simon

Once I dated this runner who was in incredible shape-- he must have had a body fat percentage of 2% and his heart beat about 40 times a minute. So of course, he made me feel self-conscious about my own weight. And after we broke up, I declared to the universe, “I just want to date a fat guy.” Frustrated after several dateless months (this was before my move to the big city), I also vowed to go out with the next boy who asked. Hearing my declared challenge, the universe tested me by almost immediately sending exactly what I’d requested. I guess the moral is to be careful what you wish for.

So on Thursday night, almost as soon as I’d told Harper how my sucky week was making me want to rescind the moratorium on making out and as soon as I had written “Now who’s going to make out with me. . ?” I got a text.

“In the city at a meeting. Running late. What are you up to later?”

It was 10:30. What I was up to later was sleeping.

I knew what he wanted, what he was going to want. I was supposed to be angry at him for being flakey at plans, for bailing on my birthday dinner. I was supposed to not hook up with him until I made myself at least talk to him about what we’ve been doing for the last six years or so. I wasn’t supposed to be kissing anyone at all. But I was pretty sure that I wanted exactly what he wanted.

He massaged the knots out of my back. He was warm in my bed. And everything else was. . . amazing. I’ll spare you the details, but you should believe me.

And the sleeping-- the actual sleeping-- is perfect. He holds me. He for-real holds me all night, which is only annoying when my leg is itchy and I wake him up untangling myself to scratch it. He holds me until 5 when he cuddles me awake, and. . . well. . . nevermind.

And he casts the usual spell. Thursday I got in bed lonely and sad, but Friday. . . . Well, Friday I’m in love.

~beatrix

very bad day, very bad week

Yesterday morning, Sam (bff at work and avid NPR listener) told us that 4,000 people across the country had lost their jobs the day before. We live in New York, so we all know people who have lost jobs to this recession, but we agreed that it really sucked. We all knew that we’d be fine. We work in luxury goods, and we are all busy all the time. It’s our slow season, but things will be picking up soon.

There were eight of us yesterday. There were six of us today. The recession hit us, too.

I had a list of things to pick up from Rite Aid. It was just in my head, so I forgot what I was supposed to be buying. I got toothpaste, then two new kinds of moisturizer and some cookies. Today when I stopped to pick up the things I forgot to get, I got another kind of cookies.

I’m thinking that it might be better to stress cuddle and stress make out than to stress eat. The only problem is that I’ve cleared up all my backups. (Last week, I definitively ended things with two boys I’d been stringing along.) Now who’s going to make out with me so I won’t gain 30 pounds before April?


~beatrix

how old are you again??

I’ve learned that there are certain topics, that when brought up in conversation with older guys, will highlight your age difference.

When I was 22 and dating a 27-year-old, I learned that you have to be careful talking about music you liked in middle school

“MC Hammer?”
“Um, no. More like the Gin Blossoms. . . .”

When I was 23 and chatting up a 29-year-old on an airplane shuttle, I learned to be careful when referencing cK1:

“I thought it was, like, the coolest thing ever in seventh grade.”
“Seventh grade? Really? I think I wore it sophomore year of college. . . .”

And at 26, dating a 35-year-old, I figured out that you should just be careful when talking about what you were doing in any specific year pre-puberty:

“I guess I haven’t been there in a long time. I used to go there all the time when I was studying for the LSAT, so I guess it was. . . what? . . 1994?”
“Nineteen ninety four??”
“Yeah. What were you doing in 1994?”
“Sixth grade.”

But as long as no one thinks about how you were wearing Keds and watching Nickelodeon in your parents’ living room while he was hooking up with some girl whose last name he can’t remember in a shady college dorm room, dating an older guy can be a really positive experience. So maybe he’s more likely to have a broken engagement or failed career or major financial crisis under his belt, but he’s also more likely to have a fantastic job, a mortgage to something nice, and Friday night plans to watch t.v. and eat take-out (and I consider this a total bonus).

