we went to a wedding-- part 1

We spin and flail and laugh. We raise fists and shake heads and hips. I squeal and he throws his arms around my waist before we are back to spinning and flailing and twirling into people and maybe a wall or two.

We are very accomplished dancers, though limited mostly our personal kitchen dance parties. We probably would have looked ridiculous if weddings didn’t give everyone else an excuse to shimmy and thrash and strut about like lunatics.

I love dancing with him-- at home or here or maybe anywhere.

There was a slideshow. And the bride and groom seemed to have recorded every tiny milestone since the moment they met.

I forgot to bring my camera.

“See? Normal people take pictures,” I told Ted over my shoulder.

There’s stunningly little photographic evidence of our relationship. A glance at facebook would lead you to believe that if I do, in fact, have a boyfriend, he’s a 6’5 Indian fellow.

Spinning, spinning, spinning, I know he’s real. But it might not be a bad idea to have some proof.


~beatrix

because i'm your people, and i think you might be mine

I’m sorry to be a little happy when you are so upset.
It’s just because
you are managing to put in words how I’ve felt my whole life.
And I’m pretty sure. . .
you will be fine
and we will be fine
and I will be fine,
someday,
when I don’t have to explain what’s the matter.

~beatrix

when you know

Julianna’s parents knew they were going to be together two weeks after they met. Her mom was seventeen, her dad only slightly older. They know they are lucky.

Ted’s parents dated for six weeks, were engaged for six months, and have been married for more than thirty years.

Jules and I realized that virtually all our friends have still-married parents.

My own parents have the opposite of a love-at-first-sight story. They met at school when they were five; my mom says my dad didn’t invite her to his birthday party. They went to school together and had a lot of the same friends and ran into each other in the parking lot at Disney World when they were twelve. My dad went on FFA trips with my mom’s brothers; my mom dated all my dad’s friends.

When my dad asked my mom to marry him in the driveway of her parents’ house, no one inside cared because the United States had just beat the USSR at hockey. And they already knew what it had taken my mom and dad fifteen years to figure out.

~beatrix

somewhere between here and there

When Jules and I went to see Evie, we had to stop in at a first birthday party. It was swarming with babies, which I guess is what happens when a one-year-old makes the guest list.

You couldn’t step or sit down without checking to make sure there wasn’t a little person in the way, and all the grownups who hadn’t brought their own baby seemed to be working on it for next time.

The cupcakes were pretty good. Jules had spent the weekend talking herself out of getting a puppy because it would be too hard and was concentrating on the hors d’oeuvres. Evie was holding a two-week old infant while balancing an 18-month-old on her knee and still having a grown-up conversation. And I was trying to have a grown-up conversation with a two-year-old while being torn between needing one of these for my very own and never ever wanting this to happen to my life.

On the way home from Christmas at my grandma’s my brother and I were talking about how awful our baby cousins are.

“I think I could be ready for a little niece or nephew, though,” he said, looking at me.

“Well,” I glared back, “I think I could be ready for a niece or nephew, too.”

Neither of us would budge, so we decided the best course of action would to have our parents to adopt someone with a (well-behaved) kid.

~beatrix

birthday run on

On my calendar birthday, Ted had to work. So I had early-bird dinner and ice cream with Pete at Chelsea Market. And my cousins around the corner made me cupcakes.

Simon called, not just to tell me happy birthday, of course, but to say he was in town. He said he’d let me know what he was up to later, but his never calling back meant I didn’t have to come up with any excuses not to see him. (Though he does have keys to my apartment I should give to my cousins around the corner.)

The next day I got to celebrate with my boy. We went to a crepe place that looks like a house but is in the city and we ate a lot of cheese and he gave me an eight-inch Henckels Professional S Chef’s knife, which might prove that he knows me better than any boy I’ve ever dated before (to whom I would like to say, yes, I really did want a lamp for Christmas).

And while we were dancing on the subway platform, I looked at my phone and had a message from that boy, the one I went to the movies with.

The movies were fine, except for the part where I mentioned “Ted and his brother and his girlfriend.”

“I thought you were his girlfriend.”
“His brother’s girlfriend.”

And the text said: Do you want to go to Lima with me in February?

And I ignored it and went home with Ted to watch tv and cuddle and warm up cookies in the oven and eat his ice cream.

Isn’t the best birthday present of all only having to deal with one boy’s crazy?


~beatrix

going somewhere

Do you know that I met him more than eleven months ago, in words if not in person? Eleven is almost twelve. And twelve is important, probably.

He wrote that haiku about the subway that I thought I understood. And I never even asked him what it was about.

It was cold the first time I saw him, even though I wasn’t wearing a coat. There was promise of spring, but it was winter. Like it is winter now. We’ve almost been around the seasons together. Almost.

Ten months almost. Ten is a lot, too.

He knows what foods to bring over when I’m sick, even though he doesn’t know if I like pulp in my orange juice. He knows I’d almost always rather walk a few blocks than have to transfer trains. And he knows how to make me laugh and what’s my normal morning bagel and how I like to fall asleep.

I’m the one who hears the funny things he calls out in his sleep. “Lonely float.” “Adidas.”

