the boring details

It's summer and about 135 degrees. Fahrenheit. That's 57-ish if you live in Canada. A girl from Canada stayed with us for a few days, and she was like, "Is it always like this, eh? I can't dry my hair." and I was like, "Dude, it is always like this in the summer, and think about it. You are only in the very top part of this country. When I lived in the bottom part of the country, I used to have nightmares about drying my hair."

Well, anyway, I've been spending a lot a lot of time eating Italian ice. Actually, I've been spending a lot of time eating Italian ice (in heels on a corner in the East Village, on a walk through Fort Greene, at a Carrol Gardens street fair, etc.) and some time trying to figure out if I have one dollar (or two dollars if the boy wants Italian ice, too) and if not, where I can get some cash, because mostly you can't charge Italian ice.

I have a sandal tan line. I think the last time I had a sandal tan, I was in high school. It is actually a tan line, not just dirt. Sometimes it is partly dirt. The rest of my tan lines I've been changing up: scoop-neck tank top from going to Target, slightly askew oxford-shirt V from going to Trader Joe's. Currently, the most distinct print is one spaghetti straps and one extra wide handbag strap.

~b

A Story about a Boy and a Girl, Who are Not Us (Obviously) : A Play in 2 Acts

ACT I

Scene: Small, untidy, sparsely-furnished city studio apartment. Upstage, a closet spills laundry onto the floor. There is a small kitchenette with dishes stacked haphazardly. A discarded cookie bag sticks out of a trashcan. Stage right is a closed door that opens into an unseen hallway or stairwell. Stage left is an unmade bed and windows that filter in late-afternoon sunlight.

SHE stands, fussing with a back zipper in a non-descript sun dress. It catches, and she sighs. She pinches at the fat of her abdomen; there’s not much, but what is there seems to disgust her. She tries the zipper again, and it goes up. The dress fits. She tests the jiggliness of her arms, first by waving one, then my flexing it and stabbing at it with her finger. When she flexes, there is no jiggle. She poses and examines herself before unzipping the dress. The zipper catches again in the same place before going down, and she removes one arm.

There is the loud. sound of a key in the deadbolt, and SHE clutches the dress back to her chest. HE enters, dressed in work clothes, tie loosened and shirt partially untucked. There is a magazine, folded, in his back pocket.

SHE [dropping the dress to the floor, stands in panties, arms outstretched]: I’ll be ready soon, I promise. I hate all my clothes.

HE: You do not hate all your clothes. [He pats her thigh and kisses her on the temple.] Hi.

SHE: Hi. [She kisses him then slings the sundress away with her foot.] There are things here I’ve never even seen before. [She motions abstractly at the closet.] I’ve never seen them, but I hate them. [Holding up a blue halter-top.] Like this.

HE: Well, wear that.
SHE: It’s not true. I have seen that. [She flings the shirt away.] It has an unflattering neck-line.
HE: You like that blue cardigan and that orange shirt that’s kind of bohemian. You wear those a lot.
SHE: I wear them a lot, so I don’t like them.
HE: What about those new things? Those dresses and things. . . .
SHE: I hate those, too. That’s not true, but I don’t want to wear them today.

HE stretches out on the bed, looks at his phone, flips through the magazine. SHE contemplates the pile of laundry, then leans over and lifts an armful of it before dropping it again. She does this several times.

SHE: [whining] I hate it all.
HE: Did you eat anything?
SHE: Well. . . a snack. Some strawberries and some cheese and some of those chocolate cookies. [She glances quickly at the trash can toward HE before slumping over again, this time contemplating her naked belly.] Which I shouldn’t have done. I’m so fat.
HE: I am pretty sure you are not fat.
SHE: I am! I’m so fat.
HE: Hmm.
SHE: My stomach spills over my pants. And I have thunder thighs.
HE: Yeah. . . and birthing hips. . . .
SHE: [Standing up straight and looks at him, possibly for the first time.] What?
HE: Um. . . [He stands up and takes a few steps in her direction before stopping.]
SHE: Don’t say that! I’m sensitive about my hips. Do you really think I have wide hips?
HE: Um. . . Ah. . . .
SHE: Say I have the sort of hips that will require C-sections. Say my hips are too narrow to allow the passage of a baby’s head!
HE: That sounds. . . unhealthy.
SHE: Unhealthy is good! Unhealthy is pretty. Do you really think I have birthing hips?
HE: I don’t know. I mean, I don’t really pay attention to hips. I’d have to have a lineup of the spectrum of hips. . . .
SHE: Don’t say that! Say you love my hips, they’re prefect hips, they’re the only hips you like. How long do we have? I guess I’ll wear what I was already wearing today.

