back. and mostly the same

“Oh, well, I keep in touch with her. She was in my wedding-- my first wedding. I was married before this. I dated Justin Hornell all through high school, you know, and then I met my first husband and we got married real quick. And then this. Are y’all married? Oh, well, we lived together first, too. And let me tell you -- if y’all ever do get married-- we got married and got pregnant in three months. It can happen. And I don’t know if you want to know this. . . but then, after I stopped breastfeeding my little girl, we got pregnant again like that. . . .”

I went to my ten year high school reunion. I must have known this Heather at some point, but by this point I was glad she went to get some food, because I did not need any more details. And I’m pretty sure you can’t get pregnant from getting married. . . pretty sure.

When we got there, I was greeted by the lunch table where I didn’t sit in high school. Everyone had the exact same haircuts.

*********

I’ve been away for a few weeks, and some things have changed. My boy moved in. We’ve fought, like twice, but I don’t really see any reason for this not to work out. Work got busy, then calm, because things are easy with me and Sam in charge. Ted and I went to this reunion and to see my parents. We travel well together as long as I stay away from coffee. Next weekend we’re going to the beach with Julianna and Ed.

At dinner a few nights ago, sitting at the little table we’ve borrowed from his parents, I told Ted that I knew how the movie of my life would start:

It opens with I am a Rock by Simon and Garfunkel playing. I’d walk out of the subway, coming home from work. I’d nod shyly to a doorman, wait for the light and cross the street, I’d get to my shabby building, and there’d be no mail when I checked. In my little apartment with no furniture, I’d change clothes and fluff my hair. Then the music would stop-- silence-- and the scene would cut to me sitting across two huge plates from and average looking guy in a trendy restaurant. I’d say something inappropriate.

“Then what?”
“That’s as far as I’ve gotten.”

So I guess things have changed. Three years ago I’d take weekends off Facebook because the engagements were overwhelming. Memorial Day Weekend, four of my Facebook friends had babies. (One was cute; three were not.) I live with a boy. Today I came home from work and baked cookies so he could take them to poker night with the guys. I’m sure that pretty soon he’s going to start closing the shower curtain after he’s taken a shower.

’Cause even though some never do, people can change.


~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

the hardest thing is colors

He was the baby of one of Ted’s mom’s friends, and I held him in my lap while they, the grownups I suppose, ate at another table. He was old enough to sit and laugh, but still baby enough to be content with bouncing and cuddling. I’m not good at babies. But the surprising heft of him and the perfect skin on his chubby arms and legs and that baby smell I’ve never quite understood before. . . . For the first time in my life this felt natural. I tried to give him some apple juice from a bottle, but he was hardly interested and it dribbled down his chin.

Later, Ted and I walked up the avenue toward my place.

“I just think there should be enough time that no one feels rushed,” he concluded his reasoning for time of day.
“I think the hardest thing is colors. Like bridesmaids’ dresses.”
“What about a dark, rich blue?”
“I like that, but it makes the flowers tricky. . . .”

*****************

These days I’m back to drinking coffee once a week, sometimes more, without risking my heart bouncing around and convincing me I’m going to die. I’m not sure, but I think this might mean I’m happy.

“I had a really creepy dream that I shouldn’t tell you,” I told him, sitting in the little park with our coffee and bagels.

“Well, now you have to tell me.”

Whether I should have or not, I did. I told him about the baby.

“But that wasn’t really the creepy part. After that, we were having a very serious discussion about bridesmaids’ dress colors.”

The dream had tangled itself with our actual walk home the night before and felt like it could have really happened. Almost. His real-life suggestion is the color of his college teams.

yuppie food weekend, or why you'll stop reading this blog

let's pick up where we left off, shall we?


I had a story to tell you about my weekend.

I was going to tell you how I met Ted after work on Friday to work on our summer fun to-do list. We took the train to Brooklyn to eat pizza at Grimaldi’s, which I think at least rivals Lombardi’s. It was early, so there wasn’t much of a line. We walked over to the water, where there’s an amazing view of Manhattan. Ted took prom photos there, and we saw a wedding party with the same idea.

We walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, into Manhattan. I’d never done it, and we were able to check that off the list. I feel a little sorry for Ted that he’ll never be able to see the city as a tourist. But, as he’s from around here, we did walk over so he could show me his high school. We walked a little more, and at Bleecker Street, I asked if he’d ever been to Cones for gelato. And he decided we should go right then, even though we were on our way to pick up pie. So I got to show him something, and we split a cone.

Up to 13th Street to pick up (but not eat) pie (not our usual yummy-delicious cookies) at Milk Bar, and we crossed another thing off our list. We’d had an entire pizza plus that gelato, so it went straight in the fridge. We stretched, Ted made a Google map of our adventure (about 7 miles of walking), we cuddled, and we fell asleep exhausted.

I was going to tell you how we woke up late on Saturday, and ate our Crack Pie before we (officially) got out of bed. I’ve never eaten crack, but I think this was probably even more delicious. We had coffee around the corner from Ted’s place while we waited the hour and a half for a table at Clinton Street Bakery. I decided that I want to be friends with the café’s French proprietress and that sometime soon we’ll have our breakfast there. I’m not sure yet if I’ll have an almond croissant or a pain au chocolat. Maybe I’ll just have une tartine.

While we continued to wait for brunch outside the restaurant, and the host called lots of parties of threes and fours who’d given up, we (jokingly?) tried to convince a couple to sit with us so we could have the table. Once we’d finally gotten inside and ordered, Ted mentioned them again. We both admitted that we were pretty sure if we’d sat with them we would have been best friends by the end of the meal. We were both a little disappointed at the missed opportunity (evidenced by regular checking to see if they were still there), but wholly satisfied with our meal. Ted had the blueberry pancakes, I had the banana-walnut ones (which are better), and he managed to clean both plates.

I was going to tell you how, as we pulled into the Ikea parking lot, Ted commented on the yuppie-ness of our afternoon in Red Hook. We browsed shelving and plates and those fun little fake apartments they set up. Then we went to Fairway, which is even better than the one on the Upper West Side, and it was pretty adorable to see Ted picking out plums and buying swordfish steaks and comparing organic cleaning supplies. I was going to tell you about a comical (and still quite unexplained) grocery cart mix-up.

We got home and played gender roles. Ted put together furniture while I made dinner, and it felt sort-of right. On Sunday morning, he finished the previous night’s salad while I ate cookies and watermelon and chocolate. And it was a good thing I had to pop into work for a while, or he might never have gotten rid of me.

Those were the stories I was going to tell. Then I realized that that’s not why you are here. There are no more weeks of making out with five different boys or skipping work because of date hangovers or surprise late-night visitors. The kissing is great, but it’s not shocking or controversial. I’m not even fighting this serious relationship thing anymore.

Happy is boring. This blog is boring.

You’ll probably quit reading, but when you check in, the blog will be all pictures of what we had for dinner and very serious discussions of dvd storage solutions. I should just quit writing and buy some cute aprons from Anthropologie.

~beatrix

i so needed a weekend

Somehow every time I’d stayed over, we’d had something to do early the next day. It was usually a work night, and we’d fallen into a little bit of a routine. We’d wake up late, get up later, and scramble to get clean and dressed. He’d nearly forget his tie, then shove it in his pocket on the way out the door. I’d chatter incessantly while I put on makeup in the visor mirror. And he’d drop me off a few blocks from my work.

It works.

But this is better.

We wake up late, get up later, and it’s fine. We have brunch in the sun, and I drink too much coffee. A walk, a streetfair, a farmer’s market. A walk down the park. Deciding not to see a movie, it’s a nap instead. We only get up because we’re so hungry. Delicious dinner. Only go home because I have to some time. I guess.

This is almost too easy.

~beatrix

drinking and dating

I keep hoping he just won’t call. I can’t believe I’m already having dating burnout, but I just really really want to put on my pyjamas and stay home.

My phone rings as I’m unlocking the door to my apartment. Of course.

I don’t change clothes. Instead of doing something to my hair, I just re-ponytail it. I make sure I don’t have smudges under my eyes and put on some lip gloss. Done. That’s all I care.

