Yoga Haven - A Good Place to Unwind
- Details
- Category: The Goods
I recently got the chance to try a class at Yoga Haven 2, located at 91 Montgomery Avenue in Scarsdale. The studio, owned by Betsy Kase, is the new outpost of the beloved Tuckahoe yoga studio, which Kase first opened 15 years ago.
“Back then, Madonna was on the cover of Time magazine doing yoga, and people couldn’t believe that you could look like her from doing only that,” Kase explained. “Now, people have more understanding of it.” In the past few years, in addition to growing her studio across the board, she has seen an increased interest from prenatal clients, seniors, men, and even children.
“Eleven year olds spend 8 hours a day sitting in a chair in school,” she said. And then they go to play sports, sports, sports nonstop, without much stretching, “so they are getting tighter and tighter,” which can be rough on the body. That’s why Yoga Haven offers a variety of classes for kids and teens, including a Monday evening class just for boys. “We do handstands and hang from ropes, and lots of other fun things,” she explained.
Now, as you may know from other articles I’ve written, I am into spinning, not stretching. But after pulling my calf from three consecutive days of fast, repetitive pedaling, I knew that I needed to try something else. As I learned from Kase, yoga helps to heal and strengthen both the body and mind, and people who have been injured from other exercise often find a home with yoga. According to Kase, even individuals who have perhaps had surgery and then done physical therapy are finding that they still are not getting complete pain relief until they’ve done yoga. In fact, she turned to yoga in her 20’s because of chronic pain issues. “Back pain, TMJ, neck pain, migraines, digestive issues –“ she said, counting off only some of the woes one might have to make them sort of mildly miserable all the time and that the practice of yoga can help alleviate. “We’re getting older, and people are realizing that they’ve got to do something different.” In fact, she told me that, after 40, people lose 3% of their flexibility each year.
That means I’m 6% less likely to be able to touch my toes today than I was 2 years ago. By the time I’m 50, if I don’t start stretching now, I’ll be as crackly as a petrified tree.
Yeegads. I entered the studio.
Yoga Haven 2 is a beautiful, calming, light-filled space in the former home of Eastchester Glass (and all glass in the studio was supplied by them; plus, the owner there is a client of Kase’s). First, I stole someone else’s mat and then realized I had to take one of my own off the wall, for which I apologized profusely. Then I looked around and grabbed whatever props others had, including some styrofoam blocks and a blanket. (Taking any new class, even a calming one like yoga, is sort of stressful until you get the hang of the culture and general expectations.)
Betsy taught this particular class herself, which is the Monday 9:30 – 10:45 level 1 and 2 Vinyasa class. It was a perfect start for me, because although I haven’t done yoga in a while, I used to take classes regularly and sort of know what I’m doing. I’d call myself an advanced beginner. We began by sitting cross-legged on our mats and closing our eyes, getting ready for the session ahead. Betsy asked us to “unravel” ourselves, and that’s the moment that I realized just how “raveled” I was. Uncoiling my mind and body was what I worked on for the next hour or so. Down dog, up dog, plank, warrior 2, pigeon (oy), we stretched and built strength and balance.
Turns out, I’m wound pretty tight. This became really evident to me during the end of class, during deep relaxation, during which I did not relax deeply.
My son is leaving for sleep away camp for the first time in less than 2 weeks, my husband is looking for a new job, I’m about to self-publish my own novel on Amazon.com (which actually has in it a funny scene set during a yoga class), and I’m used to a high-energy spin class in which a teacher screams at me over Rihanna and I scream and whoop back, sometimes while waving a sweaty towel over my head. So, no, I am not the best at pulling a serape blanket over me and falling into a deep sleep/meditative trance at 10:30 on a Monday morning in a room full of strangers, some of whom are breathing loudly.
There’s so much to do! Have to get a toothbrush holder for Andrew! Who else used this mat and/or this blanket? Did I put enough money in the meter? I should go to Trader Joe’s after this!
An instructor for a yoga class I took in Brooklyn in the late ‘90’s used to tell us that the mind was like a puppy, in that its natural inclination was to stray. When we noticed our minds walking away from us like puppies during class, our job was to pull gently on the leash and bring the mind back. In the Yoga Haven class, I pulled and pulled on that leash. Eventually, I was yelling at that puppy, bad puppy! Heel! Stay! Come back, goddammit!