The lights dim as SHE takes a bra from the pile on the floor and puts it on.

ACT II

It is nighttime. HE and SHE are on a downtown corner. They are standing on the sidewalk in front of a graffiti-ed brick wall and a deli/bodega.

HE: What do you want to eat?
SHE: Well, obviously I want something big and bad for me, like spaghetti.
HE: I think I have pasta at home.
SHE: I don’t really want that. What about pizza? [She motions into the distance.]
HE: This might be the most unmanly thing I’ve ever said, but that might be a little heavy for me.
SHE: Oh. . . .
HE: What else?
SHE: I’m not really hungry. I’m kind of queasy.
HE: I know what that means. . . You need to eat.
SHE: [defensively] You do not know everything about me. . . .
HE: Maybe not, but I know enough, and I know this.
SHE: How about tacos?
HE: Done.

Holding hands, they exit stage left.

CURTAIN



~b

so. . . sorry. esp. about that salad dressing

I’m sorry I

-Cried when I had to walk to work in the snow
-Took an hour and half to get dressed because I was angry at my wardrobe
-Insisted that I had a staph infection on my face even though it was obviously just a pimple
-Fed you a vinaigrette I made with expired mustard
-Told you the mustard was expired but didn’t tell you it was expired by more than a year and a half
-Wasn’t fun at that birthday party and am so old that the sounds in clubs give me headaches
-Apologize, even at inappropriate times.

~beatrix

in honor of what is reportedly the most depressing day of the year

I am tired of wearing boots and there’s not a number over freezing on the ten-day forecast and it’s still getting dark at 4:30. I’m not dressed at 5:30, and I’m not sure how long those dishes have been in my sink. I was going to do Projects before I have to go back to work on Monday, but maybe showering counts as a Project. Fruitcake does not count as dinner. I haven’t been drinking enough water.

Happy New Year.

I effing hate January.

I’m going to turn 28 on Tuesday. Twenty-eight seems old. I know the date and details of my 10-year high school reunion. I should have done Something by now. Maybe not getting fat counts as Doing Something.

I remember my parents when they were 28. I was five and they were grownups who were Responsible Caretakers.

I am Happy. I have a boyfriend I like and a job that other people want and some days I realize that I live a life of suburban daydreams. I have Plans and at least one really good Idea.

I am accepting invitations and finding activities, because I know that the clutching sensation at my back, creeping down the undersides of my arms is just from too many carbs and the January-ness of it all.

~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

dressing

You should know that I will buy party dresses before I will buy furniture. I might buy party dresses before I will buy food, which is sort of a cyclical budget and a diet plan all in one. I know some girls like shoes to the point that it’s really just a cliché, and you know I like shoes fine because you’re always tripping over that pile of mine by my closet, but party dresses are like therapy and maybe you need to feel pretty while you check your email once in a while.

You like this one, I think. I’ll wear it to your friend’s wedding with these shoes, probably, because they are good for dancing a lot, but I’ll need another black accessory to help them make more sense. You probably don’t care about the details, but yeah, I’m pretty sure you really like it. . . . That’s another thing about party dresses: your boy hands have an easy time convincing me I’m sexy when they find my scrawny curves through a layer of tailored satin.

You can twirl me, tell me you’re lucky ’cause you like me every day in ponytails and jeans and boots that keep out rain and cold, but sometimes I’m extra show-off-able for your friends. You can keep touching me, baby, but let me take it off before we get too far. . . . I haven’t even worn it out of the house yet. . . .


~beatrix

on why we do this over and over

It’s hard not to think how things can go wrong-- When you’re wearing a shirt from an Ivy League school you didn’t attend. You uncover that necklace in the bottom of your jewelry box. And you use that Pyrex dish with the nice lid that you somehow ended up with. When you’re looking for your number-six, double-pointed knitting needles and can’t find them or need that little sewing kit you never returned.

Promises break more often than hearts, and you forget why jokes were ever funny. You’ve left a tell-tale trail of toothbrushes.

