Keep Fit: Remember to Write Things Down!
This month, I officially celebrated one year with Dan’s Papers! Senior Editor Stacy Dermont baked me a pear pie. We sang. I used napkins that said “The occasion’s colossal. Let’s toast the old fossil!”
Like anyone else, I use landmark dates to compose a mental scrapbook of highlights from the past year. Appropriate, now that we’re going to press on our Year in Review issue.
At Dan’s, 2012 was a year of memorable interviews—and some hilarious, but redeemable, initial snafus.
I spoke to Yankee great Bernie Williams. He was coming to the WHBPAC on July 14—a date I distinctly remember for a variety of reasons, recounted below—and his agent and I were never able to nail down a concrete time for an interview. So we left it at “He’ll call you if/when he gets a chance.” At 4 p.m. on a Monday, I answer my phone with my usual “Hello, this is Kelly,” and I hear “Hello, this is Bernie.”
So casual.
“Bernie Williams?”
“Yes.”
Turns out the call came from the All-Star Game in Kansas City.
Also tops on my list of phone conversations is Patrick McEnroe. We couldn’t schedule a definite time to talk, so I emailed my cell number to his PR agent on a Friday evening and left the office hoping for a call over the weekend.
Again, I was in an unconventional position for an interview—I had just arrived on Block Island on Saturday morning and was in my friend’s car when my phone lit up with an unfamiliar number.
“Kelly—Patrick McEnroe.”
“Uhhh—I’mreallysorryIdon’thaveapadorpenhandycanIcallyouback?”
My friend handed me a receipt to scratch notes on, but I didn’t think that would suffice.
Patrick McEnroe could not have been nicer. We played phone tag throughout the day and finally caught up later that afternoon.
I did, of course, also have a number of interviews where the introduction went a bit more smoothly.
Back to July 14. Taste of Two Forks night! The food was amazing, the drinks didn’t stop flowing, and really, nothing beats an outdoor summer party.
That morning was also stellar. I went to Pierre’s in Bridgehampton to celebrate Bastille Day, and was sure to get there in time for the parade.
Pierre, dressed as Napoleon (I assume), led his staff, who were also wearing period garb, into the middle of Montauk Highway. They held hands and ran in a giant circle, to the amusement of onlookers and—Bah! Humbug!—honking cars.
Summer weekends were for runs and stand up paddleboarding. I didn’t buy a Southampton Town beach sticker, a move that forced me to get up, start my day early and spend a morning dodging fast-moving crabs in Mecox Bay.
There was my half marathon—I hit the 2012 New York Marathon qualifying standard!—and that time I learned how to cook hot dogs on the grill. (The secret: Burn them so they’re super crispy. Add both ketchup and relish.) I drank wine from Lieb Cellars while watching my Mets…and cried when they traded R.A. Dickey. Biked around Shelter Island, covered the Artists and Writers game, ate my first Egg McMuffin…
When thinking back on a “year in review,” I’m drawn to advice from Nora Ephron—she will be missed—in her memoir I Remember Nothing: Write things down.
Not a bad 2013 New Year’s Resolution.