Betsy brought us back to the land of the conscious slowly. As we stretched our toes and spines, she told us that the mental aspect of the practice can be as hard, or even harder, than the physical work. “You have to cultivate the patience to do the practice,” she explained.
That’s clearly something I really have to work on.
Maybe you need to learn to unwind and build strength, too? I highly recommend taking some classes this summer at Yoga Haven. And then, go to Trader Joe’s afterwards. Keep the two activities separate - don’t create a mental shopping list during deep relaxation - and you’ll be great. Namaste.
Classes are $10 for your first class and $20 afterwards for drop-ins, with a 10-class card for $150 and an unlimited monthly class cards available for $140/mo or $345 for 3 months. You can download the Scarsdale Summer schedule here.
Columnist and blogger Julie Gerstenblatt writes with humor and candor about her life in Scarsdale, her friends and family, and the particular demands of motherhood and wifedom in modern-day suburbia.
Interview with Annabel Monaghan, author of new YA novel, A Girl Named Digit
- Details
- Category: The Goods
You know that feeling you get from holding a new book in your hands, excited by the promise of the first few pages? That’s how I felt when I first read A Girl Named Digit by Annabel Monaghan. It was a Saturday morning. My Kindle and I crept downstairs in the dim morning light and hid under a blanket on the far end of the couch in the sunroom, pretending that we were still asleep. In that way, I disappeared from my family’s radar for the better part of the morning, and by the time they found me and begged for breakfast, I was already hooked on Digit.
And that was good news, because before reading her novel, I was already hooked on Annabel Monaghan.
Annabel and I met in a novel writing workshop at Sarah Lawrence College in the Fall of 2010. She was there to workshop a project called Digit, and since her novel was completed and the rest of ours were not, we read her manuscript first. In person, Annabel is funny and self-deprecating and humble and smart. She’s the one you want to sit next to in class so that you can pass notes back and forth and give each other meaningful eye rolls, as if a continuing education course at a local college is the same setting as your high school biology lab. (Which, in a way, it is.) By week two, we had our own little inside jokes. As I sank into my couch, I desperately hoped that her book would live up to the real her.
We were told to read the first 50 pages for class. I got to 51 and never stopped. Here’s a plot summary: Farrah "Digit" Higgins may be going to MIT in the fall, but this L.A. high school genius has left her geek self behind in another school district so she can blend in with the popular crowd at Santa Monica High and actually enjoy her senior year. But when Farrah, the daughter of a UCLA math professor, unknowingly cracks a terrorist group's number sequence, her laid-back senior year gets a lot more interesting. Soon she is personally investigating the case, on the run from terrorists, and faking her own kidnapping-- all while trying to convince a young, hot FBI agent to take her seriously. So much for blending in.
I am delighted to tell you that Annabel Monaghan’s first novel for teens, A Girl Named Digit, released on June 5, was just named a Best Book of
Annabel, who lives in Rye with her husband and three boys (ages 13, 11, and 6) worked for Goldman Sachs and Paine Webber before leaving finance to join the PTA. Recently, she and I sat down at our computers and emailed an interview to each other. Here is the resulting conversation:
JG: Hi! How are you?
AM: How am I? I am up to my elbows in Peter Pan costumes, that’s how I am.
JG: Did I tell you that I got roped into co-chairing my kids’ elementary school musical next winter? Am I insane?
AM: I just spent all week at our school attaching bobby pins to Indian headbands. Don’t ask me.
(Skip over hair color, colonoscopy, root canal, and husbands to parts where we discuss new novel.)
JG: I know that the idea for A Girl Named Digit came from a conversation you had with your former babysitter, Gretel Dennis, to whom the book is dedicated.
AM: Yes. We were talking about a recent New York City kidnapping and Gretel said, “What if the girl is faking it? What sort of person might need to be taken?” I had my character and, pretty soon, my plotline.
JG: And the idea for the sequel (the one that I know you are working on but that you haven’t let me read yet)?
AM: The idea for the sequel came from a very small thought: I think we need to take it up a notch. What if Digit's gift was a threat to national security?