You change, he changes; maybe it was this way always. And there’s a Christmas gift, purchased for you, but never delivered. Or a birthday travel easel you never collected, perhaps lingering, in the corner of a closet, reminding someone else how wrong he can be.

When it’s over you can never quite remember how you ended up all alone again. You can’t remember what you said or what he said, only that you can be amazingly accurate in your meanness. You can’t remember why you ever liked him in the first place, only that annoying thing he did every time you yawned or the time he stood you up on Valentine’s Day or when he would wear that pink shirt with that red tie or the idiotic thing he said that makes you think he probably still thinks about you. And when you walk down 5th street three times one day, you realize you can’t even remember which building was his.

Sometimes you remember the way he’d answer the phone when he knew it was you. Or the way it felt to fall asleep on his chest. Or that night you were both pretending you knew how to salsa. But not usually.

And you still wear the tee shirt, but you have better necklaces. You never learned to salsa, but that’s never stopped you before. And you’ve found someone new.

You quite like him, but your official stance is “cautiously optimistic”.

Because it’s hard not to think of how things can go wrong. You’ve been here so many times before. Maybe not here exactly, but in the general neighborhood, the suburbs, maybe. You made him dinner in that Pyrex with the nice lid.

Remember this. Remember. Remember. Remember.

Don’t forget to remember the good parts.

And you raise your glass or bow your head. ’Cause here’s to hoping.

~beatrix

some days are really hard

If I were a skirt, my mom would say I’d be fine with a slip.

I’m worn thin today.

It’s only 7:58 a.m. It’s only time for the shop keepers to water-hose the sidewalk. I’m already going to be late.

If you leave a rubber band in the sun, it will crumble.

I’m already ready for Christmas. It’s only Tuesday. It’s only October.

I think I could sleep anywhere.

My elbows hurt.

And nice slips are so hard to find these days.


~beatrix

my mom's probably relieved not to be dealing with these questions herself

I’m, no doubt, feeling like a girlfriend.

Can I wear a weird hat?
What should I do with my hairdryer if I think it might catch on fire while I’m gone?

I wonder if he feels like a boyfriend.

I made him take homemade soup for lunch one day, and he’s had a lot of loaves of breakfast bread in his life lately. And he has a terribly needy girlfriend to remind him.

Weird hat is fine and encouraged.
No, I don’t think you should put it in the oven.

~beatrix

on budgeting time

I spend my waking energy

23% Working at my actual, paying job
19% Making out / Watching Glee
5% Trying not to fall asleep
4% Deciding what I want for lunch
9% Doing something to my hair
5% Pinching my belly fat / using a combination of mirrors to check the visibility of the bones in my spine / wondering if my boobs are shrinking
6% Idly speculating about the lives of strangers
8% Remembering what it was I was going to blog about
6% Deciding if this matches / is too short / requires a bra
5% Calling my mom
10% Trying to convince friends and strangers to get a puppy and/or let me cut their hair

I’ve given a number of successful haircuts. In fact, the only mishap occurred on my own head. And even though I think I might be slowly convincing him, Ted’s not so sure it would be good for our relationship.

Maybe he should just get a puppy.



~beatrix

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

socially awkward

Pete concludes, “. . . but I’m socially awkward.”
“Me, too.”
“No you aren’t. I saw you at that party.”
“I’m recovering.”

*****
Even though I’m sure Ted knew he was exaggerating, I heard him tell a friend, “She’s the most social person ever,” and I’m afraid I’m about to disappoint him.

I agreed to meet up with some people, sports people. I thought they’d be boys, so I wore a really low-cut top. Impressively low. Shows off my chest (and by chest, maybe I mean ribcage) nicely; I can’t turn certain ways or slouch.

My chair is hard and pulled up to the table and in the way of everyone going to the bathroom. And I shouldn’t have worn this slutty shirt. It’s two boys, but two girls.

Girl on the right is sweet and lovely and sincere. Girl on the left types into her blackberry until she pops her head up to interject something with lots of finger-pointing and proving-wrong. She’s abrasive and an interrupter.

“This is the opposite of engaging,” I want to coach her, “If even Ted is losing interest in your fantasy baseball team, you need to think of something better.”

“I, however, am interesting,’ I want to announce. “Everyone loves to talk about my fabulous life.”

