Grapefruit Patty

Grapefruits are amazing. They have this epic size, the "king" of citrus fruits, if you will. Thick skin that's smooth and soft and the most amazing fleshy interior...ruby red or champagne white (take your pick, california or florida), they're pulpy and massive, and tart, and sweet all in one.

In Spanish they have a saying: one's "better half" is their "media naranja," literally your "half orange"...Of course, that oranges, not grapefruits, but it's stuck with me ever since I first heard the phrase. My mother and father have shared exactly one grapefruit every single morning of their married life. My mom cuts it in half and then cuts along the individual pieces and the enter circumference so that you can eat it right out of the skin, like a bowl. They still do it, almost 70 years old. I don't think they have a better expression of their harmony and I don't think they need one--you take my half, I take yours, there are not equal (one half inevitably gets more pits, or more skin, or more juice), but each part comes from the same fruit. That's it.

Powder Compact Bella

I´m not sure what brand it is, something you could by at any drugstore in 1999. It´s about the size of your palm, maybe a little smaller, and on the outside, before you open it, it´s brown and pretty dingy. When you open the compact, there is a cloudy mirror on one side. The mirror is covered in compacted powder and it´s hard to see much, except towards the very center of the mirror. On the oposite side of the mirror is where the powder lives. Even though the compact is 10 yeard old, there is still some of that compacted powder around the edges. There is also a thin, well used powder puff.

The reason why this little compact is so extraordinary to me is because it used to belong to my mother, who died back in 1999. It was the one that sat in her makeup drawer that August. It was the one she used the day she died. She touched it. She opened it. She looked into that mirror. She used it everyday. That dingy little poweder puff actually touched her face. HER face. And the smell. The smell is so EXTRA-ordinary. It so reminds me of her. She used that brand of face powder for a really long time so when I find that little compact, waiting for me in a dark drawer, I just have to open it and there she is. A little bit of her. Her face. Her smell. I can touch it. I can open it. I can look into the mirror.

Garlic Press Terrence

My object is a garlic press- in particular, a garlic press that wasn’t mine, but was my friend’s press. She gave me the job of squishing the garlic with the garlic press for a pork tenderloin dinner and I felt honored to have a job and do something useful, and then I used it improperly, I think, and broke it. I’m not sure I used it improperly, it might have just broken, maybe it had had it’s life as a garlic press and it wouldn’t have mattered who was using it, it would have broken at that moment. I like to think that. But I sense I did something wrong maybe, or used it improperly, because it just all felt wrong from the beginning the way I was trying to use it and then I forced it.

Anyway, it went in the garbage, I believe. She and her husband did not make a big deal out of it. In fact, they complemented me on how well I ended up cutting the garlic without the press. And it wasn’t overdone how they were complementing me. it was like really, it seemed, not a big deal at all that I had just broken their garlic press.

But I felt like a bit of jerk. It was metal and plastic I believe. By now—this happened in early January in Massachussetts (I can never spell that state)—I should have certainly sent them a new one, but I haven’t. This is all extraordinary, I believe. Every time I use my own garlic press, like tonight, I feel guilty about it. Not super guilty. But just a little, and I think how nice it would be to send them a garlic press. I’d wrap it in tissue paper or on a bed of cottonish material and put it into a flat box, like it was piece of jewelry. I can imagine it would be a fun package to get in the mail. Slightly heavy if it is a nice metal one. And they would pick up the package and they would wonder, before opening it: What is it? What could it be?

I’m realizing I’m soon going to have to go to the store, I’m going to have to find a good kitchen store, and buy a new one and send it to them. The garlic press I broke had a kind of square or trapezoidal end, silvery metal. And a pink handle that was metal, but maybe with a pink plastic or rubberlike coating on the handle. Hard to know really. It wasn’t as sturdy certainly as the one I have at home, and I think that I might have expected it to be like the one I have, and you can’t just assume things like that.