JG: Ooo! Scary! Are you getting very excited about the novel’s release? I know you have a previous book (Click!: The Girl’s Guide to Knowing What You Want and Making It Happen, 2007), but does it seem different this time?
AM: I am very, very excited but also much calmer than last time. It's different from last time because there was no ARC (advanced reader copy) with Click! so no one had ever read it before it's release date. With A Girl Named Digit, lots of reviewers and bloggers have already read it, so it takes a little bit of the tension out of it for me. It's more like a blind date with a guy you've already seen from a distance.
JG: Which is actually how I met my husband. What's the hardest thing about writing a novel? The best?
AM: The hardest thing is just sitting down to type. When it's time for me to sit down to write, I am suddenly hungry-sleepy-in need of a run. But if I can force myself to sit down, it only takes a few minutes to get swept right back into a story. The most interesting and surprising thing to me about writing fiction is how it's really a collaboration between the writer and the characters. It's a little like having kids - you create them, mold them and give them direction, but in the end they just do what they are going to do. In that sense, writing is kind of a magical process.
JG: In what ways are you like/not like Digit? From other interviews, I know that you collect bumper stickers, although not to the extent that Digit does. Also, Digit picks one outfit and sticks with it, and you have said that you, too, like a uniform of sorts. But tell me something else.
AM: I didn't really intend for Digit to be at all like me, I mean, hello, she's a math genius. But we are alike in some small ways. When I was in high school my friends were the coolest girls in town (they still are), all athletes and about a foot taller than I am. I fit in, but not really. At parties I had a tendency to sneak away and talk with the parents for a while. I had the sense that maybe high school wasn't "my time," and I was okay with that.
JG: Now is your time! Who is your favorite non-main character in the novel and why?
AM: I really love Digit's dad. He values her gift, but at the same time he doesn't want her to miss out on the fun of being a teenager. I like how his ego and expectations aren't bigger than his simple love for his daughter.
JG: I like him, too. But I think my favorite non-main character is Olive. (When readers get to the end of the book, they’ll see why.) OK, so how much of the math that you used in Digit did you already know and how much did you look up? If you researched any, what sources did you use?
AM: Like anything else, math is really easy when you already have the answer. Nearly all of the math and coding processes in the book I found either on the Internet or at the library. I'd try to wrap my head around the math and then work backward from how I wanted the answer to work out. It was actually pretty fun. (#nerdalert)
JG: What advice do you have for writers -- both the teenage/young variety and the old/middle aged variety?
AM: My advice for kids and teenagers who want to be writers is GET STARTED! Especially while you're parents are paying your bills! Write anything you can think of, just to capture this exciting and brief time in your life. And if you find that you really like writing, don't chicken out. My advice for adults is to mine their vast experience for material. We often don't think our own lives or communities are interesting because they are so familiar to us. But there is so much drama in a family or an office or a parking lot, you have plenty to work with.
JG: Plenty, agreed! That’s why I walk around the suburbs with my Moleskin notebook in hand. Lastly, what advice would you give to Digit as she prepares to go off to college that either someone told you or that you wish someone had told you?
AM: The obvious things which, ahem, no one told me: 1. Schedule all your classes for much later than you think entirely necessary. 2. Lay off the mac and cheese. 3. Dive all the way in.
JG: So true. Still having trouble following rule #2. Thank you.
AM: No, thank you.
JG: Coffee at Le Pain Quotidien at 9:15?
AM: Yes. I have a funny story for you.
JG: You always do.
Meet Annabel Monaghan on Thursday, June 14th from 7:00-8:30 at the Rye Free Reading Room for a talk/signing event. The book is for grades 8 and up, and it is a perfect summer read. Annabel promises to talk quickly so that there is ample time to eat the free snacks. Books will be available for purchase.
Columnist and blogger Julie Gerstenblatt writes with humor and candor about her life in Scarsdale, her friends and family, and the particular demands of motherhood and wifedom in modern-day suburbia.
Juiced!
- Details
- Category: The Goods
As a journalista, I often have to go where the hard-hitting story is. I make sacrifices, sure, in order to deliver the news about shoe trends and hot new books, but it’s all worth it in the end when I see the effects my reporting has on the public.