Instead I start to close up and shut down. I can’t do it-- I’m happy to take command of a conversation, but I can’t compete for it. I try to look like I care who was the first-round draft pick in 1997, but I’m really making up a nasty back-story. It’s a story about an awkward high school girl who thinks learning about sports will make boys like her. But even after she moves to New York and makes it her life, she ends up sad and lonely and wearing capri pants.

I only feel a little guilty, and Ted keeps giving me sympathetic looks. He gets us out of there as soon as can be hoped.

I want to explain to him. Apologize. He knows I’m better than this.

“Come here a sec,” he stops on the sidewalk, tugs my arm, and pulls me close to him. “You’re a champ.”

And he knows that one day I’m going to want him to do something, something awful, and he’s not going to have a choice about it.

~beatrix

maybe the worst children's book ever

“If this was a children’s book, it would be called Ted and Trix and the Torrential Downpour.”

“Or Ted and Trix Should Have Taken a Cab.”

It had seemed like a good idea to walk back to his place when we started. And it still seemed like a fine idea when it started sprinkling. And then it seemed silly to stop once we were halfway, even though it was pouring.

We had one umbrella between us, and it wasn’t helping much. And I wasn’t helping much by walking erratically, trying not to get my boots full of water.

“I have waterproof boots, but they aren’t as cute as these.”

“At least I think it’s slowed down.”

Which was practically a request to the heavens for the hardest rain they could muster. There were no longer rain drops at all, just solid sheets.

So by the time we did get to his apartment we were soaked and my boots were full of water and my hair was enormous. But it wasn’t so bad. My hair had stayed nice long enough for me to meet his mom and to realize she’s not terrifying but cute and would probably make you delicious dinner. And I get the feeling that I’m just one in a steady stream of girls, but I’m more comfortable with that than with this being a special occasion. And the boy held my hand for all three hours of The Merchant of Venice, the story of a Christian versus a Jew.


~beatrix

2008: the plot thickens

part 1


Part Two: Summer

Summer is easy with its long days. Work is busy. I don’t eat much, but I thrive on adrenaline and sunshine and boys.

I worked 77 hours that week. And I kissed five boys.

Fred was in town the weekend before. He’s my last college boyfriend. I wonder how things would have ended with him if we hadn’t had to just walk away from it. Monday night is nothing like the wild night we had in his hotel, but he stops in for goodbyes and a little makeout.

Wednesday is a late night at work, and the sky bursts open. [Nickname]’s place is much closer than mine. By that point, I knew that things were never going to work out with [Nickname]*. But he fed me Cheerios before we got in bed.

Saturday, Hugo’s in town. It’s good to see him. We get caught in the rain, and find shelter in the big windows of the Met. We finally give up on staying dry, and make a dash to a dive bar. We get a little drunk, so he suggests we take a hot shower. I laugh, but I know he’s not joking. So we do it.

Later that night I get a text from Mac. He wants me to meet him at a wedding reception. I say no, but when he prompts “live a little”, I give in. I get a call from Cooper, a boy I’d met the week before, and talk to him in the cab on the way to the Mandarin Oriental. I try to catch up with Mac by downing tequila shots. We dance, and after giving him my cheek a few times, I let him kiss me on the lips. I sleep in his bed that night.

Sunday morning, it’s a cab ride of shame, with me in gold heels and a cocktail dress that plunges most of the way to my belly button. But this new boy Ben wants to take me to the Botanical Garden, so I shower and change. I fall asleep in the grass, and when I wake up, he kisses me a little.

It was fun, but this can’t last. Karma catches up with me, and I fall for Cooper. He’s not what I’m looking for, and he’s juggling almost as many girls as I am boys. It’s a mess. And he doesn’t choose me.

****

*As this boy is our only overlap, I'm consulting with Harper on what we should call him.


~beatrix

part 3

2008: a year in review

Prologue

I’m just lounging around in my apartment with big hair, full makeup, gigantic vintage clip-on earrings, a cut-up t shirt, and panties thinking about how, for someone who claims to date so much, I’ve been a little boring. Sure, there are always boys, but this winter I’ve been doing a lot less dating and a lot more moping and contemplating than usual. I’ve been eating a lot of pasta.

I should probably explain the kissing moratorium. And the sudden desire to simplify everything.

So to get you all up to speed, I have prepared for you a recap of last year: a work in three parts.