He wants to get coffee, and we end up at a Starbucks. Lame.

I hate dating because I’m so tired of drinking things. In my non-dating life, almost all I ever drink is water. Would it be rude to order water on a date? I can’t do coffee. I grab a bottle of some juice blend. He orders a something-iato something-accino something something Starbucks concoction. With whipped cream. Super lame.

Add to the ever-growing list: I want to date a boy who drinks his coffee like a man.

I should have just gotten some water. I pay because I have a gift card. Super-duper lame.

“I guess I’ll get the first round later.”

Does he really expect me to go somewhere else and drink more things? Not gonna happen.

There’s nowhere to sit, so we go sit in a park. It’s cold. I hate this juice. I hate dating. This is going poorly, and it’s my fault.

We walk around a little. He should have had a plan.

I just want to go home.

I say I don’t feel good. It’s sort of true. I mostly just want to go home. And I really was sick earlier in the week.

We part ways. I go to the grocery store, then home to cook dinner for myself.

It is delicious.

~beatrix

good luck

I meet up with this pediatrician from Brooklyn at noon. We meet in Union Square. I think I’m getting better at recognizing these boys from their pictures, but maybe I’ve just learned to recognize the look people have about them when they are waiting for someone they don’t know.

He’s a little awkward, a little shy.

He has a plan to go to some coffee shop, but it’s closed, maybe closed forever. We go to a different one. I’m not supposed to be drinking coffee, but I order a café au lait anyway. I figure there’s calcium in milk so it’s good for me. He doesn’t like coffee at all, so he orders hot chocolate. I’m not sure why we are here.

We talk. Mostly I talk. It’s like he’s never done this before.

“So. . . what do you do on the weekends?”

I think it’s the third time he’s asked me this.

And I’m hungry. He says he thought the other place, the closed place, would have food.

We walk back to Union Square. He says he needs to buy new shoes.

I wish him good luck.

~beatrix

what i'm not telling you is this. . .

I had only been to coffee and for a walk with Cooper once when he called and wanted to hang out again. It was last summer on a grey, rainy Saturday, and he wanted me to come over and watch a movie. I had just met him and barely knew him, and I am generally responsible, so I said I didn’t think it was a good idea.

“Well, I’m not sure this is a good idea, either,” he told me over the phone, “but go to this website. . . “

It was a blog. It took a moment to process. It was his blog. . . about his very busy dating life. . . and it mentioned me. And his blog said I was pretty. Awesome. But weird. I didn’t know what to think.

He was still on the phone, and his logic was this: if he were very scary and dangerous, someone would have alerted the internet and ruined his blog.

I guess it made sense. At any rate, I ended up at his apartment. And we had brunch the next morning. We decided that it counted as both our second and third dates.

Cooper and his blog are the reason this blog is so anonymous. Because dating Cooper was a two part process. First I dated him in real life, then I read the blog to see how it went. And then I checked back to see what readers had to say about it. Then I called him to say he’d misquoted me or that I didn’t quite understand what he’d written about me. It was far too complicated.

So this blog is going to stay completely anonymous.

The only foreseeable problem is that the whole story turns into a blockbuster romantic comedy. I’ll meet some amazing boy. We’ll get caught in the rain and he’ll discover that I’m knowledgeable about and/or competent at his childhood passion. His dog will love me, and my friends will adore him. But then he’ll discover my secret blog in a New York Times exposé, and he’ll believe that I was only using him for the material. He’ll break up with me. We will both be very sad and see lots of things and places that remind us of one another. Finally, I will write a big apology blog post (which he will read in a voice over). But one of us will already be on the way to the airport to go far away forever. The other will need to follow in a taxi, but will get stuck in traffic, which will inevitably necessitate getting out to follow on foot. Maybe the boy can be reading the blog post on his iPhone while actually on the way to the airport. Then he’ll turn around, too. And we’ll kiss in the street, probably on a bridge. And there will be lots of honking, but we won’t care. Pan out. Roll credits.

I’m not worried about the anonymous blog. These things always have happy endings. Right?


~beatrix