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

live blogging: new jersey afternoon

my boy said he forgets that when i'm with him, there's usually no new blog. so i'm making one for him. ta da.

i came to work with him even though it's in new jersey. there are some professional athletes who are kind of big, but there's also apple juice. and he bought me a sandwich.

i'm kind of sad for him because he has to work in florescent lights with a drop-in ceiling. i have to wear sunglasses to even be here, but i suppose there are trade-offs like all the juice you can drink and a coffee machine that speaks three languages.

i'm going to go draw him a picture and maybe look into this coffee contraption.

happy weekends all around.

~beatrix

an open letter

Dear Harper,

Last night Ted and I picked up some Vietnamese coffee and bahn mi for dinner. For a little excitement, we decided to eat on his roof. The sandwiches weren’t quite as good as the ones I get at this sketchy place in Chinatown, but the weather was nice since it had finally cooled off and I could see at least one star. We decided that were are sort of boring, but that we’re learning to live with it.

But then, six stories above the growl of traffic and two above the chatter of a roof-top dinner party, in view of a window-silhouetted girl at a desk and the Empire State building, we had upright, clinging-to-each-other, shouting-into-his shoulder roof sex. And we decided we’re not really that boring after all.

love

~beatrix

are you in?

I was eating a sandwich and watching Ted make a casserole. I know his birthday, and he knows mine, it turns out.

His is soon. Mine is far.

“But my birthday is always sucky,” I told him, and it’s true. For years and years it’s ranged to mediocre to really miserable.

“Well, then I have a goal for this year,” with a glance over his shoulder.

He turns back to chopping chicken and misses the wide-eyed, eyebrow-raised face I make.

I should let it go. But I want to hear him say it.

“So. You think you’ll be around for my birthday? It’s a long time.”

We count off months. It’s far. We’d both more than double our adult dating records.

“At this point, I have no reason to think I won’t be.”

And even though his casserole looks disgusting, neither do I.

~beatrix

it's an adventure.

We had a good day even though we missed the movie. He showed me his new rooftop. And we bought some books from a guy on the sidewalk for twenty-five cents each and spent all the quarters at the bottom of my bag. And we investigated a microwave someone had left with a sign declaring “I work“. We should have known it would be sold out on a Sunday afternoon at Union Square.

So we went to look at wedding magazines at Barnes and Noble. It was for work, I promise.

“You’re really going to look at these with me? You don’t have to.”
“It’s ok. I’ve never done this before. It’s an adventure.”

And when we finally left the air conditioners and books, we went to Vanessa’s for dumplings and Ted’s first sesame pancake sandwich. It was a hit because sesame pancake sandwiches taste like heaven except with delicious delicious sauce, and they are practically free. I could have bought one with the quarters from the bottom of my bag if I hadn’t already traded those for books, which are a much heavier thing to have in your bag.

Then we made an S down 13th to pick up cookies at Milk, even though we were full at the moment, and down 12th to see if that microwave was still around. And back toward Alphabet City, where instead of walking through Thompson Square Park, we went into some of those cute stores on Avenue A where we looked at everything and bought nothing.

We walked across the bottom of the park, and while I was in the middle of saying, for at least the fifth time, how I hate walking through that park, I remembered:

“Oh! Cookies! I forgot! We have cookies!”

First he laughed at me, then said possibly the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me:

“I love that you love dessert so much.”

But I pretended it wasn’t a big deal:

“Everyone loves dessert.”

He’s a funny boy, and he spent that night flipping the channel between basketball finals and the Tony’s. And we ate the cookies.

~beatrix

the hard part

“We can’t. It will just get all complicated and hard. . . .”
“What will get complicated?”
“I’m just bad at this.”
“We are good at this part.”
“This is the easy part.”
“It’s been easy. For a whole month.”
“But it will get complicated.”
“Maybe we’d be good at the hard part. Maybe we should try.”

This feels like the hard part already. Not because it’s bad; because I like it.

“I like you,” I whisper.

“I like you, too.”

I’m trying not to be a mess, not to fall apart. Trying.

He’s good at this,

“I’m glad you met me for falafel.”


~beatrix

preparedness

An 8:45 activity. On a Wednesday. In Brooklyn.

-That’s very late. Is it a trick to get me to stay over?
-I can’t control venue schedules.
(p.s. I think that was boy for maybe.)

So I throw things in my bag for a just-in-case I know will happen. A toothbrush, a clean shirt, the barest makeup essentials. It’s a good thing I have a very large bag.

And I guess I’ll have to buy lunch at work, even though I just went to the grocery store.

How creepy would it be to pack a sandwich?

~beatrix

rule-breaking is practically my number one hobby

I was still not sure why I decided to meet him.

I was exhausted for no reason. My eyes were red. One of them was swollen a little more than the other. My sinuses were telling me it was springtime, but the temperature was telling me not quite. I didn’t bring a coat. That was stupid.

Even my hair looked tired.

Good sandwich, though. And not bad company.

~beatrix

i love sandwiches

I had a really delicious sandwich, which is important when you’ve spent the previous day puking.

I’d felt like I should give Christophe another chance because you can’t talk to people while you are watching movies. And he’s nice, I tell myself. There’s nothing wrong with him.

He laughs too hard when he tells me about a room mate he had who smoked marijuana. He laughs, like, really hard. And that was the whole story: sometimes this guy’s room smelled like. . . marijuana. And. . . um. . .maybe he should never meet some of my friends. Or my boss.

He’s wearing a sweatervest.

The sandwich is good. So is the soup.

He tells me lots of things look good on the menu, and you’d have to come back a few times to try them all. I don’t bite (in a figurative sense, but I’m doing lots of literal biting. I was so hungry).

I tell him I need to go because I have to stop at the grocery store on my way home. He offers to help me with my groceries, but I assure him I’ll be fine.

We walk. He wants to know if I want to have dinner Friday. I don’t want to commit, just in case Gyan wants to see me. I feel bad, but I lie. I tell him I think I have a going-away party for one of the interns at work. I am pretty sure the party is on Wednesday, but I say I don’t know when it is.

I need to turn right for the grocery store; he needs to turn left for the train. He hugs me, so I hug him back. And he plants a big kiss on my cheek.




I wander around in the grocery store for a while and leave with only a loaf of bread and one apple.



~beatrix

home?

I really had no idea where I was. Somewhere between Boston and New York, but that’s not saying much. I knew the general geography, but here on the highway, on a bus, I couldn’t tell where I was. There were generic things on the sides of the highway: Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohl’s. I saw a store named Romantic Depot which sat directly in front of one named Screws & More. (No kidding.)

I was between places. Nowhere.

I don’t really fit in in Boston. I like to visit Evie, but I’d never want to live there. Georgia will always be home, but I never quite fit there either. And sitting on the bus, I wondered if I fit in in New York. I wondered if it felt like home or if it ever would.



As the suburban landscape shifted, and we were surrounded by boxy buildings with light-square windows, I tried to gauge my emotions, just as I do every time I fly in or out of the city and crane as long as possible to see the Manhattan skyline. To see if it feels a part of me.

Do I feel ownership of the old Yankee stadium or even the new one? How does it feel to be in Harlem, where the streets become numbered and orderly? I’ve bought a sandwich at that grocery store, is that comforting? How does Columbus Circle make me feel?

I reached no conclusion. Home is a slippery concept.

But I can’t help thinking that if I can just make sure I’m in the right place everything else will just work out.


~beatrix