Which is why I tried a 3-day juice cleanse at Andy’s Pure Food.
I did it for you.
Well, I did it for you and me. I’ve always been curious about what a juice cleanse entails – will it make me sick? Will it make me skinny? Will it make me healthy? All of the above? And when Onur Ozkoc, the general manager of Andy’s in The Golden Horseshoe in Scarsdale offered to let me try it for free, I decided now was the perfect time.
Andy’s (also located in Rye and Larchmont) offers two types of 3-day cleanses, a synergy cleanse, which includes a salad and a soup in the middle of the day for beginners, and a pure juice cleanse, for those of you who can handle 72 chewless hours. Each costs $150. Onur took one look at me and decided I was a beginner. Yay, me! I got to eat soup!
Onur explained the benefits of a juice cleanse before I started, noting that all cleanses could be customized to the needs, likes, or dislikes of the participant. He said that if you eat a lot of foods that are hard to digest, like bread and steak, your body struggles through a long digestive process and uses up its energy.
All I eat are bread and steak, I thought. My body must be exhausted.
He said that, after the juice cleanse, I would feel really fantastic. He said that I would see the difference and love the feeling. Benefits include better sleep habits, more energy upon waking, glowing skin with renewed cells, weight loss, reduced allergic reactions, and, hopefully, improved eating habits moving forward. Onur explained that the cleanse makes people really conscious of what they put into their bodies.
“Coffee?” I asked. “Just one teensy, weensy cup in the morning?”
Onur shook his head sadly at me, the beginner. No toxins. No caffeine. Only water as a supplement. He looked extremely serious.
“But won’t I get a headache if I don’t drink my coffee?”
Yes!” he said. “You will!”
But I don’t like getting headaches, I thought with my headache-free head. How would I write? How would I exercise? How on earth would I drive to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, teach first graders about paintings for the Learning to Look program at our elementary school, and drive back home again…without caffeine?
Since coffee is a part of my personal brand, I decided to ignore this rule. My decision was based on a few things. I wasn’t going into this juice cleanse experiment to try and kick caffeine, for one. I only drink 2 cups a day, which is a marked improvement over the days when I drank 3-4 cups a day and smoked a pack of cigarettes to wash the coffee down. Compared to the me of 1995, I am already really healthy. Secondly, why struggle through 3 days without coffee knowing full well that I was definitely going to return to it right after the experiment was through?
I did not tell Onur about the coffee. But, knowing that I had to draw the line somewhere to really try and do my best within reason, I did give up wine for a week without a problem.
Which is why, the night before the cleanse began, I drank a lot of wine.
“Aren’t you starting that cleanse tomorrow?” My husband, Brett asked, giving me a sideways glance as I refilled my sauvignon blanc.
“Yes, which is why I thought it only fair to give my body some toxins to get rid of.”
DAY 1
Upon waking, I was supposed to drink the water out of a coconut. I imagined that Brett would materialize by my 
side like a nurse-maid, puncture the top of the coconut with a straw, and hand it to me before I had even sat up in bed. This did not occur. Instead, I walked around the house in my pajamas with a giant coconut in my hands, making beds, picking out the kids’ clothes for them, and packing snacks and lunches. The coconut does not fit into the cup holder in my SUV and that is why one must have it first thing, before leaving the house. I know this because I tried to drink from a coconut while driving my car. See picture.
Thumbs up on the coconut water. It is muy delicious. If I had put a paper umbrella in it and closed my eyes, I could have almost believed it was a tropical cocktail and that I could wear a bikini, which I haven’t done since 1989.
By the time I got to spin class at 10:30, I had already ingested the water from the coconut, a cup of coffee, and an entire green juice. I had to pee so badly during the last 5 minutes of spin class that my mind was hurting from the sheer force of mind-over-body control.
At 1:00, I ate my soup. Yummy. At 3:00, I ate my salad. Fine. And then I looked at the schedule and realized that all I had left for the rest of the day was one bottle of nut milk, to be ingested between 6-8 pm. THAT’S IT?! I thought. It was the hardest part of the day. I recalled that Onur had mentioned adding an extra, optional “meal” of steamed veggies and quinoa between 5-7, but I did not end up with that option. If you do this cleanse, ask for that, at least for the first day or two. It will help with the depression that sets in when everyone else is eating dinner and you are not.
