The first meal I cooked for D was a big pot of chili made with chorizo, brisket and anchos, and I served it on a Sunday evening last September after a Patriots game. He inhaled two bowls, pronounced it “Delicious!” and then promptly took to the bed, unbuttoned his pants and moaned about his heartburn for the rest of the night. I was horrified, figuring I had damn near poisoned my new boyfriend.
That was a few weeks into our relationship and it was the first of what has become a de facto tradition: Sunday Night Dinner. With the exception of a handful of occasions on which we ordered in, I’ve cooked dinner for the two of us on every Sunday since we’ve gotten serious. I love Sunday dinner. And I’ve learned a lot about D throughout these dinners, and he about me. For example, he has learned how much I care about the outcome of the meal (We do not speak of the $30 Angus ribs which were braised for hours at the lowest of possible temperatures and still came out of the oven in one tough, inedible mass) and I have learned that he will eat anything. Literally, anything. (Except a tomato. Go figure.)
D has a weakness for all things spicy, and will - literally - eat said items until the point of discomfort. Had I known this upon that first Sunday, I would have been less insulted when the pants were unbuttoned and the heartburn brought to my notice. “I need to…extend” became a common refrain on Sunday nights.
There is a solution to this problem, I’ve mentioned to him. You could eat less spicy food. But I love it so, is the general response to such suggestions.
Since moving in together we’ve been eating at home much more often, certainly more often than D used to eat at home. Not all the meals I’ve offered up have been hits, but there have been several successes which have been added to the rotation. The one which is asked for every week, though, is this roasted broccoli and shrimp dish. EVERY WEEK. It is asked for by a man who has been known to shake hot sauce directly from the jar INTO HIS MOUTH and call it lunch.
This morning I came out of the shower to an empty apartment. A few minutes later D returned, grocery bag in hand. He busied himself in the kitchen while I got dressed. As I fumbled for keys, cell phone, lip gloss I discovered that he left a bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon in a Ziploc bag inside my purse, because he clearly knows that carbs are how you tell someone you love them. And just as we were getting ready to take the dog out for her walk (Our routine: we walk her in the park and then they walk me to my subway stop. Unemployment sucks, but there are some positives.) he paused and asked me, So how do I make the broccoli?
Because he had gone out at 7:00 a.m. to buy two heads of broccoli, which he was planning on roasting for lunch.
THAT IS HOW MUCH HE LOVES BROCCOLI. A food which until a few months ago, he refused to touch.
The first thing he ever cooked for me, by the way, was grilled chicken breasts served with rice, salad, and shrimp cocktail. We ate in the backyard of his old apartment, he sweat and proclaimed the rice “a mild disaster,” we went through two bottles of white wine and then went inside and watched Little Children. It was our second date.
June 23rd, 2009
We stood in line, in the rain, for pulled pork last weekend at the Big Apple BBQ Festival. We inhaled said pulled pork, wiped the rain off our brows, eyed the lines for ribs and headed a block west, where we ate ribs and brisket and cornbread indoors, at Hill Country, like the cheating bastards we are.
He emailed me earlier this week and told me I would barely have recognized my dog had I been with them at the dog park. She apparently developed a case of puppy love over a black lab, and danced around the baby pool which is offered up to dogs who are interested in things aquatic. His love for the dog, his relaying of her happiness, made tears well up in my eyes as I sat at my desk, at work, wishing I was with them.
We go through a ridiculous amount of broccoli in our household. I moved in with a man who seemingly subsisted on chicken wings and spaghetti for 20-odd years and then I offered him broccoli roasted with shrimp and now he asks for it at least twice a week. We’ve gone through three heads of broccoli since Monday. A friend sent me a Thomas Wolfe quote recently, something to the effect of: There is no greater sight than that of a beautiful woman cooking for a man she loves. I can’t speak to that, but watching him go back for seconds and thirds warms me.
I met Laura on East 28th Street, in the sticky rain, for bar snacks and conversation. We ate no less than four forms of carbs-with-fatty-toppings and I rubbed her pregnant belly and sipped Cava and realized that it’s been nearly ten years since I met her, remembered her wedding, remembered all of it.
