tear quota

“Why?! Why don’t you want me to have my cutting board?”

It’s not like I wanted to make a scene in the kitchen chairs section of Ikea; it just felt necessary.

It was $12.99 and I needed it and I know we have cutting boards already, but I’m tired of my broccoli all falling off of them because they are from the tiny-kitchen days. (How quickly things become nostalgic from a cozy, white, fold-out sofa across the bridge.)

Once my Aunt Stacy told me she cried because she wanted some kind of floor in her bathroom that my Uncle Mac said wouldn’t work.

“What did Mac say?”
“Nothing. But I got the floor.”

I thought it was silly at the time, but I might have cried for this cutting board. It’s kind of like all those tears I might have cried for lonely nights or boys who didn’t call back have to go somewhere.

And I love my new cutting board. My broccoli doesn’t fall off and it even almost fits in the sink.

~beatrix

don't look back

We said we’d have a berry farm in the mountains.

We would have had kids who ran around with too-long hair and never any shoes. They’d be olive like him and good swimmers. We’d have nights on porches with all the stars we ever wanted and sunshine mornings with wildflowers and sweet potato pancakes.

He answered the phone, “Hee-ey there, pretty girl.” I learned that Eagle Scouts aren’t always prepared.

It was one month, and beautiful the way something can be when it is purely hypothetical-- like communism and vegan baked goods.

We both cried, sitting on the trunk of his Blazer with the rusty top. Nine days, I’d begged. Let’s just have these last nine days.

We graduated. We never said I love you. When my brother met a whole bunch of my exes at a single graduation party, he said he didn’t like Fred. He asked if I thought Hugo would help me move.

Fred’s an accountant now. He has tidy hair and shirts with buttons and proper shoes and no piercings.

“How long have you been waiting for me to do that?” There was that sweaty weekend and that night in that hotel. Even when Eagle Scouts grow up to be accountants, they aren’t always prepared.

He doesn’t answer his phone the same way anymore, which probably makes sense. I’d forgotten about the mole on his right cheek.

Fred’s a pile of what-if. What if we’d figured it out sooner. What if I hadn’t moved when I’d graduated. What if he’d gotten this job instead of that one.

What if he’d ever fought for it.

~beatrix

p.s. i hope you click the link and remember how this used to be a dating blog.
~b

being angry makes me tired OR word salad

I feel like a vegetable. I could be a carrot or a head of cabbage, if carrots and heads of cabbage were capable of a blood-boiling rage induced by subway performers.

I am broccoli. I have no face.

I want to move like acorn squash.

I could be jicama if a jicama pushed her smiling boyfriend away on Saturday morning (normally jicama’s favorite part of the week), rolled over, fell asleep for two more hours, then pretended to sleep for an hour more, all the while wishing he’d smile while he brought her some cereal.

I’m a potato.

~beatrix

general update

For those of you interested, I bought an entire bunch of asparagus this week. And also a copy of Martha Stewart Weddings, but that was for work-related research.

~beatrix

prove it

I’m sure my kindergarten teacher wouldn’t be surprised. I would spend the entire morning copying our handwriting assignment until each letter was perfectly formed and there were near-holes from all the erasing. Most adults can’t draw the way I could when I was nine, but the only evidence comes in snippets, usually about four square inches, of still lifes that were much larger.

I’m an anxious person.

I’m getting better at buying produce. A bruise, a spot, and funny color-- I have to fight a strong inclination to put it back and keep looking (and looking and looking and looking). I’ve given up completely at buying greeting cards.

With so many options and so little time, how do you ever know you’ve chosen the best one?

And I’m staring at the ceiling. Wishing wishing wishing you’d just prove to me that I can stop looking.

~beatrix

love bites

Mama’s Food Shop is an East Village, hipster incarnation of a meat-and-three, complete with screen door and formica tables. And it is delicious.

We ended up there because it was closer than our original destination, and I wanted everything. I chose hastily, but with no regrets.

And, without consultation, he chose what I wanted next-most.

“I don’t love you just because you ordered everything else I really wanted,’ and I helped myself to a few bites off his plate.

He finished telling me why he’d been having a bad day.

“I know. It’s hard,” I told him, “because not everyone can be as perfect as you want them to be. Not everyone can be as perfect as we are.”

I don’t just love him because he ordered the butternut squash and the roasted brussel sprouts. I love him because he knows I’m not joking.

~beatrix


p.s. everyone in the world has leftovers from this place but me, and he doesn't judge.

un-do

Maybe I could just stay here in this stripey sheet-cocoon where I think about nothing but the tips of my fingers and my own breathing. If you concentrate hard enough on not concentrating on anything, the weightlessness can take over.

Sometimes weekends are for fun, but sometimes weekends are for mending.

I like New York because you can order any kind of food and have it delivered. One phone call, and someone will bring waffles and a pistachio milkshake right to you door-- or to your boyfriend’s door-- and you can even pay with a credit card.

But sometimes not even that is enough. Not waffles or two naps or even a pomegranate present from your boy’s football-beer-run.

And now I’ve ended up, head-under-covers, hiding from the world, thankful for the sounds of his typing, and only to be lured out by the promise of sandwiches.

~beatrix

something is certainly working

We were in the throws. The whispery, giggly throws because he had friends in town, sleeping in the next room.

I don’t remember why he mentioned the grocery store at a time like this, but he did.

I moaned, then laughed, “I love the grocery store.”
“Oh yeah? What’s your favorite part?”
“Oh! Produce. . . .”
“Produce from the grocery store? . . . or the farmer’s market?”
“Oooo. . . Farmer’s market. . . .”

Giggles, before he starts again.

“ I was thinking of vegetables. Like butternut squash. . . or zucchini.”
“I’m more excited about summer things. Like tomatoes. . . and corn.”
“I like corn. . . .”
“Oh! Oh! And peaches!”
“I think this is why we work.”

~beatrix

why my life will never be a lifetime movie

I finally threw out that asparagus. I meant to eat it. Really.

It was pretty shriveled.

~beatrix

thank you note

Dear Grandma,

Thank you for the Valentine’s Day card and for the enclosed ten dollars. You will be happy to know that I used it to get snockered [sic] with my coworkers. Absolutely snockered [sic] on lychee martinis. Do you know what a lychee is, Grandma? Me either, but I’m pretty sure it’s Chinese or something.

Anyway, the buzz is great, so I’m going to call this boy I like. I know you’ve given up on my ever getting married, but I have hope yet. And I think this guy might have potential, even though you’ll be sorry to know that he’s Hindu. So we'll have lots of heathen babies who believe in hundreds of gods, one of whom even has eight arms.

Thanks for your contribution to my courage fund, Grandma.

Happy Valentine’s Day, and lots of love,

~[drunk] beatrix

[Note: This letter was written when I was still quite drunk from those martinis. It was about 8:45 pm; this is what happens when I go out with my coworkers. (By the way, I know a great happy hour on the Lower East Side, if you are interested. I spent more than the $10 mentioned in my drunk letter, but not much.) This letter was not actually sent to my grandmother. Also, I knew what a lychee looked like in my drink, but I wikipedia-ed it, and now I know what the tree looks like, too. (And it is Chinese.) ~ sober beatrix]