sob story

The thing is. . . I don’t mind so much when he turns away from me in his sleep. It’s a new sensation-- not feeling neglect or anger or why-doesn’t-anyone-ever-love-me when I wake up to face a back. But this. . . this feels. . . good.

I used to think maybe I’d never be able to make something like this work. The more I liked a boy, the crazier I’d act, and the faster it would blow up in my face. I just wanted to find a boy who made me a person I liked.

It turns out crazy-girl is sort of my natural state of being, but maybe that’s not the worst way to be.

I’m not a pretty crier. My skin gets even paler and contrasts my black eyebrows and soggy eyelashes; the white parts of my eyes turn red which makes the irises look sickly light; and this night my nose was pink and my eyelids were swelling closed because this had been going on for hours.

I was having a tough day/week/life, you know? But I was also just being a brat.

“You’ll have to try harder than this,” he said, all matter-of-fact, “if you want me to run away.”

~beatrix

dirt footprint

Ted’s cousin has been dating his girlfriend for three months. They’ve lived together for two.

New York pushes you into people. It squishes you into subway cars so crowded I once spent most of a morning commute standing on one foot. Sidewalks are packed and grocery stores are tiny and you’re almost always brushing by someone.

When I was little I lived in a place too far from town to have cable. There was a dog and maybe some cats in the yard and ponies out back and trees and grass and a sandbox and a tire swing. Here, twenty-four apartments, an Irish bar, and a bagel place share the dirty footprint of this little building. Here, I pay loads for my tiny share of the earth, three stories below.

The most cost effective way to live here, or anywhere I suppose, is to get married, or at the very least shack-up, as the kids say. You can’t beat having two incomes but only needing room for one bed.

It had come up before, but never with a sense of schedule other than “future” or “later” or “one day”. ’Til now. It was breakdown of timing, not an invitation or plan, just a notification.

I’m already decorating in my head.

~beatrix

the hurricane

It wasn’t so long ago that Harper and I would declare that we date like boys. Something about getting out early and not getting attached for the sake of attachment and never never writing our names with boys’ last names on the inside covers of our notebooks.

Well, Harper is dating someone. And I’m dating someone. And we like the boys we’re with, and we like the boys the other is with.

And all this happiness has collided in a hurricane of crazy-girlness.

Harper might know what colors she wants for her wedding. (I’m supportive because I look good in those colors.) I confide that I am pretty much in love with a dress from the Oscar de la Renta Spring 2008 bridal collection. (Harper’s supportive, ’cause I’d look good in that, too.)

Harper’s boy has a last name that’s heavy on the constants, so bulky names don’t sound good with it. But his has a good, strong, middle name. My boy has a last name that is hopelessly a noun. Any noun names sound silly, and adjective-y names sound like something from the newspaper classifieds.

Harper and I are talking about baby names. Like for serious. And sometimes being a girl is fun.

~beatrix

sap

I wonder if there will ever be a time when he will be so busy [planning a vacation, reading a bedtime story, writing the novella that is going to finance our apartment purchase] and I will be so busy [finalizing a dinner party menu, walking the dog, starting a non-profit arts program for girls in youth detention centers] that a moment will pass and I will forget how lucky I am and I won’t feel the need to tell him every ten minutes that I love him.

I wonder if there will ever come a time when I am so accustomed to this having someone [laughing at my jokes, thinking I’m pretty, indulging my fear of copyshops and champagne bottles, letting me warm my feet on his tummy, using my own reasoning to talk me out of bangs. . . again] that I will take all this for granted.

~beatrix

confessions

I sometimes practice a controlled sort of procrastination in which I schedule a time to stop putting something off. I need to move at the end of the year, and I chose the day to start thinking about it.

I followed through, and even looked a few apartments online.

But then I found some really great one-bedrooms I certainly can’t afford on my own. One even has a fireplace.

AndthenIlookedatweddingdressesbutonlyafew.

~beatrix

spy

I spied the email address over his shoulder while he was typing.

I was careful to use capital letters where appropriate. I want her to like me. And since Lazy Pinky Syndrome is only something I made up, I use them.

Since when is this my life? Sending a secret note to my boyfriend’s mom to make sure it’s ok if I bring a cake to his family birthday dinner?

Maybe there’s some sort of girlfriend instinct. Maybe my body has released a hormone that makes me want to cook and bake and tidy and plan.

She said to please call her Alice. That’s one of my favorite names.

~beatrix

spare me

He stays calm while I explain the panic.

While I was away, I thought lots about how perfect things are, but when it was time to see him. . . the pressure was too much. . . and what if. . . what if I am just wrong? . . .

Older than him and a girl, I might find myself under more pressure to be right. Too be right sooner.

I need him to spare me if he knows it’s not gonna work. If I’m going to have another big breakup, I need it to stay as small as possible.

And I’m telling him this and feeling like a crazy girl. I just want to make sense. I don’t want to be one of those girls.

He doesn’t pull away, says he understands.

He’s honest.

And we turn momentarily, hesitatingly, embarrassedly to the faintest glimmer of what-if. A problem? A hope?

We stop talking about it. We don’t know, won’t know. And we don’t need to know. Not now. Not tonight.


~beatrix

Crazy check

Is it crazy to sign up for clinical trials in hopes of meeting a cute doctor?

-Harper