But how old is too old? My personal limit comes when a boy has more in common with my parents than with me. And I have young parents. Like, really young. When they were my age, they were married, had two kids, and were so sure of the decisions they’d made that my dad had had a vasectomy two years previously. So, I’m 27 and my parents just turned 50. Do the math: that leaves us with a 23 year gap, which, when we divide by two, is 11 and half years. Round down to eleven, to put the number on my side. Add twenty-seven and eleven, and you’ll see that, by the numbers, I can date boys up to 38 years of age.

Thirty-eight, though, seems dangerously close to 40. I went out with a guy who was 41 a few months ago as an experiment, and that is definitely too old. I was almost embarrassed to be seen with him because I was just wondering what people thought we were doing, and I was painfully aware of how many of my stories begin, “One time in college. . . .“ My real-life cut-off seems to be closer to 36.

Pete is 36. (I’m not dating Pete, but I wouldn’t mind kissing him again.) While doing some Facebook stalking this week, I noticed one of his groups is planning a 20-year high school reunion. Twenty years. I can do the math. He’s almost ten years older than me, and my ten-year reunion is coming up (maybe it’s my hesitance to accept it that makes it so easy to forget).

Yeah. Sometimes it’s better to just not think about numbers.



~beatrix

please try not to act crazy

This is a conversation I wish I could have with a boy, namely Pete, but I‘m sure I could use it more than once:

I’m sorry I’ve called you twice and texted you three times and sent you a facebook message in the past 30 hours, but the truth is that I think I might kind of like you. But don’t panic, because I’m not sure. But I was weird last time I saw you and now I want to show you how not crazy I am, but every time you don’t answer or don’t respond I’m pretty sure I’ve ruined it. And I’m tired of ruining things. So this is just what I look like when I’m trying.


~beatrix

winter is long

Reasons I need a boyfriend right now:
So someone can tell me that 15 pieces of cold pasta and an orange does not constitute dinner
My bed is really cold
My back hurts in that spot I can’t reach



~beatrix

grocery shopping

Maybe some people want to pick up boys in the grocery store, so here is some advice on how to make sure the boys there know you are single:

Buy one can of tomato soup, one big orange, two containers of (full fat) greek yogurt, a pound of butter, and a bag of egg noodles that costs $1.69. No one will ever think you are going home to cook dinner for your boy.

And forget to get a basket and balance all your groceries to the register. Never mind. . . Looking ridiculous might not actually help your cause.

~beatrix

julianna's wedding.

I wish I could just go back to that time and that place and tell her.

I was there, in the University Center, near the Taco Bell, trying to convince her that she had to eat at least most of the snack-sized bag of Baked Lays before she could drive the 4 hours to stay at her parents’ house for the weekend. We were sophomores in college. It was warm, but it was always warm, so I don’t even know what season it was.

Her hands were shaking. I think she was out of tears. I don’t remember what I said; I’d been through enough to know that it didn’t really matter what I said.

It was the first time he broke up with her, but not the last. And she broke up with him, too. She’d call me, and I’d know what she wanted before she did: for me to tell her it was ok to not be sure.

And I want to go back to that time and that place so that I can tell her that it will all turn out ok. That we’ll go to dinner, the two of them, me, and a boy she’ll meet a few times but barely remember. That she’ll call me an hour or so later to tell me that he asked her to marry him.

That the night before the wedding, she’ll be back in that bed at her parents’, and she’ll cry, but not because she’s sad. The ceremony will be beautiful. I’ll be a bridesmaid; I never had to worry about what kind of dress she’d choose. She’ll have the perfect dress, the most amazing veil. That it’s going to take a while, but that they’ll end up together.

And that I’ll tear up listening to her dad’s speech at the reception, because I’ll be thinking about this, the things I wish I could have said to her that afternoon seven years ago. I wish I could tell her that the things we want aren’t always the things we need. That sometimes it takes time. And sometimes, even when everything else is right, we have to grow toward our person, grow into him, then around him, until we know for sure. Until there’s no more doubt.

