s just because I love procrastinating and felt the need to get back to my roots.

So here I am. Procrastinating. Writing about how I’m not writing.

IN OTHER NEWS:

• I have been cheating on MDIC by posting things elsewhere on the intertubes. For the occasional food-related story, check out Remember the Pudding. And my latest blog, Dog Doodles, where I post my drawings, paintings and doodles of my dogs and their furry friends.
• FOR THE WORLD’S MOST ADORABLE DOG BLOG (really), you must must must visit Sage Tails. I like to read Sage’s posts out loud in my dogs’ voice, which inevitably reduces me to belly laughs and gets the dogs all riled up because dog voice, of course, means something fun might be happening.
• I actually don’t have another news item. And for some reason, a whiff of inspiration to write has hit me, so I think I’ll head on over to the Microsoft Word department for a little typing action.

That’s all I got, folks!

Signed,
MDIC

In case you are not a New Yorker, let me help you understand the magnitude of that statement: What if, overnight, the Grand Canyon zipped back together? Chicago deep-dish so-called pizza ceased to exist? The sun decided not to rise? This, dear readers, would be like H&H Bagels shuttering its doors. Something that always was suddenly no longer is.

The reason for the closure, according to Grub Street New York, is a “rent issue.” This, I can only imagine, is a euphemism for what has happened to so many other businesses in the neighborhood: skyrocketing rents have made it impossible to keep the doors open unless you are a) a major bank b) Starbucks c) Ray’s Pizza d) a fine-dining establishment e) a cell phone store or, best of all for financial security reasons, f) an upscale chain retailer.

Aside from the proliferation of Ray’s Pizza, this is not the Upper West Side I grew up with.

I remember a neighborhood that required the use of the word “character” to describe it, in a city where rent control kept things somewhat reasonable and relatively affordable. One where “coffee shop” meant a diner with the best chocolate milkshakes ever. Where you could walk into a bookshop that sold only mysteries, and where your pharmacist knew more about your family health history than you did. Where you could sink into an Eeyore-shaped bean bag in the children’s bookstore while you and your brother searched for Waldo. Where the homeless man who lived on your corner knew your name—and your dog’s. Where your favorite Chinese takeout place asked, “You sure?” if you changed your regular order. Where you could cool down with a shaved ice on a hot summer day, buy an egg-and-cheese on a kaiser roll at the corner deli, watch a fellow dog owner stand on a park bench and rant about leash laws to a sizable crowd of nodding heads, and strike up a conversation with the guy who made a career out of repairing and reselling discarded air conditioners (easy to spot—always wearing a black trench coat in June, pushing a dolly loaded up with broken window units).

First, Barnes & Noble opened. Eeyore’s, the lovely children’s bookstore, closed. So did the famous bookseller Shakespeare and Co. Then the coffee shops left, replaced by four Starbucks in a ten-block radius. The mystery bookstore moved a bit further uptown, and then closed for good. The two Duane Reades and one CVS within five blocks shut down both local pharmacies. The fish store closed, and soon thereafter, the fish restaurant next door. Delis became shoe stores. Hardware stores turned into fancy hair salons. Multiple businesses got kicked out to make room for the giant Victoria’s Secret, and across the street, a Coach store (because who needs a place to get a spare key made or a prescription filled by someone who knows you when you can purchase an overpriced leather wallet?).

But the one place that you’d never thought would give up—the place that sells nothing but the quintessential New York staple—was H&H. It was a gritty store—sawdust on the floors, lines out the door, bagels stored in subdivided, scratched-up plexiglass tubs. Labels were rudimentary: SALT. PUMPERNICKEL. PLAIN. This was no pristine chain store operation. What it had instead was character—a whole lot of a character and the best damn bagels in the world.

What I’m realizing as I write this, with more than one tear dripping down my cheek, is the reality that I’ve seen unfold in my hometown since I left more than 10 years ago: the New York City that I remember as a kid is gone.