one day

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

*********

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

*********

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

when all else fails. . . .

When the weather changes in New York City, there are days when you remember that there are children in your neighborhood, and there are days when you realize that there are a lot of dogs here. Then there are days when you wonder if everyone has a really pretentious camera.

The sun was shining and the sky was blue, which made the chill seem even crueler.

“You sent her a plant?”
“Yeah. I didn’t know what to do.”
“So you sent her an anonymous break-up plant? . . . What kind of plant was it?”
“You know. . . a nice plant.”

Pete and Pamela broke up, which was, unfortunately, a relief. Obviously, I’d be on his side no matter what, but I’m pretty sure Pamela wasn’t really a nice girl.

“I’m pretty sure it shouldn’t be that hard. . . . Hey, you want something to cheer you up?”

There was the cutest baby bulldog ever in Madison Square Park. Not just the cutest baby bulldog, the cutest dog, the cutest animal, the cutest thing I have ever seen.

“So when are you getting married?”
“I don’t know. You want to come?”

~beatrix

the bad kind of what-ifs

Ted has a lifetime of acquaintances in this city, and I think he’s better at looking up when he walks than I am. And being with him makes the East Village feel like an actual neighborhood. We run into people.

Ted asked if he was going our way, and the answer told everything without a detail. ’Cause if he’s going uptown, he’s not going to the girl whose name, with his, has become such an easy pair.

His skin was transparent, his face bonier than I remembered. Jumpy, unfocused, he has the wide, empty eyes of a stray dog who distrusts human contact as much as he craves it.

He’s going uptown, and I forgot the M is even a train. Walking away, I wished I’d given him a more honest hug, and I wished I’d given him the trail mix out of my bag. I don’t know if he’s going home, but he’s going somewhere to sleep, and Queens is a long way from here.

My boy and I laughed at the intersection of 2nd and A where he always falls in that shallow hole.

But I’ve looked out hollow ghost-eyes, eyes that never want to close, but don’t want to see anything either. I’ve stopped eating, tried to start over from the inside out. I’ve developed a quiver in my hands, my jaw, my gut I was sure was visible from the outside. I’ve been not just not my self, but not anyone.

When he pulls his shirt off over his head, he blocks the overhead light from my face. If this were a metaphor, he would be the moon in this solar eclipse and he’d control my tides. That’s a little sweet, but mostly gross. And anyway, no matter how much the earth stretches for the moon, she’ll never touch him.

And I just can’t get close enough.

I lie my head in the crook of his arm, run my fingers up and down his chest. But what I really want to do is pound it:

Never do that to me. Never do that to me. Never, ever do that to me.


~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

what we talk about when the boys don't come to dinner

I found out my cousin’s wife was pregnant in the usual way: a photo of a pregnancy test posted on facebook. My grandma had already commented on it. I guess everyone is happy, even though my cousin’s wife just turned 21. What’s sad is that she could just start to have alcohol legally, and now she can’t drink unless she wants a broken baby. What’s crazy is that when she’s my age, she’ll have a first-grader.

Over Italian food Julianna told me she might get a puppy.

“I think I’ve almost convinced Ed,” she said. “I told him, ‘It’s better than a baby.’”

I’m not sure this newlywed-girl logic is effective. The topic turned to babies.

“I waaant one,” Jules whined. But then she told me, “When we saw Ed’s family last weekend, his cousin had a really tiny baby, like nine days old. And she just had to keep feeding it, and she had to keep a journal of every time it pooped. And it just seemed. . . hard. If I had one, my mom would have to come stay for like. . . a year.”

“I’d babysit for you,” I volunteered, “in like four years.”

Maybe Ed will just let her get that puppy.

~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

escape plans

I have a simple life. I have a tiny apartment and a straightforward job. Yet somehow this little life requires eleven keys. Eleven. Plus two to my parents’ house that I think are in the cabinet over my stove. And I used to have the three to David’s. So there were sixteen, all in all.

But one of mine is funny; I’ve never seen one like it. It’s uncopy-able as far as I can tell. I ask whenever I’m in a hardware store, never with any luck.

I used to call it the breakup key. I told David that one day he’d come over and my door would be locked with both locks and that would be it. He’d know.

With Cooper, it was a joke he’d make.

“You don’t like puppies?” I’d demand.
“I like puppies. With a little salt and pepper. . . .”

I told him that one day he’d say it, and I’d just turn and walk away from him and it would be over. All the better if it happened in the Park, because then we could both just walk home.

That’s not the way either of those stories ended. They were jokes. They just weren’t funny.

I’m a cynic. A cynic with an escape plan. Looking for the problem with this one.


~beatrix