This is where it leads when you assume like I did, and now look, look at me, I’m a gosh darn mess about the whole thing. Garlic presses are difficult to clean out, but they are a good tool. I’ve always chopped garlic but then i saw my friend make fish one night with the garlic press and it seemed like such and easy and good idea. Your fingers don’t end up smelling like garlic if your with people and you’re trying to make a fair impression. My parents have one that cleans out easily. And that is the kind that i would send to my friends if I ever do get around to doing it. My friends probably already bought a new one, but it wouldn’t hurt to have two in the event that someone uses one of the presses improperly and breaks it.

They’ll have a back up.

Used Gift Tags Jimmy

My object(s) is those tiny "To:/From:" stickers that go on Xmas gifts usually next to a ribbon or bow, so you know who the gifts under the tree go to and who they are from. The details aren't very exciting, sadly: they're usually about the size of 3-4 stamps, with some tiny decal or drawing like a smiling snow man or a snowflake or a santa head or a xmas tree or maybe even a gift (which is kinda "meta," no?). The fancier ones are not stickers but tags and have glitter (glitter=fancy? ha! yes, that's how I think of it) and maybe a hole punched in them so they can be tied to the Xmas gift. But those aren't the ones I'm thinking of. I'm thinking of tiny, plain ol' santa-head-having stickers that leave hardly enough space to spell a name after "To:" which is always bothersome. These are ordinary to people because they are cheap, not handmade and are simply a messenger of sorts for the gift to which they are attached (which is what is supposed to be extraordinary).

The extraordinariness of these xmas gift stickers lies in the fact that my dad finds them to be keepsake-worthy, which I find to be utterly hilarious but touching. While I toss them in the trash like everyone else in my family, my dad carefully preserves the tags off each gift he received as a way to, as he once put it, "help me remember who cared enough to give me a gift." It doesn't matter that the sticker gives no indication of what the gift actually was. He simply likes that it invokes the memory of a person he cared for and who cares for him. Anyway, so in my dad's bedroom dresser, he has stacks upon stacks of these useless, ratty xmas stickers. Perhaps this seems like an object that is extraordinary to my dad (which it is) but it is also extraordinary for me because of my dad. I could chalk this up to his packrattiness, but I love how he has this weird little system that helps him keep memories alive. And so to me these xmas stickers have the potential for extraordinariness for some people even when they're pretty forgettable.

Agate Stone Amy

The stone is poppy agate. My nieces think it looks like a ladybug, and all three of them, as babies, would hold it in their hands if I was holding them while wearing it and say "BUG." It's sort of a mustardy green with maroon spots. The stone is oval, with a metal ring around the perimeter, and it's held to the metal ring with thin wire. I found the stone in a store in Mt. Shasta. I drove to San Fran by myself one February, picked up my best friend, and drove up to Portland with her. We stopped in Mt. Shasta. I almost didn't buy it, it was $30, and that seemed like a LOT of money at the time. But I bought it, and then we stopped in Ashland, OR, one of the coolest places I've ever spent an afternoon, and I made a chain for it in a bead store.

It lives on my neck or in a little box my sister brought me from Poland.

Basically, I wanted it, but wasn't going to buy it. Christen said, "When we get to Portland are you still going to be thinking about it?" The truth was I had immediately been drawn to it the moment I entered the store. It is significant to me for many reasons. Taking a trip to and from California in February by yourself is...insane. I drove through about 15 snowstorms there and back. We went up to Portland to visit my first love. It was then that I found out that he was engaged, and excited about having lots of babies with this woman. I met her, she was great. I cried for about a week, cried taking Christen to the airport the morning after we saw Miguel, cried hysterically for most of my drive home. Honest to god, Urmila, I have never cried so much in my whole life. I am happy to show you some time. It's basically me gripping the wheel with two hands and, like, screaming-crying. It was intense. I would eat a handful of peanuts about every 8 hours and just drive-scream-cry through the snow. I tried to convince one of my friends to fly to Salt Lake and drive back with me, that's how scared I was to be alone. Somewhere in Indiana I started to pull it together, and by the time I hit the Great Lakes Great Times sign, I was fine and a huge burden had been lifted. (That sign always reminds me of that.)