As I made dinner for the kids and cleaned up afterwards, I realized that, many times, I was about to put something in my mouth. I became conscious of how much snacking/nibbling/grazing I do, and how those calories probably add up without me even considering that part of my food intake.
DAY 2
Thought I might wake up very skinny. Did not.
Put the straw in the coconut and repeated.
Headed with friends into NYC to chaperone and teach first grade class trip. Sipped juice on the way there and the way back. My friend who did not have time to eat anything but a banana had a headache by the time we got back at 2:00. I felt fine.
“It’s the electrolytes in my 10:30 lemonade!” I said. She went home to use her Vitamix to make healthy and yummy juices and soups from raw fruits and veggies.
By the end of day 2, I recognized a shift in my mindset. I realized that I usually eat for pleasure. In the case of the juice cleanse, I was eating for sustenance. Instead of a person, I felt like a car getting gassed up to drive. Food had shifted into fuel that my body needed to survive. This realization felt simultaneously liberating and sad.
Why sad? Because I like food. Okay, I LOVE food. Food is fun. Food is social. Food tastes great. Juices are fine for once in a while, but they are not a lifestyle. I like the thought of being healthier, and I did feel much less bloated and lighter as the days went on. BUT.
But even if my body felt lighter, my mind felt heavy. There is a burden that comes with thinking about and controlling everything that enters one’s body. Is it okay to eat this carb? Is it a toxin? Will this salty food make me bloated? Should I eliminate dairy completely? I understand that many people probably live this way, but I don’t want to. I like the idea of being more mindful of my choices and decisions throughout the day, but I don’t want to lose the joy that I find to be an integral part of eating. And I don’t ever want to think, “Oh, when I eat this, I’m being bad.” I don’t want my children to see me starve myself, either.
DAY 3
I know that the Andy’s focus is on improved habits and a cleaner, pure-food lifestyle, and I think that’s great. All in all, I enjoyed the experience and did not ever feel sick or have a headache (hmm…caffeine, anyone?). By day 3, I needed to eat for social reasons again, and so I skipped the salad given to me by Andy’s in favor of having lunch with some friends after taking an exercise class together. I ate a salad with lots of veggies on it, and I enjoyed it very much because I was laughing and chatting and chewing.
To conclude: I have since been off the cleanse for about 5 days, and have lost 3 pounds total. I have really cut down on dairy, have not eaten bread, and selected salmon instead of steak at a restaurant on Saturday night…with a glass of sauvignon blanc, naturally.
Want to get juiced?
Andy’s Pure Foods1096 Wilmot Rd, Scarsdale
46 Purchase Street, Rye
130 Chatsworth Ave, Larchmont
Whole Foods
110 Bloomingdale Rd, White Plains
BluePrint Cleanse
Columnist and blogger Julie Gerstenblatt writes with humor and candor about her life in Scarsdale, her friends and family, and the particular demands of motherhood and wifedom in modern-day suburbia.
My husband, the…Triathlete
- Details
- Category: The Goods
Artist, yes. Successful businessman, sure. Snarky comment maker, indeed. But here are words I’d never thought I’d utter: I’d like to introduce you to my husband, Brett, the triathlete. When Brett and I met in 1996, he was merely a summertime tennis player, and, when I was not chain-smoking, I occasionally attended a step-aerobics class. In Central Park, we went to Sheep’s Meadow to hang out instead of going for a run around the reservoir. I though we were perfectly matched in every way.
When we moved in together in Brooklyn a few years later, we joined a gym and attended spin and yoga classes side by side. Skip ahead 12 years, and you will find that spin and yoga is where I still remain. Brett, however, has moved on. Way on.
My husband now goes to the gym. A lot. He has a trainer. He does something called box jumps. He wears something called a weight vest. When I said I’d marry him in sickness and in health, I didn’t know quite how healthy he meant.
