“I was walking around after work today, and I realized I never even think about the fact that I’m in New York City half the time I’m there. Like, I can see the Empire State Building when I get off the train, but I never thought to look. And then I was walking down 6th Avenue and there were all these people sitting in Bryant Park having coffee, and it was so-”
“Remember when we hung out near Gramercy Park?”
“Yup.”
“You know who lives near Gramercy Park?”
“No.”
“Ann Curry.”
“Really? How do you know-”
“With her husband, and her-”
“Why do you know all this?”
“And her two children, and-”
“Stalker.”
I received the below email from my father this afternoon.
A few notes:
Sue is my parents’ neighbor. She’s wonderful.
The email includes a couple of the baby names recently suggested by my family.
Those names (which will, by the way, probably not make the list) will tell you that J and I recently found out we’re having a girl…
From: Fred Rotondaro
To: Cara McDonough
Date: Fri, May 2, 2008 at 4:38 PM
Just told Sue about little alfreda or is it bambi. She’s going to sew botties for you. Pops
I was feeling pretty distracted the other day. The baby thing has suddenly become more of a reality, like, oh my God, we’re going to have a BABY, and it’s hard not to get excited. Like, excited all the time. Thinking of nothing else. And it’s not that feeling excited is a bad feeling - quite the opposite. But I did find myself a little worried. Worried that I might not be able to concentrate on other things that have always been important to me, now that this big news is taking over our lives. Like work, and my life-long goals and aspirations. I mean, will I ever be able to regain my concentration? Well, of course I will, but the other day I wasn’t so sure, so I wrote to my father and told him how I was feeling. And this is what he had to say…
From: Fred Rotondaro
To: Cara McDonough
Date: Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 1:09 PM
It’s so normal to feel as you do.
You’re agreat writer and you’ve done this for five years
Ahappy and great wife
And the best daughter for thirty years anybody ever had
But you’ve never been a mother before. So this new phenomena. This new reason for being will quite naturally grab you and hold you and make everything else feel not quite so intense.
The papa