So yeah, it's like, a symbol for this fun/crazy trip I took by myself, and for getting over my first love (I had been carrying a torch for him for about 5 years, and on some level thought I would drive out there and just not come back because he would beg me to stay.)

Clippers Kiara

I have a collection (or you might even say archive) of toenail clippers. I’m sure people who see these arranged in a small bowl in my room, along with a random assortment of jewelry and hair-clips, must wonder why I need so many seemingly identical grooming tools. The toenail clipper itself is rather large, definitely a bit too big for my needs. Two critical aspects of my life are intertwined in how I appreciate and use this object. My father and my running. My father was himself a runner. He ran road races, with track clubs, for fun on vacation, and to train for longer trials, like the Boston Marathon. He always said he was built to be a “middle distance” runner. And, it would seem that I am built for the same thing. An unfortunate consequence of all this running, for both my dad, and now me, is less than beautiful feet. His feet always kind of freaked me out, maybe because he had some sort of strange fungal condition that changed the shape and color of his toenails. In any event, there were a number of times when I saw my dad clipping his toenails or just wearing flip-flops, and there I was grossed out by his runner’s feet. Now, nearly three years since my dad died of cancer, I am the runner with exhausted and slightly deformed feet.

One of the only material connections I have to my father now is my collection of toenail clippers. After I ran my first marathon this past fall, I realized that one of my toenails had been permanently injured. Now, when I use his old toenail clipper I’m not thinking about how ugly my dad’s toes and feet were, instead I can’t help but both see and feel a connection to my father through such a simple object. I bet he’d be proud of the way I continually beat up my feet to keep on running. I also bet he’d think it was pretty strange that I insist on keeping all of his old toenail clippers. But, he would probably understand how reassuring the banal act of clipping one’s toenails becomes when you can no longer share those odd moments with someone who is so irreplaceable that the object they used to use, which once seemed inconsequential, or even gross, is now such a comfort.

Keychain Karl

My ordinary object is a key chain. It’s a plastic circle about the diameter of a quarter, and the thickness of a Starburst, and ever so slightly domed in the center. It has a grove around the centerline of the perimeter which engages a bent metal clip which is easily removed for adding and subtracting keys. The plastic “fob” has a cream colored perimeter, and a clear plastic center, which protects advertising. The plastic coating has some scratches in it, and there’s a small chip out of the edge. There is advertising on both sides. One side there is a line drawing of a chicken, and some text below the chicken. “Chicken and eggs” I believe it states. The obverse has contact information for “the egg lady” with a Plainwell, Michigan address, phone number, and the name of the lady and her husband, whose names I cannot recall. (I’m sorry, but I don’t have the key chain on me, so I’m operating from memory). I use this keychain exclusively for my car keys. That fact is not of any special significance.

This object is extraordinary to me because it was given to my family by the egg lady, who delivered eggs to our door, when I was growing up in Kalamazoo. The keychain has to be at least 27 years old by this point. I received it a few years ago on a spare set of keys that my mother gave me for one door or another. She had put a piece of masking tape as a label on one side, which I removed and cleaned of adhesive. I’d forgotten about the keychain, but when I got it from my mother, I was taken back to when I was young. The egg lady and/or her family would come by our home probably once a week or so, and I’d frequently answer the door when I was young. The object is extraordinary to me because it does remind me of my childhood, and the rituals and routines that defined that time of my life. I’m not a particularly sentimental guy, but I like to keep that keychain because from time to time, I stop and study it, and for a moment, I am at peace.

Chess Set Kate

This is a chess set - maybe more like a collection of mismatched objects rather than a single object. The pieces are lightweight, hollow plastic, hailing from 2 or 3 different original sets. One of the pawns has had its top broken off, and several pieces are chipped. The board is made of worn wood, the paint on its surface scratched from a long life of many games. A small brass hook on one side keeps it clasped shut when it's not in use, storing the mismatched pieces. Boards like this are a dime a dozen in Russia.

I found this chess set in an overstuffed drawer in the apartment I'm renting in Siberia. So it's not mine, though it is in my possession. It is owned by a woman named Darima, whom I have never met, and whose daily habits and passions I can only guess at through details of her living space. Like this chess set. The broken pieces connect me to her in that way.