I think it all began a decade ago with a Memorial Day mile road race near my aunt’s home in Norfolk, Connecticut. Norfolk, known as “the ice box of Connecticut,” because of its lovely winters, is not what you’d call a competitive, cut-throat place. With its pretty little town of rolling green, Norfolk serves as home to the Yale Summer School of Music and the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, and has a strong reputation for attracting artists and craftsmen of all types to its quaint little corner of the Litchfield Hills.
But this setting is deceptive, because it has turned my art-schooled husband into a road warrior.
At last year’s race, he had to “beat his time” from the previous years. It was all he talked about. And then he did it! Yay, Dad! My kids cheered. We were all so excited! But the thrill of victory was quickly tainted by the agony of defeat, which in this case, was placing fourth in a race with only three award winners. Sure, Brett ran 5 consecutive 7 1/2 minute miles, some of them uphill, but he missed out on receiving a plaque from the Norfolk Fire Department in the male 30-39 year-old category, and that just wasn’t good enough. So, this year, he had to beat his time as well as everyone else’s. At the very least, he had to be the third fastest man in his age group and win a plaque.
Brett was faster than ever. He beat his previous year’s time by 40 seconds. He was so fast that he was shaking at the end, unable to talk. Memorial Day was hotter than heck this year, and I was concerned that he had pushed himself too far.
Lacking a bit in competitive spiritedness, I felt a mixture of pride in Brett and worry for him. What was he trying to prove? I wondered. Wasn’t it good enough to be able to participate in events like this? Why did he have to win?
The Norfolk Firemen posted a list of finishing times to a nearby evergreen. I hesitantly checked the stats. Brett was fourth again.
“It’s okay, bud,” Brett said to our 10-year-old son, Andrew, who was concerned that Dad was disappointed in himself. “All you can do in life is try really hard and still place fourth.”
You see, I married him for his humor.
On the walk to the car, we rationalized that, next year, Brett will be the youngest in the 40-49 year old age group and will therefore kick the old guys’ butts. Our spirits were lifted.
This 5-mile road race was like the gateway drug for Brett. Apparently, it’s not enough to try to outrun people. Now he has to run, bike, and swim his way to healthy. Next month, Brett will compete in a “sprint,” which I understand to be a practice for a full-length triathlon. His first Olympic-distance triathlon is in September.
I am of course proud of my husband for wanting to accomplish something of this magnitude. Training for an event like a trialthlon takes real discipline, both of the mental and physical variety. It also means spending lots of quality time away from his family in order to train. There are the daily runs, the 20-mile bike rides, the weekly “Super Human” class at Equinox, and the Sunday swim club followed by a tennis league…just for fun.
It’s hard to stand by your man when he’s constantly moving in the other direction.
I know golf widows. I don’t feel bad for them, because they belong to some posh country club in order to indulge their husband in his choice of sport, and thus, reap the collateral benefits of this by sitting by the manicured pool, flirting with the tennis pro, or golfing with the other ladies. But there is no home-away-from-home for the triathlete widow. No group support country club. No built-in tennis pro just waiting to fill my time while the kids are in mini-golf camp and daddy is training. Women who lose their husbands to golf might feel like their husband is having one affair. Triathlete spouses have lost their mates three times over. And there is no one I can turn to and sigh and say, “Mine’s mountain biking today. Where’s yours?”
(In all fairness, I also know several women who train and have competed in triathletes, so I understand that the feeling of being left behind by your uber-fit spouse is not gender specific.)
I was feeling a bit jealous of people who have couch-potato spouses until the other day, when I heard about a guy who makes my husband seem lazy. Meet Josh Zitomer. He is a personal trainer who personally trains himself by preparing for and competing in one of the sickest, craziest events I have ever heard of, the Spartan Death Race. Like Tough Mudder, the Spartan Death Race (visit youmaydie.com) mixes insane outdoor challenges with the spirit of mortal danger rarely seen outside of true combat. The creators of this race actually seem to want you to die. It’s counter-intuitive that anyone would pay a $900 entry fee for this right, when eventually, everyone gets to die for free anyway, but I digress.
According to Josh (who is a friend of a friend of mine), the race director begins by saying that “we don’t want any of you to finish…we will encourage you to quit.” Less than 10% of the starting group makes it to the finish line. Now, right there, hearing that, I’d give up. But Josh says that being pushed to the limit like this and being told he might not live makes the challenge even more exciting. But then again, he has competed in many double and TRIPLE ironman competitions. I can’t even do the math on that.
