the plus side

Maybe I’m just a glass-half-full kind of girl.

When I was single, I thought it was great that I could come home at any time of night or sleep wherever I happened to be when I got tired or get in bed at 8:45. I could find someone to buy me dinner or I could eat an entire pizza and pretend it never happened. Most days I thought I was happy.

But this is better.

I like his comfy chest and long tangly arms in my bed. I’d rather share blintzes with him or spit a sandwich in front of the t.v. I’m pretty sure I am happy.

And it doesn’t hurt that I don’t have to worry about Simon’s message that he’ll be in town Valentine’s day weekend or Tal’s text to see if I’m happy or accidentally telling Jeffrey I love him.

I’m sure dating was fun, I just can’t exactly remember why.

~beatrix

today, i will forgive it for not being spring yet.

i would write something for you today, but in case you haven't seen the news, it snowed a lot today. and it was the biggest, puffiest, most beautiful thing i have ever seen and i was late for work because i kept playing in it and just stopping to throw it in the air. i really considered skipping work to make a snowman, but then remembered how responsible i am.

if i wrote something for you, it would be full of revelations like "if you open your mouth, it snows in your mouth!" and "look! the snowflakes look like snowflakes!"

in case you forgot, i'm from a warm place.

~beatrix

mix-up

I thought it was so sweet that my uncle texted to tell me Happy Valentine’s Day.

He’s the most fabulous uncle ever, always ready with words of wisdom like, “Oh, dahlin, it is always easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.” or “Never, never stand next to Little Richard. I still haven’t gotten his makeup out of my new white linen shirt.”

So I texted back to say I miss him and I love him and that I hoped he was having a happy Valentine’s Day, too.

“Do you know who this is?”

Strange. Until I realized that the first message was not from Uncle Jeffrey, but from just Jeffrey.

Crap. Just Jeffrey who orbited for a while three years ago, before I moved. Who more recently sent a text declaring that he regretted never asking me out when he had a chance. Who invariably uses too many exclamation points and is needy and desperate and likes Thomas Kincaid.

Who I never should have answered. Who I never should have accidentally told I love.

So I did what anyone would have done: I finished my snack, ignored texts for the rest of the afternoon, made out with my boyfriend, and wished my uncle a very happy Valentine’s Day.

~beatrix

there are some things, like rollercoasters, that are fun and not fun at the same time

The thought is that if he moves into my studio when his lease is up, we’ll save a ton of money. Then we can go on vacation.

And we’d rather see each other every night anyway.

It’s just a thought. It seemed like a great idea.

I didn’t know why butterflies had taken up residence in my abdomen today. At 10:15 pm, I made the connection.

I might throw up.

~beatrix

it makes my last post seem a little less crazy. . . a little

I had turned my back to the boys, and beer was running down my chin. Two-thirds of the way in, I gasped for air before beginning again.

College was worth it like never before, and those sorority dues were paying off.

Ted had assured me I didn’t have to do this if I thought it would end badly, but it was going great, and I could hear them getting excited.

Ted’s friend I’d only just met declared, “If she’s pulls this off, you’ve got to marry her.”

And Ted’s brother claimed, “That is my future sister-in-law.”

I turned around as triumphantly as is possible when you are wiping beer from your face with the back of your hand, and raised the empty pitcher.

Those boys were easily impressed. There was only a glass and a half of beer in that pitcher, maximum. And once you say you can do something, you kind of have to do it.

“That’s my girlfriend,” Ted put his arm around my waist. No one ever said he fell in love with me ’cause I’m so classy.

Later I was standing on the sidewalk waiting for people who were still inside, a course your night tends to take when you’ve been drinking beer out of pitchers.

I don’t know how Ted’s brother’s thought began, but it ended, “. . . when you get married. Or maybe I’ll be in the wedding. . . ,” with a characteristic raised palm and shifted chin that means question mark.

“Of course you’ll be in the wedding,” Ted told him.

I told Ted I only want three bridesmaids, and he said he could probably narrow his people down to three.

“Oh, and my brother,” I added.
“But will he go on your side or my side?”
“My side.”

And then Ted told his brother’s friend he could be an usher.

~beatrix

maybe you should ask him

My exes have started asking if I’m going to marry Ted.

When I asked Cooper for his address so I could send him a Christmas card, he asked if it was for a wedding invitation.

David asked. He said he thinks I’ll have a fun wedding, and it will be “so great” to see me as a bride. He’ll have to facebook stalk to see pictures, ’cause he won’t be invited.

Hugo asked, too. He says he’s going to dance with me and hang out with my brother. My baby cousins will be excited to see him.

And I might have told Hugo he can be an usher.

~beatrix

wealth management

Sometimes I panic, not because it doesn’t feel right, just because it doesn’t feel real.

**********

He was driving down the West Side, and we were stopped at a light.

“People don’t understand sometimes. Being single is just. . . .”

“Exhausting,” we said it together.

Sometimes having a blog puts one in an interesting position to reflect. A quick scan reveals that I have written about relationships, however distant, brief, or insignificant, with no fewer than 41 boys. Stories from a kindergarten proposal to everyday adventures with the boy I woke up with this morning.

No wonder I was tired.

For a while I thought I was lucky, and maybe I am. But maybe I just deserve this.

I’ve worked hard.

There’s a Bright Eyes song that says

With these things there’s no telling, you just have to wait and see.
But I’d rather be working for a paycheck than waiting to win the lottery.

I think it’s a love song.

I always thought I’d just keep pressing my luck, but it turns out that even if you hit the jackpot, you still have to manage your investments.

~beatrix

insight, brought to you by the boys in my life

Sam told me he’d invite my boyfriend to the Google calendar that tracks my phase of the moon. I politely declined on Ted’s behalf.

Now Ted has responded to a gchat message from Sam on my computer and they are talking and even though I said they cannot gang up on me they have.

S: Did she tell you how much cake we ate today?
T: How much? She only told me about some cheese.

T: I’m getting a lecture on the value of whining. Evidently it gets things accomplished. I should practice.
S: Haha. Earlier today she said, “[This intern] is so bossy! I mean, I know I’m bossy, too, but on me it’s a positive quality, on her it’s just annoying!”

~beatrix

emergency contact

Now well aware of bad things that can happen to you in doctors’ offices (even eye doctors’s offices), I was filling out a stack of paperwork and trying to remember if any of my grandparents have glaucoma and decide if having my wisdom teeth out counts as surgery when it asked for an emergency contact.

Out of habit I put my mom. She is dependable and I know her phone number by heart, but it seems silly because she lives too far away to be of any help in a real emergency.

I almost put Ted. Almost.

~beatrix

we went to a wedding-- epilogue

And afterward, with my dress and coat and shoes all over his bedroom and my hair back in its ponytail and my feet tucked under him, we were very full and very tired and it was very late. I don’t know if it mattered that we’d just seen friends get married. But our words were soft and heavy and trapped in under the covers, and we talked about prayers and love and believing, because it might matter. One day.


~beatrix

we went to a wedding-- part 2

“It’s like we’re dead!”

I guess I got excited and said that out loud before I thought about how it might sound to his high school friend and her boring banker boyfriend.

But on the roof, city behind us, looking through a skylight, at this particularly angled view of the dance floor inside. . .

“Ha. Yeah,” I should have known my boy would get it. And he tries to explain it to their wrinkled foreheads and gaping lips. He’s unsuccessful, but I’m thankful he saved me from having to try.

We point them in the direction of the spot we found to have a Moment before we head back inside.

It’s still winter, after all.

~beatrix

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