Enjoy.
****

Part One: Winter

I woke up in David’s bed. He wanted to marry me, and I’d been playing along. I sort of wanted to believe in it.

I woke up, and I just knew it. My whole face hurt.

I can’t remember what started it. I guess we were arguing, but I wasn’t putting up much of a fight. It had been four months; I am so predictable. And the light hurt.

He said I was immature because I wouldn’t move the sheet from my face. But I couldn’t.

I couldn’t do it. I just woke up and knew it. It was over. This time for real.

He had to go to work. It was Saturday. That’s how things were. He left. I wanted to leave. But I couldn’t. I went back to sleep.

The next day I stopped by, picked up my things, and left his key. He stashed cab money in my stuff, and I found it when I got home.

The dark months are hard.


~beatrix


part 2

seafoam green is really not my color

I was getting ready for the wedding. Simon’s mom and sister-in-law were there making sure everything was perfect. The makeup girl henna-ed my face with a brush tip marker. Simon’s Indian, like about fifty percent of the guys I end up dating, so of course there was henna at the wedding. Henna marker is probably very modern, and it’s definitely a time saver. She did my chest and the centers of my palms, too. Evie and Julianna were bridesmaids, but they had less henna-marker than me. Did I mention we were at the mall? In one of those middle sections with the kiosks that look like wooden carts?

I looked in the mirror. I was wearing one of those newly fashionable headbands that makes your head look like a mushroom, and it was sparkly. My face and chest were henna-ed. And my bridesmaid’s dress was a lovely cut-- inch-wide straps, soft v-neck, floor-length, and in a fabric that fell beautifully, but it was seafoam green with a streak of hot pink and blue from the center of the chest diagonally across one side. Seafoam green is not my color.




I was a bridesmaid, and Simon was marrying a girl I didn’t know. I think her name starts with an M. Margery or Miriam or something.

I decided this was the perfect time to have that talk I’d been meaning to have with him. No time like the present, right? I was not articulate.

And he looked over my shoulder at the girl he was about to marry and said to me, “Honestly, I don’t think you have a chance.”

I woke up at 6:01, 14 minutes before my alarm went off.

I’m not usually one to make much of dreams, but sometimes there’s just one that gets to me. If it means something, what? Talk to him? Don’t talk to him? I don’t have a chance?

Maybe it just means I need to get it over with and off my mind.

I’m telling myself I’ll do it tonight. Which is exactly what I told myself last night.


~beatrix

p.s. This is my blog and my dream and my arms can be as skinny as I want them to be. And my eyes can be huge.
~b

who is that girl?

I’m not sure I’ll ever feel like a real New Yorker, even if I live here forever. I’m not sure I’ll ever really look like a New Yorker, either. I’m convinced that’s why people ask me for directions so often-- because I don’t look like I belong; I look nice. But I’ve been here for a little over a year and a half, and fewer strangers are asking for directions. As when someone guesses that I’m from Connecticut (you’d wonder how if you ever heard me), I don’t know whether to be flattered or offended.

I was waiting for a staff elevator at the Carlyle early Saturday afternoon. The back elevators at hotels take forever because there’s a constant stream of maids and food and suit-clad ladies with Slatkin candles and, in this case, furniture, flowing up and down at all times. I was standing there with a driver (less glamorous than it sounds) who was wearing jeans and a hoodie-- the sort that says the name of a place and then XXL or something.

I was wearing knee boots, tights, a t shirt, a stretchy dress, this long stretchy cardigan thing, a ratty scarf, approximately three, small, tangly necklaces, and my white coat. Having fallen asleep on Pete’s sofa the night before (he lives in Brooklyn and it is really far to go home), it was the comfortable outfit I’d chosen for a busy Friday at work. My hair was in a messy ponytail, and was, quite honestly, a little dirty. I wasn’t wearing any makeup. And, I think this is the real kicker, having fallen asleep on Pete’s sofa the night before (I really like his t.v.), I’d slept in my contacts and had disgusting, red, puffy eyes that hurt in the light and necessitated wearing the enormous purple sunglasses I’d found in my bag.

This is New York, and there’s a fine line, but I couldn’t tell if I was dressed more like an Olsen or an actual bag lady. And, walking through the basement of the Carlyle and out the service entrance, I was hoping that the staff was thinking, “I wonder who that is?” and not “I wonder how she got in?”


~beatrix