This isn’t a guy who could sit through a three-hour Verdi opera like Brett can, I’m guessing. Everyone has their skills.
Yes, Josh has a family that he runs away from too. In order to train, he gets up at 4 am so as not to upset his wife who does not like to sweat at all (I instantly love her) and who, I can imagine, feels like a Spartan Death widow, which is way worse than a golf widow or triathlon widow, because she might actually end up…a widow.
A typical workout for Josh might include flipping a tractor tire up a 1-mile hill. Or an hour-long run with a 40lb weight vest. One session was simply 3,000 burpees. Another was a mile of walking lunges with a 70lb log. Once a week he’ll test his strength, speed and endurance with a timed climb up the side of a mountain…while carrying a 5-gallon bucket filled with rocks.
Suddenly, a swim, followed by a bike ride and a run doesn’t seem so bad.
Did I introduce you to my husband, Brett? He’s a triathlete. And, I am so proud of him and I love him just the way he is and I really hope he’ll find the strength to stop right there, because being a healthy, well-balanced husband, father, businessesman, artist, and triathlete is more than enough. Even without a weight vest. Even in fourth place.
Especially in fourth place.Columnist and blogger Julie Gerstenblatt writes with humor and candor about her life in Scarsdale, her friends and family, and the particular demands of motherhood and wifedom in modern-day suburbia.
Up Close and Not so Personal with 50 Shades of Gray author E.L. James
- Details
- Category: The Goods
When I heard that the author of 50 Shades of Gray was going to be speaking at Willow Ridge Country Club in Harrison, NY, I immediately emailed my friend, writer Annabel Monaghan. “You’ve got to come with me to hear E.L. James,” I begged.
Annabel and I met in a novel writing workshop at Sarah Lawrence College about a year and a half ago. On the first day of class, we went around the table and introduced ourselves. It was instant kinship. In the oft-recycled words from the film Jerry Maguire, she had me at “I wrote a YA novel about a math genius that falls in love with the CIA operative hired to protect her from terrorists,” and I had her at “my main character is a teacher and mom who lies to her family and her employer and takes off for a much-needed vacation.”
Who else to sit next to at a 50 Shades luncheon than one another?
“I’m going to have to think about it,” she wrote back. “On the one hand I want to attend, and on the other, I fear it 
might suck out my soul.”
Understood. The phenomenon created by the 50 Shades of Gray trilogy here in the suburbs – and, now, nationwide – is a bit overwhelming, especially to writers like Annabel and me who scratch our heads at a success story like James who, by her own admission, has no formal training as a writer. But, then again, we did read the books and we are suburban moms who fit the E.L. James demographic quite exactly. So, while I waited for Annabel to struggle with the moral, social, and political implications of her decision, I went ahead and bought us tickets at $85 apiece.
I knew I had to be there, and I knew, eventually, Annabel would agree to accompany me. Which, of course, she did.
“85 dollars?” Another friend chafed. “Is it a fundraiser?”
Yes, I said. A fundraiser for E.L. James.
This may surprise you, but I was not really going to see E.L. It was the other women in attendance at this luncheon that had my interest piqued. Who were they? What were their stories?
The event was hosted by Lyss Stern, whose company, Divalysscious Moms, “is New York City’s premier socializing network for fabulous moms…think Sex and the City meets Mommy and Me.” The company has been hosting parties of all sorts since 2003, but recently started sponsoring book club events.
Lyss had me at “Divalysscious.”
According to Urban Dictionary, the adjective “divalicious” describes “the epitome of a diva, in a positive manner. A female that is independent, confident, worldly, stylish, and all around fabulous.” One look at Lyss in a neon and lace dress, with superhigh heels and hair and make-up done, being followed around by a photographer and flanked by her two event planners, and I knew that adjective had her name written all over it.
“She really is the hostess with the mostest,” one of the women at our table said, looking around the ballroom with awe. This woman was plus-sized and big-breasted, wearing a full-on diva outfit of a low-cut, body-clinging satin dress. Her hair was short and spiky. Her friend, sitting beside her, owns a romance publishing company and suggested that Annabel and I write for her.