I know that the graphite-dot-tattoo on his palm is from being stabbed by a boy named Christopher in kindergarten. I know that there’s an oddly-appropriate freckle constellation of a grocery cart on the back of one of his calves. I can predict the order he’ll eat the things on his plate, and I know when it’s time to stop the movie by the weight of his arm.

I realized when I was falling asleep that I don’t know his shoe size. Or his favorite color. And I never know which side of the bed he’s going to want.

He’ll stop himself from asking me if we can try all the city’s beergardens this summer because it’s too much future, then he’ll ask me if we can send our kids to French immersion school, then he’ll ask me if we can go for bubble tea even though I hate both tea and anything that feels like a tadpole in my mouth. I’m almost always down for the walk to Chinatown, though.

I know there were girls before me, and I hate them. But not too much. I was no saint either. (It’s a funny thing to say, because I’m pretty sure there were some slutty saints.)

I hate that he had a life before me, but I’m glad we didn’t know each other sooner, ’cause we both know we would’ve screwed it up.

And all those other girls I’ll never want to count, I’m glad they broke him in. Broke him in without breaking him.


~beatrix



the blog has not only been around, but has been around with stuff on it for a whole year. thanks guys.
~b

practically live blogging the flu

I was going to try to write something real, but a nap seems like a better use of my time. Then I might try to shower today. It seems like a good idea at this point, but it would mean standing up for so long.

I feel better. The boy brought food-- not just juice and soup and bananas, but also chocolate pudding and my favorite kind of hummus and cookies and an avocado. And he told jokes and cuddled.

I hope he doesn’t catch it. I mean, that would really suck for him, but I don’t want to have to take care of him if he’s even half as whiney as I’ve been.

~beatrix

i'm subjecting you to my boredom

I am having a sick day. It is really boring; I don’t know how people do this. I’ve had four of them before today, and the last one was probably because I was hungover.

I’ve spend 9 hours today in bed, so for now I’m doing exciting things like sitting up and posting non-news the blog. I’m also making rice because that’s the only food around except some GoLean Crunch, and it’s too cold to go outside.

My boy has to work late, so if anybody wants to bring me some juice, feel free.

~beatrix

on why i cried the day before my birthday OR what good is a blog if i can't fill it with self-indulgent blather?

There comes a point where you stop expecting nothing and start expecting something bad.

And even though you tell yourself it’s just another day just another day, your birthday’s still your birthday.

Maybe I don’t remember much about my eighteenth birthday. . . except what I wore. I looked good, and I should have because I hadn’t eaten for days. I had just rung in 2000 with a ballet performance and an early night on my parents’ sofa. It turned out that my friends were really his friends and he was dating someone new. My birthday was our first day back at school, and soon after Baron’s new girlfriend started sitting at our lunch table. The restaurant I wanted to go to was closed because it was Monday.

For nineteen I was back with Baron even though we were long distance now. My parents didn’t like him, and hadn’t for years. “He didn’t give you a birthday present,” my brother pointed out. “or a Christmas present. And that is kind of bad.” He was right; I knew it. The restaurant I wanted to go to was closed because it was Tuesday.

My twentieth birthday was the first of several in-transit. I spent it with my parents before going back to school. I had a boyfriend, Steve, waiting there. Even though he tried hard, I knew it wasn’t going to last much longer. It turns out that our liking the same movies (say, Breakfast at Tiffany’s) or the same music (say, the Indigo Girls or Lisa Loeb) wasn’t such a great foundation for a relationship. I don’t need to date anyone who cries more than me. We lasted a few more days when I got back. The restaurant I wanted to go was closed for the week.

Twenty-one tried. I woke up at my parents’ house, and flew back to Hugo in New Orleans. I spent the night out with him and Harper and Knox, but no one else was really back in town. On my twenty-first birthday, I only time I showed my ID was to get on a plane.

On my twenty-second birthday, my father made me cry in a restaurant. I was worried about my thesis, but instead of saying he believed in me or that he knew I could do it, he said, “It will be easy.” Milton bought me a travel easel. He sent a picture of it to me in Georgia. I hadn’t called him for the whole of winter break. I didn’t call him when I got back to New Orleans. I didn’t even have to break up with him; he took care of that. And I never collected the travel easel.

Twenty-three and twenty-four sucked all around. I don’t even remember, but they were spent living at home, with my parents and . The restaurant I wanted to go to was closed for renovations at least one year.

For twenty-five, I was ousted from my bedroom by my parents who were ousted from theirs by my cousins who were having a crisis. My dad didn’t remember until late in the day. No one at work remembered. And my cousins didn’t understand the excitement over a new Pucci scarf.

Twenty-six was with David. Except it wasn’t with him at all. He worked all day. No presents, no plans. He called around six to ask where I wanted to meet him for dinner. I decided I’d break up with him if there was no cake, and there was no cake.

Twenty-seven was spent traveling back from Julianna’s wedding, back to a lot of old loose ends and one new promise to do better. Airports are lonely places for birthdays. The restaurant was closed because it was moving across the street.

So that might be why I cried the day before my birthday, but can we blame it on PMS?


~beatrix

sleep over. please

I want to go to the movies with a guy friend, and I want you to do whatever it is you do with your boys until 4:30 am*. But, in the end, I want you to wind up in my bed.

love
beatrix


*Excluding falling asleep on the subway. Or falling asleep sitting up in people’s chairs. Yes, I have seen those photos on facebook.