And I silently thank her every time I move a piece on the board, because this chess board also connects me to my partner on the other side of the globe. We play chess via email and internet chats, he with wooden rooks in Bloomington and me with these gracefully curving plastic knights in Ulan-Ude. This is an ordinary chessboard, but on my kitchen windowsill, it becomes a portal to other lives, of both strangers and lovers.

Makeup Bag Carla

It is a zippered, boxy, red and white striped Ralph Lauren makeup bag. It probably could have been purchased at any department store as part of a gift set during the holidays. The bag is pretty filthy inside, made dirty by the escaped shavings from my eyebrow and eyeliner pencils.

It is one of those memories that I’ll carry with me for years, I’m sure, that I wish I could erase. I was stressing out over something likely related to school or money and J, my partner at the time, came into the living room carrying my makeup bag. This makeup bag is filled with all of the notions and potions that I use to make myself feel more comfortable in this world. It carries all of the tools I require to create myself in the public realm. I can’t leave the house without putting on my makeup, so this bag is quite critical and essential, good or bad, to who I am. On this day, J brought the bag to me and I looked inside. J had taken out each and every object from the bag and cleaned them. The inside of the bag had also been scrubbed clean and all of the objects replaced. When I looked inside the bag, I couldn’t help the tears falling from my eyes. I felt so cared for.

I need the contents of that bag now more than ever to cover the pain and the sadness and to assemble a new life. And every day I see all of the clinging, brown, grey, black flecks on every surface of every tool and tube in that bag and I miss J all over again. And all I know in those dark moments that leave smudgy marks all over my fingers are that I need to clean it all out and learn how to keep it clean on my own now.

Stationery Melissa

My object is beautiful paper. I love intricately designed paper for writing thank you notes and little letters to people. I tend to buy paper when I go on trips to special places as a way to remember the trip. One of my most special purchases happened in Paris, France. I bought a monogramed pack of paper from Paris in 2007 and have yet to open it, but every now and then I look at it, think about writing a letter to someone on It, and then change my mind. The box the paper came in is wrapped perfectly, with a beige bow that has blue lettering "Cassegrain" - this is the maker of the paper. The paper has an 'M' monogramed on it for my first name, and the package came with envelopes for the paper - obviously the maker assumed I would share these sheets with someone. The paper is a grey with a white border on the rim. the envelopes have "graveur a paris" engraved on them. The envelopes are the same color. Clearly these are just pieces of paper, that I paid way too much for, i think almost 60 euros at the time. but i think they are extraordinary. i got into paper and note cards during graduate school because a friend used to write the loveliest notes to me on these cards. this friend was from the American south and she 'grew up right'. so if she wrote notes on beautiful paper then so should I. I began to buy paper and note cards and whenever the situation called for it, I would send someone a reply just as my friend had done for me. I rarely have to go to the store to buy a card - no matter the occasion, I have something that simply needs to be personalized. The paper from Paris is especially extraordinaire because when I look it at, it takes me back to my time in that city. everything around me was gorgeous and as long as that paper stays in its box, perfectly wrapped, it will be as gorgeous as my memories.

Dishcloth Zach

A dish cloth is an inexpensive cloth, the size of a washcloth, but thinner and usually made of a more synthetic material, with a waffle texture. It is designed for no purpose other than washing dishes, and often comes with the word dish printed onto it in large writing to make this clear.

I spend a lot of time thinking about dishwashing utensils, not unlike the way other people become fixated on utensils for brewing coffee or shaving. We spend no less time washing dishes than brewing coffee or shaving, and I find it extraordinary that so few others seem to spend as much time thinking about dishcloths. I had shared apartments and rooms with various friends and acquaintances, sharing responsibilities in various more formal and less formal arrangements before I moved into an apartment in Brooklyn with a contemporary I barely knew. We were very civil to one another.