These two were kind of the stand-outs in the crowd. We were lucky to have sat with them.
Who else…came? There were skinny moms and average moms, moms with hair straightened by keratin and moms with curls. There were even moms with their 20-something year-old daughters by their side, both boasting about their love for the books. “I was reading my Kindle while driving to work!” the mom of the duo at our table said. “I haven’t read a book in years and yet I read this trilogy in two weeks!”
All while driving, I wondered?
“I miss it,” she sighed.
Another woman at our table had arranged for her husband to watch their two-year-old so she could attend, while another declared to E.L. over a microphone that, “this is the best Mother’s Day gift I’ve ever gotten!”
“Unlike our heroine, Ana, these women like to eat!” Annabel said as we snaked our way down the lunch buffet line, watching as women piled up their plates with decadent salads.
And that’s why I brought Annabel.
While we were chowing down, Lyss raffled off some items, including a painting, a diet book (won by a very thin woman, natch) and a vibrator. I won a 5-pack of fancy, chocolate-covered pretzels. I ate one on the ride home and it was pretzelicious.
Next came Lyss’s enjoyable introduction to E.L. James. She recounted how the 50 Shades trilogy “tied women together…and you, the women, were the rope.” She described our “evolution from the sandbox to the red room of pain,” and said that E.L. James’ writing was “putting women everywhere into a breathless, orgasmic coma.” She told us that these books had let us realize that “it’s okay to admit that we want our needs satisfied.” Ultimately, she thanked James for “writing a book that was a community service to women…and men!”
That may have been the soul-sucking part. Because, as Annabel said after (and texted to me during), “I don’t want to offend this group, but it was funny how they were billing it as the new women’s movement, like this book had not only converted the illiterate but had also given women this long dormant ability to communicate with each other. It’s like E.L. James is Gloria Steinem walking around in Super Nanny’s body.”
That’s also why I brought Annabel.
E.L. James spoke next. She is not a very dynamic speaker, to put it kindly. This is probably why she isn’t doing much public speaking. E.L. shied away from questions about the books’ sexual content, saying only that she did have one “inappropriate relationship” when she was young, although she would not elaborate on the nature of the impropriety. Was he much older than she? Married? Kinkalicious? We’ll never know.
What struck a chord with me and other attendees at the luncheon was that Brit E.L. did not boast and did not seem to take her fame too…oh, what’s the word…Americanly. She was “stunned” by the reaction of American women to both her and the books, although “it’s beginning to sink in a bit.”
Secondly, we noticed that the emphasis of these books for her is about the power of reading. James said several times during the Q & A portion of the talk that her goal was to write books that people would read and enjoy, “because that’s all I set out to do – write a hopefully entertaining love story.” In particular, getting emails and letters from women who haven’t read in years and who thanked her for her books has been “gobsmackingly amazing.”
In short, while Lyss Stern and many others are more than happy to discuss the sexual and social implications of her books, James is not comfortable doing so. After all, the 50 Shades of Gray trilogy has sparked tremendous controversy, ranging from comments made by Dr. Drew Pinsky on the Today Show to recent banning of the books in a public library in Florida. Under such criticism, James would be insane to open her mouth about anything other than the fact that she is pleased that women are reading the book and talking about sex more than they used to. But, c’mon…is the book counter-productive to the women’s movement, or does its popularity somehow embody the evolution of a new phase of women’s sexual liberation? Do women’s fantasies of domination translate into anything other than fantasies?
Perhaps the answer isn’t black or white, but rather filled with at least 50 shades of gray.
So, here’s my takeaway from the event last week: I liked 50 Shades of Gray. It made me randy for a while and spiced up my sex life with my husband of 13 years. I thought it was awfully written and yet I couldn’t put it down. I had fun at the Divalyssious event, even if, afterward, I felt like describing everything with an “icious.” But I don’t want E.L. James to be the poster child for my personal understanding of sexuality or for woman’s sexual empowerment in a general sense.
And the good news is, neither does E.L. James.
Laters, baby.Columnist and blogger Julie Gerstenblatt writes with humor and candor about her life in Scarsdale, her friends and family, and the particular demands of motherhood and wifedom in modern-day suburbia.
