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

A Story about a Boy and a Girl, Who are Not Us (Obviously) : A Play in 2 Acts

ACT I

Scene: Small, untidy, sparsely-furnished city studio apartment. Upstage, a closet spills laundry onto the floor. There is a small kitchenette with dishes stacked haphazardly. A discarded cookie bag sticks out of a trashcan. Stage right is a closed door that opens into an unseen hallway or stairwell. Stage left is an unmade bed and windows that filter in late-afternoon sunlight.

SHE stands, fussing with a back zipper in a non-descript sun dress. It catches, and she sighs. She pinches at the fat of her abdomen; there’s not much, but what is there seems to disgust her. She tries the zipper again, and it goes up. The dress fits. She tests the jiggliness of her arms, first by waving one, then my flexing it and stabbing at it with her finger. When she flexes, there is no jiggle. She poses and examines herself before unzipping the dress. The zipper catches again in the same place before going down, and she removes one arm.

There is the loud. sound of a key in the deadbolt, and SHE clutches the dress back to her chest. HE enters, dressed in work clothes, tie loosened and shirt partially untucked. There is a magazine, folded, in his back pocket.

SHE [dropping the dress to the floor, stands in panties, arms outstretched]: I’ll be ready soon, I promise. I hate all my clothes.

HE: You do not hate all your clothes. [He pats her thigh and kisses her on the temple.] Hi.

SHE: Hi. [She kisses him then slings the sundress away with her foot.] There are things here I’ve never even seen before. [She motions abstractly at the closet.] I’ve never seen them, but I hate them. [Holding up a blue halter-top.] Like this.

HE: Well, wear that.
SHE: It’s not true. I have seen that. [She flings the shirt away.] It has an unflattering neck-line.
HE: You like that blue cardigan and that orange shirt that’s kind of bohemian. You wear those a lot.
SHE: I wear them a lot, so I don’t like them.
HE: What about those new things? Those dresses and things. . . .
SHE: I hate those, too. That’s not true, but I don’t want to wear them today.

HE stretches out on the bed, looks at his phone, flips through the magazine. SHE contemplates the pile of laundry, then leans over and lifts an armful of it before dropping it again. She does this several times.

SHE: [whining] I hate it all.
HE: Did you eat anything?
SHE: Well. . . a snack. Some strawberries and some cheese and some of those chocolate cookies. [She glances quickly at the trash can toward HE before slumping over again, this time contemplating her naked belly.] Which I shouldn’t have done. I’m so fat.
HE: I am pretty sure you are not fat.
SHE: I am! I’m so fat.
HE: Hmm.
SHE: My stomach spills over my pants. And I have thunder thighs.
HE: Yeah. . . and birthing hips. . . .
SHE: [Standing up straight and looks at him, possibly for the first time.] What?
HE: Um. . . [He stands up and takes a few steps in her direction before stopping.]
SHE: Don’t say that! I’m sensitive about my hips. Do you really think I have wide hips?
HE: Um. . . Ah. . . .
SHE: Say I have the sort of hips that will require C-sections. Say my hips are too narrow to allow the passage of a baby’s head!
HE: That sounds. . . unhealthy.
SHE: Unhealthy is good! Unhealthy is pretty. Do you really think I have birthing hips?
HE: I don’t know. I mean, I don’t really pay attention to hips. I’d have to have a lineup of the spectrum of hips. . . .
SHE: Don’t say that! Say you love my hips, they’re prefect hips, they’re the only hips you like. How long do we have? I guess I’ll wear what I was already wearing today.

The lights dim as SHE takes a bra from the pile on the floor and puts it on.

ACT II

It is nighttime. HE and SHE are on a downtown corner. They are standing on the sidewalk in front of a graffiti-ed brick wall and a deli/bodega.

HE: What do you want to eat?
SHE: Well, obviously I want something big and bad for me, like spaghetti.
HE: I think I have pasta at home.
SHE: I don’t really want that. What about pizza? [She motions into the distance.]
HE: This might be the most unmanly thing I’ve ever said, but that might be a little heavy for me.
SHE: Oh. . . .
HE: What else?
SHE: I’m not really hungry. I’m kind of queasy.
HE: I know what that means. . . You need to eat.
SHE: [defensively] You do not know everything about me. . . .
HE: Maybe not, but I know enough, and I know this.
SHE: How about tacos?
HE: Done.

Holding hands, they exit stage left.

CURTAIN



~b

364 days

“Congratulations!”
“Congratulations??”

We had falafel sandwiches in the same place where we first met each other. I made a mess, same as the first time. We call it our first date, start counting from that day, divide our lives into Before Falafel and After. I don’t know where we’d be if we hadn’t met each other.

“I’d probably still be trying to bang every girl on the Lower East Side.”
“And I’d probably be dating a banker.”
“But you wouldn’t be happy.”
“That is probably true.”

It wasn’t a glamorous day, just a really, really good one. They’re mostly good, lately.

~beatrix

an experiment in judaism

Don’t tell him, but I could have cried at the silent prayer time, and it wasn’t because I felt at home or the presence of God, but the rabbi said pray about things you are thankful for and hopeful about and there were just so many things.

~beatrix

thoughts on the way to work

“Remember when that pigeon was pecking that other pigeon?”
“Um. . . yeah. . . .”
“Well, first he was walking around on the dead pigeon then he started eating him. . . .”
“Yeah, that was pretty gross.”

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

I sidestepped a furry patch on the pavement. It was a rat, most likely, before an unfortunate moment-- minutes or hours ago-- in the street where Clinton meets Houston.

I heard a long, loud list of angry obscenities across Spring, but didn’t turn my head, concentrating on Jack Johnson’s and Cat Stevens’ brilliant scoring of my walk to work.

Last night I saw a naked man roller-skate onto a stage-- more of a circus ring, really-- and my first thought was just, If I’d ever taken time to try to imagine a naked man roller-skating, that, I think, is what it would have looked like. . . . the physics, at least, if not the mohawk.

I’m just a drop sometimes, part of an underground stream capable of running up stairs before spewing onto the dirty sidewalk, eyes down-cast in order to avoid dead rats and dog poop, but, when happening to glance up, desensitized to the postcard skyline.

I don’t get asked for directions as often as I used to, but when I do, I can usually give them.

I’m not a New Yorker, I want to shout at the tourists in ugly sneakers, the bums, the F train, the three-hundred-dollar tee shirts, myself. I’m just a little girl from Georgia: witness to shooting stars so bright they must have landed just on the other side of the azalea hedge, where we should probably check in the morning; possessor of black soles, unable to recall the last time she wore shoes; creator of potent perfumes, made with the finest combination of macerated petals, sticks, dirt, and plastic-hose-water; explorer of magnolias, with rooms, big like houses; beneficiary of the night-time lullaby of frogs and crickets and the occasional train whistle.

I could be a New Yorker, most days.

I can believe it until I hear the whine of a 4- or 5-year-old child, sharp and whining, demanding of a parent or nanny that they not walk, but take a cab to their destination.

It’s a voice you’ll hear again in 15 or 20 years. It will be walking in front of you, having an indiscreet mobile conversation about an ex-best-friend’s recently acquired STD or at the next table over, discussing a mother’s most recent rehab attempt and failure. It will sound angry, even when it’s not.

It’s a voice I feel sorry for, making me wonder, In a place with no dirt driveways, where do you learn to ride a bike?


~beatrix