As we had been accustomed, we both washed dishes putting soap onto a sponge. This went on for many months without conflict, as it had with many roommates before. Our apartment had an extra bedroom and a third roommate moved in. This roommate could not abide the washing of dishes in the manner we had been accustomed. She insisted that we were wasting time, energy, soap, and water, and that we would have to learn to use a dish bucket and dish cloth. She proceeded to teach us and enforce the use of her techniques. We were at first amused if not offended at her insistence, but we learned that among the advantages not mentioned above were the quiet available when most dishwashing time did not involve running water and improved sanitation by way of dishcloths being washable with clothes dozens if not a hundred times.

Now I have caught her obsession. I enjoy washing dishes perhaps more than any other activity when I wash them with her method. When I see someone stand before a sink and put soap on a sponge my stomach turns in knots and I try to contain myself nearly as I do watching a parent hit an infant.

Method for efficient washing of dishes:

1. take all dishes out of the sink.
2. fill either the left or right half of the sink with water, on the hot end of comfortable. use a small bucket, cooking pot, salad bowl, or if you are lucky enough to have a divided sink, thank your stars.
3. mix dish soap into water. turn water off.
4. place utensils, other than sharp knives, into water. on top of them add a few dishes. do something else for 15 seconds.
5. gently wipe dishes, now briefly soaked, with wet cloth and place into empty half of sink. dishes requiring more than a gentle wipe should be placed back in soaking water until they do not.
6. place a few more dishes into watery side
7. turn on water, rinse wiped dishes, turn off water.
8. repeat 5-7 until all dishes done.
9. wipe thoroughly soaked utensils, and wash sharp knives carefully.
10. hang your beloved dishcloth to dry.

Vial Dana

I have a tiny little plastic vial. It has the word “vitamins” printed on it, but the text is starting to fade. I keep Motrin in it for when I get headaches. Which used to be pretty often, so I’m accustomed to having it with me at all times. It is little but probably holds about 20 or 25 little orange pills. The tiny vial lives in a tiny, see-through mesh pouch, and I keep tiny essentials in it: lip balm, a bandaid or two, those little Listerine breath strips. An additional lip gloss and hairband. A shammy for my glasses which I also find essential but almost never use. I love these tiny things, and I love that I can see them when I look at this tiny pouch.

It is important to me that all this stuff is tiny. As a self-proclaimed (and other-proclaimed) packrat, I have lots of stuff on me at all times. I tend to carry big bags, and lots of papers. My fiancé regularly gets frustrated that it takes me so long to leave the house, because I literally have to pack a bag every time. The fact that this tiny pouch holds so many tiny essentials, can go from bag to bag to pocket, makes me feel equipped, prepared, useful. Efficient, even. Once, I was working as a stage manager in NY, a job which involves anticipating other people’s needs. I had bandaids, Tylenol, gum. One day, one of the cast members said, “I wish I had an extra black T-shirt.” For some reason, I had one in my bag. It became a joke that I always had whatever people might need, somehow predicted it. The mark of a good stage manager, Jewish grandmother, mother. Something I am not yet, struggle with, hope to be.

I bought this tiny vial when I was in Hong Kong in 2001. I was visiting my college roommate and close friend, who was working there as a consultant for a while, and she had “flyback” privileges once a month. Since she hadn’t used all her flybacks, she was able to fly me out there to visit her at the last minute. This was one of my few forays into what I thought of then as the glamorous and magnanimous world of consulting. I spent 8 days there with her, got to see her world, a world that lasted for her only a few months, but that she cherished. I was awestruck by the newness, the order, the aesthetics. One day, my friend and I went to a very cool store, a huge place called CityStore, which had departments, one of them much like the Container Store. Things were organized by color and size. Everything made pleasing sense. The vial probably cost about $3.00, and was one of those things I bought because I thought it was cute, and probably never thought I’d use.

Eight years later, this vial has surely outlived its life expectancy, and I sometimes fear losing it. Is it important to me because it came from so far away? Because this trip served as an escape from a too-clingy boyfriend, a relationship that ended shortly after my return? Because 2 years later my friend’s mother got very sick, and died suddenly, changing our perception of how things worked, marking an end to the days when we shopped on the streets of Kowloon and stayed out all night drinking martinis? Who knows? What I do know is, this tiny little vial makes me feel like I have some sense of control, in a world where that sense feels, to me, increasingly rare. It makes me feel like in this tiny way, I have it together. And in this tiny way, I do.