Best wishes, kids.


~beatrix

let's just take this slow

When I was 15, I had my first boyfriend. The first time he kissed me-- the first time anybody kissed me-- we were sitting on the floor in his bedroom. We’d just watched Top Gun, and he’d fast-forwarded through all the sad parts. We spent years making out in that bedroom, with no music or tv so we could hear the house alarm beep or someone starting up the stairs. He wasn’t allowed to close his door when I was over. Later, after he got a car, we’d hook up on new streets where they were building houses but no one lived yet. It was fun. From that first kiss, everything was terrifyingly, excitingly, beautifully new. Every new move was tentative, careful. From that first kiss, it took us 20 months to make our first (awkward, clumsy, emotional) attempts at having actual sex.

When I was a kid, my dad told me I ate like a fat person because I always saved my favorite part for last. It’s maybe not the healthiest thing to tell a 13-year-old girl with plenty of food issues already, but it is true that I’ve always been a savor-er. I eat sandwiches in concentric circles so that my last bite is the perfect, juicy inside piece. I eat muffins from the bottom up, so that I’ll be left with the good part, not the stump. When I read books I really like, I find that I check how many pages are left so I can reassure myself that it’s not almost over. I like anticipation. I like the build-up. I don’t like for things to be over.

So I miss the way things were when I was 15: when my bra didn’t come off at the same time as my shirt. When making out was its own activity. When we saved things for later, for next time. When letting a boy kiss me was not an invitation for him to take off my pants.

I know I can’t have another first kiss. And I know that 20 months is five times longer than I’ve dated anyone since the boy who fast-forwarded Top Gun. But I miss how fun things used to be. I miss all the tiny steps.


~beatrix

pete

“If I make it until Sunday, I will have been a month without kissing anybody. So my resolution is to be less slutty. And to make friends. . . who are girls. . . or gay.”

“I’ll be your friend. Just think of me as gay,” he’d told me across two big bowls of ramen.

But on the subway platform, waiting for both directions, he’d pulled me close to him. It was cold. I’d pressed my cheek to his. And I suddenly couldn’t think of him as gay.

It was only four days later, and we were doing nothing, like always. But it was different.

“Your pupils are really big. I can see my whole self in them.” I covered my face except one eye to look at him, and he put his face closer. “What color are your eyes? Green? Blue?”

When I pointed at something over his head, my fingers ended up tangled with his. I don’t know how. I let them stay there.

I was sitting down and he leaned over me. He brushed the hair away from my face. He was gentle, looked down at me, and into my eyes. He was behind me, above me, all upside down.

I was nervous. It was fantastic.

His arm ended up around my waist. He asked me if I wanted to arm wrestle. Things were different.

And he had to go. A party at 7. He couldn’t be late.

I turned off the hall light while we were waiting for the elevator. He made a scary face in the dark. I laughed, stepped closer. He wrapped his arms around me, the two of us all clumsy in warm coats, and pressed his nose to mine. Index finger on my chin, he pulled my lips to his and kissed me. Sweet. Soft.

“What are you doing?” The elevator door opened, with its rectangle of light.

“I just wanted to break your streak,” he kissed me again. We let the elevator door close.

“Jerk. We were supposed to be friends.” And I kissed him.

“Do you think I’m ruining it?”

“I kind of wanted you to.”

I walked him to the subway. He pulled me close to him. “No?” So I kissed him on the cheek. He kissed me on the cheek. Then we kissed for real, standing on the sidewalk.

“You are going to make me late.”

“It’s not my fault.”

And it’s not my fault. It is all his fault.



~beatrix

we're gonna get better at this

You should meet my friend Harper. She’ll be around soon enough. She’s the best kind of friend to have. She’ll give you advice like “Just be careful because you don’t want to walk into a party and have made out with every guy there.” She’ll go back into a bar to give a boy your number just because she thinks he should have asked for it. She’ll eat french fries for breakfast with you after a long night out. Even though we live far away now, I miss her all the time.

beatrix