i haven't cleaned up the aftermath of the sink being fixed, so we are ordering in

"What are you gonna get?"
"Vegetable biryani."
"Isn't that what you got last time?"
"Yeah."
"You love getting the same thing."
"Remember that time I got something new and it tasted like a bathroom air freshener?"

domesticity

We had to change laundries because it seemed like the strange frilly knickers we were getting back might somehow correlate to my sudden shortage of underpants.

Our savings account earned three cents, but is seeming more real this months as it is now four digits.

We go for walks and watch Hell’s Kitchen.

And the sink is broken. It was draining slow, then not at all, then working again. And finally it began silently regurgitating filthy brown water. The super’s number, stored in my phone, usually a direct line to a crabby wife, is being answered by a woman named Susan. My landlord answered one email and has since been MIA.

The dirty dishes are piling up, but it’s too hot to cook anyway.

~beatrix

fatty

My mom said, “Well that’s what happens when you have a boyfriend.”

I stepped on a scale at Bed, Bath, & Beyond. The number shocked me, and in the nanosecond of terror, my handbag and two bathmats ejected from my sides in an effort to get it under control. My first thought was, Why didn’t anyone tell me?

“Remember after Aunt Stacy married Mac and she woke up one morning and instead of getting on her treadmill, she thought, I don’t have to do this anymore, and she got back in bed?”

The scale was broken. I didn’t actually gain thirty pounds without noticing and with my clothes still fitting.

I’ve gained 7 pounds in the year-and-a-half I’ve known Ted, along with a general, all-over softness. I’m weighing in at a whopping 112 pounds, and I like to think I’ve earned my jiggle.

~beatrix

count 'em

This makes six, I think. Not counting the implied intent of starry-eyed and slightly delusional boyfriends or bums.

There was one hand-written on three-lined paper, circa 1986. Three that one wild month junior year of college. One on an airport shuttle about five years ago.

“When are you getting married?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask my boyfriend.”
“You can get married whenever you want.”
“Oh?”
“You want to get married, you let me know. You can get married whenever you want.”

One sesame bagel, toasted, with veggie cream cheese and a side of self-esteem, thanks.


~beatrix

this morning, it was easy

“Love is a choice. You have to wake up every day and decide to do it.”

Hugo’s going through a breakup and waxing philosophical to his only ex who’s not still too angry to listen.

He’s right, though.

This week Ted and I chose to not fight about the electricity bill. We chose to watch a lot of t.v. on the couch. I chose to cook dinner; he chose to do some dishes. We chose to go for a walk, but it started raining, so we re-chose to watch more t.v.

~b

7 days out of 28

I thought maybe if I just didn’t say anything he wouldn’t notice what time it was and I could just lie around on the couch and watch Definitely, Maybe and eat chocolate chips. It didn’t work.

And just as he was about to call for the car*, I decided to try to talk him out of it (between fistfuls of chocolate).

“It’s just so hot and I ate too much Indian food and we were away all last weekend and we’ll be gone this weekend and I’ll only know one person there and. . . I’m just so PMS-y. I just want to eat junk food and watch this movie and look at pictures of babies in costumes. I want to google pictures of puppies in baskets.”

So we didn’t go. And he cuddled up on the couch with me.

And yesterday while he was watching baseball with his dad, I looked up baby names on the Social Security website and wedding venues and pictures of the party in the 1954 version of Sabrina.

It is a good thing every week isn’t the blank pill week in the DialPac.


* We got a garage, and it makes even going to Bay Ridge sound like a fancy event.


~beatrix

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

for real though

summer is my busy season, professionally and personally. and the boy is moving here saturday, and there's not really room for him yet. and i had two birthday parties saturday and a friend in town and worked all day sunday and my back hurts and. . . yeah. . . i'll be back. . . soon.

something to worry about

i touch my computer, it breaks, stops responding, etc. ted turns it on, and it works. i guess there's a reason i keep him around. you can thank him for this lovely post about t.v. and my period.

~b



I mean. . . I probably shouldn’t be getting sex ed. information from Mad Men.

“That’s not a thing, right? I mean, that doesn’t mean you’re pregnant. I don’t think that’s a thing.”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been pregnant.”
“Well, that happened to me. . . and. . . I think that’s not a thing. It’s not a thing, right? Right?”
“I don’t want to tell you it’s not a thing if it is a thing.”

My cousin is two years older than me and has been trying to get pregnant for at least five years with no luck at all, only teary spells from the hormones. And what if I wasted my fertility on frat parties and hangovers and waking up in strange beds? And even worse, what if I had a baby? Where would I put it in my studio? In a suitcase? The top kitchen shelf I have to stand on a chair to reach? Or worse than worse, what if I’m not a cute mom with outfits, but one of those old ones with the saggy eyes??

It’s hard enough on regular days, thinking about it, even without Betty Draper with her perfect hair and her perfect skin and her perfect waist teaching us this lesson via Netflix.

So Ted Googled it. And of course it’s a thing because everything is a symptom of pregnancy. And when everything is a symptom, I have them all.

And that was something to worry about.

“What would we do?”
“I don’t know. It would make things harder, but I guess we’d deal with it. But let’s not worry about it until it’s a thing.”

I don’t know what I wanted him to say. (“Love it.”? That would be a little cliché and a little more insincere.)

In a book of short stories, I once read an interesting thought about how we spend our twenties trying not to get pregnant and our thirties trying to have babies. I wish I could remember the sentence, the author, the book. . . .

I worried ‘til I fell asleep, didn’t have to worry long after I woke up.

About that.

There’s always something to worry about.

~beatrix

important update

i thought she was just being finicky-- but the spazziness and panic attacks just grew more frequent, and my computer finally flatlined on friday night. the boy says he's buying a new macbook soon, so now i really have an incentive to let him move in. posting might be spotty for a bit, but remember that i love you. or at least that i love that you love me.

in other news:

-i'm not too old for concerts, and i am an amazing dancer. and if the bass player for weezer is interested, i want to have your babies.

-free hugs tee shirts, etc. are stupid. if you are paying for your hugs, you are doing something wrong.

xoxo

beatrix