Pressure Cooker Ingrid

Where do I begin when speaking of the pressure cooker? There is so much to say! I thought about a sonnet:

Oh Pressure Cooker, how I love thee, let me count the ways.

Okay, let’s try again. It’s not eloquent, but this is what it’s all about:

It’s about memories: my mom in the kitchen, [over]cooking the artichokes, me a kid, cooking with her, learning to love it, singing and cooking, chores, eating. I gave a “pressure cooker class” at my house one night, in an effort to convince friends that the pressure cookers given to them by their grandmothers won’t explode and kill them and are instead the most amazing kitchen tools they’ll ever have (“You can cook dry beans in 25 minutes with no soaking!!!” I told them, “artichokes in 10! beef stew in 20!,”). Three of us each cooked a dish, and while there was a minor explosion when Laura’s top wasn’t properly sealed, I don’t understand why they’re still so scared of them (I don’t think either one of them has used theirs since – tragedy in my mind).

It’s about me. I’m comfortable in the kitchen, comfortable with food. It makes me feel relaxed and gives me perspective; at the end of a day when I feel like a fraud for pretending I know anything about anything, I can cook. I take comfort in the fact that pretty much the worst thing that could happen would be that it wouldn’t taste good. And then I move on and cook something else. If only I could be that worry-free about the rest of life.

It’s about the senses, all of the senses: sight – simple materials, the dull silver of aluminum, the rubber gasket, the steam vent, the rocker top, an engineered design so brilliant that it hasn’t been significantly altered for generations; sound – the miniature choo-choo train sound of the rocker, the woosh sound when you run cold water over the top to release the pressure; smell – the metallic smell of aluminum, of artichokes or beans or stew cooking, of steam in the air touching my nose; taste – the aluminum again, just a hint, changing the way tomatoes taste in stew; touch – the friction feel of a scrubber on the aluminum surface, the weight of it when it’s full of dinner.

It’s about familiarity: I’ve known this pressure cooker all my life; it makes me nostalgic for a hippy culture that I was never a part of, but was real for my mom and subtly permeated much of my childhood; I love the fact that I know I always have to tighten the screw that holds the handle on.

It’s about food: I love food. I love love love food. All food –weird food; fancy food; trashy food; mayonnaise on a spoon and $30 cheese and hotdogs and fresh Dungeness crab and chicken gizzards.

I love my Pressure Cooker. It’s that simple. It makes me happy.

P.S. I know there’s a beans, artichokes, stew theme going on here. But it’s more than that – wild rice in 5 minutes, curry in 10; I’ve even heard you can make cakes in them, but to be honest, that just sounds gross (I can only go so far, you crazy hippies)!

Electric Toothbrush David

My electric toothbrush is around eight inches tall, I think, with a pulsing blue light near its base. It comes with a holder and charger that can hold a few brush-heads, but I only have the one that you will see perched atop the base itself -- each head is expensive!

I bought this toothbrush when I was in Washington DC, working for a nonprofit, trying to live under a strict austerity regime. I lived in small room with a thin secondhand mattress. The job paid poorly but the health care was good, and I was able to afford this fancy toothbrush under the dental plan. I remember justifying the purchase to myself, saying that if I was going to indulge any vanity it should be a vanity related to teeth, because tooth care is fundamentally practical and wholesome. I remember explaining this over the phone to the woman who became my first serious girlfriend, and it amazes me that she could have found something like that charming, or at least non-repellent. I remember even ending one phone conversation with her explaining I was just about to screw the toothbrush into the wall in my room, and I was excited about this. The brush became a sort of totem in an otherwise spare room. Its blue light (which flashes until the brush is fully charged and then stays solid blue) was like my nightlight. Or a lighthouse. Or some other Fitzgerald-type beacon. It was present throughout what ended up being a powerfully formative year; formative for better and for worse.