one day

During the commercials before the previews we made a pact: We'll never watch The Notebook.

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I met him beside a mailbox. He asked if I was hungry. I was. Turns out that was a banana in his pocket.

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Every day, I ask if we can get a puppy. Every day the answer is yes. One day.

two people in a studio is kinda nice, now that i think about it

Ted’s out of town all weekend, and I have the house to myself for two nights and three days.

I can do whatever I want.

I can eat baguette with tomato and hard-boiled eggs and mayonnaise for dinner. . . again. . . without worrying that someone else will be tired of that. And I can eat almost an entire bag of chocolate cookies and watch that movie about childbirth that everyone else has seen. . . but not at the same time because Ricki Lake, naked in a bathtub, isn’t exactly appetizing. I can get up whenever I want and watch So You Think You Can Dance in fastforward and Father of the Bride and In Her Shoes (again) and drink coffee and call my mom from bed. I can braid my hair and unbraid my hair and braid my hair. . . until my arms are tired. I could even give in to my compulsion to cut hair. . . and I still might. I can Google diamonds and what kind of house we could buy if we moved where my parents live. I can leave magazines and bobby pins and chip clips and the remote in bed. I can take as long as I want to get dressed; I don’t have to get dressed until 5:30 if that’s what I want to do.

I guess there are trade-offs.

No one will turn off the lights when I fall asleep reading, and I’ll wake up at 4:38 with the lamp on. And no one will have park breakfast with me by the Peter Pan statue, and if I went alone, no one would protect me from the persistent squirrels. And I won’t have a dance party partner except for my reflection in the television. And I might even have to take the trash out myself.

~beatrix

p.s. i cut my hair. um, kind of a lot. i had my scissor privileges revoked regularly when i was a child.

7 days out of 28

I thought maybe if I just didn’t say anything he wouldn’t notice what time it was and I could just lie around on the couch and watch Definitely, Maybe and eat chocolate chips. It didn’t work.

And just as he was about to call for the car*, I decided to try to talk him out of it (between fistfuls of chocolate).

“It’s just so hot and I ate too much Indian food and we were away all last weekend and we’ll be gone this weekend and I’ll only know one person there and. . . I’m just so PMS-y. I just want to eat junk food and watch this movie and look at pictures of babies in costumes. I want to google pictures of puppies in baskets.”

So we didn’t go. And he cuddled up on the couch with me.

And yesterday while he was watching baseball with his dad, I looked up baby names on the Social Security website and wedding venues and pictures of the party in the 1954 version of Sabrina.

It is a good thing every week isn’t the blank pill week in the DialPac.


* We got a garage, and it makes even going to Bay Ridge sound like a fancy event.


~beatrix

movies are not real life

WARNING: Don’t watch Away We Go with your boyfriend unless you want to spend the rest of the weekend talking about if you are in the right place and where you should live and what it will be like to have babies together.

DISCLAIMER: It might be time for you to talk about these things even if you don’t watch the movie.

ADVICE: Watch the movie, because it is good. And the New York Times has a list of things to talk about before you get married, if you find you might need one of those.

WARNING: Number 9 might be really hard.

DISCLAIMER: If Number 9 is so hard, you should probably be trying to figure it out anyway.

ADVICE: Take a deep breath. Relax. Enjoy this part. And order in.

~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.

i guess i have been dating the same boy for nine (9!) months

Have I really been out of all of this so long that I can’t tell if this invitation to see a movie together is completely innocent or totally inappropriate?

I should be able to tell.

And I should not fail to mention that I met this boy at my boyfriend’s birthday party.


~beatrix

serious is a relative concept

It seemed sort of serious when he let me help him with his Netflix queue. We decided to watch all the Harry Potter movies in order, interspersed with Mad Men. It took us three installments to get through the first Harry Potter because I kept falling asleep, so we’ve managed to plan our couch time for at least the next few months.

“Oh! Can we add Grey Gardens?
“That’s a girl movie”
“You don’t have to add it.”
“I’ll add it, but I’m also adding this one where Jessica Alba is a stripper.”

This from the boy for whom Netflix recommends the category “Gay & Lesbian Action & Adventure”, which seems pretty specific.

Yeah, planning what movies we are going to watch seemed serious.

He has Torah portions in his calendar along with work obligations and parties.

“Is it ever going to matter that I’m not Jewish?”

He ‘s across the room when I ask; he comes close to answer. He doesn’t say anything I don’t know.

My hands find his chest, fingers up his tee shirt sleeves. He explains, things I knew without asking: It’s important to him, he’d never expect anything from me, it would matter if there were kids.

And this is where we are and my tears are fat and falling and his are more sideways and shiny. And I need to know need to know need to know now. Can we do this? Will we do this? How do we do this?

Can you believe we're really here? Talking about babies?

“I need to know now. I can’t waste time. I need to know now. I don’t want to be old and alone.”
“You won’t be old and alone. You’re loveable. You’d find someone.”

Fatter, fallier tears. Because finding someone to love me is not a problem. Don’t you see? Don’t you see I want you? Lie to me. I promise I’ll believe. Don’t you know? I’ve wished for you over 312 smoky birthday candles, sent the hope of you up into 143 dark night skies toward that first prick of starlight, kissed my necklace clasp every time it falls to the middle with a secret thought of this, and fallen asleep 5840 nights, hoping to dream you into my reality. Don’t you see? Don’t you see how lucky you are? I want to choose you.

But, please, don’t leave.

I have his shirt clutched in my fist.

“No. No. You can’t want me to be with someone else.”

He’s back.

“You’re right. You’re going to be with me. We’ll figure the rest out.”

He picks me up, tosses me on his bed.

The rest we’ll figure out. Every day, we’ll figure out. This part, we know. This is good.

time lapse

I was wearing summer clothes, but the morning felt slightly more like fall. Time has been moving so fast. When I first met Ted, it wasn’t even spring yet. It’s been significantly more than four months. We’ve broken some sort of record, and I guess I’ve sort of settled into it.

That’s what I was thinking. This is what I was wearing: a navy tank top, a kelly green mini skirt, gold flip-flops, and gold aviators. I looked like summer.

And when I rounded the corner by work, there was snow in the gutters and doorways.

It wasn’t a dream or a meaningful cinematic time-lapse or a metaphor-become-real, just every day around here. People were huddled around an enormous camera, and someone tried to steer me out of the shot. They were just filming something I’ll probably never see.

~beatrix