Laying in bed, tipsy and drowsy, we flipped to silly television and make silly jokes and look over at the dog curled up in a tiny ball and I squeeze him, he squeezes my hand, we fall asleep with hands interlocked.
June 19th, 2009
I once asked D. if he had any regrets and he paused for a moment and then said, I wish I had been nicer to Pseudo.
Excuse me? I said.
He explained that Pseudo was his cat when he was a kid and that he had a tendency to play too rough with the cat. And that is your life’s biggest regret, I asked, that you were rough with a CAT? He nodded. He said his mother would sometimes tell him, Too rough, TOO ROUGH…
…which quickly became a refrain in our household, especially once Tuesday joined us. I like big dogs that I can wrestle with, D. told me. Well, I have a smallish one who is prissy and hates being picked up, so um, NO WRESTLING.
He didn’t listen (or didn’t hear) and has been trying - for months now - to turn my scrawny little shelter dog into a Newfoundland. Tuesday is not having it. She will sometimes allow herself to be overtaken, other times she will just roll her dog-eyes and retreat to the bedroom, and still other times she will offer up one high pitched and definitive YELP to let D. know that No, she does not want to be on her back. BE GENTLE WITH HER, I warn him. GENTLE!
I was emailing with my sister-in-law earlier and [badly] quoted something that Lindsey had told me, which is that whenever we start to feel critical of ourselves we should imagine our four-year old self, and not think or say anything that we wouldn’t tell our four-year old self. I don’t know where Lindsey got that quote (although I should check, so as to accurately QUOTE) but it serves as a nice reminder to be gentle with oneself. It’s far too easy to be harsh.
In the past year no less than four people have told me (accused me?) that I am too hard on myself. And, in none of those circumstances did it sound like a cutesy faux-fault that is really an adorable quirk; nope, it sounded more like, Dude, what’s your problem?
To which my response was probably something like, HOW IS CRITICIZING ME GOING TO HELP MAKE ME LESS CRITICAL ASSHAT?
But, point taken. In one especially stinging episode, someone close to me told me that not only was I too critical of myself, but that I “wore it.” Eeesch. The same person also once told me I was like a character in a Woody Allen movie which is a little closer to the faux-fault/adorable quirk line but not entirely on the other side of what I like to call The Parker Posey Meridian on which one side is a whole lotta crazy and shrill and on the other is quirky and fun. I dance - badly, with limited ability and a poor sense of rhythym - around that line daily.
At least that’s how it feels sometimes, although every time I unload what feels like a plateful of Crazy onto a friend, that friend looks back at me and is all, Uh, yeah, so? Because we’re all crazy.
(Maybe not all. I have known a handful of people - old souls, as I think of them - who are so serenely confident in who they are that no neurosis or anxieties seem to exist in them. FUCK THOSE PEOPLE, I sometimes think, but also, Thank those people because I suppose we need them, along with the Flakes and the Hot Tempers and the Slackers and the Perfectionists to balance one another out. Hello, I just wrote an entire paragraph that makes no sense.)
I got on the subway yesterday evening and wound up standing next to two wiry men who were sort of half-embracing, half-using one another for balance. There was a definite romantic/sexual thing between them (this was no ‘Hey can I grab your elbow for balance’ embrace) which is - regardless of gender - sort of odd and icky on the subway. (The C Train is neither romantic nor sexy.) As the train pulled out of the station I strained to eavesdrop on the two men, because something - something beyond the locked embrace - seemed strange. And then I heard the taller one diagnosing the smaller one with an imbalance of his vatta, and he talked about how New York is a very pitta place and blah blah blah meditation woo-woo yadda yadda yadda mantra hooey I rolled my eyes and thought to myself, Of course it’s the vatta and the pitta, OF COURSE.
Which now, as I type about my four-year old self and being gentle and self-awareness and old souls and whatnot, I realize makes me EXACTLY THE SAME AS THEM. Sigh.
But, for as New Age-y as it may have sounded, the point Lindsey was trying to make is a good one because BE GENTLE! is a very good mantra. The only thing I might tell my four-year old self is to never cut my hair shorter than my jawline and to go ahead and try taking the training wheels off my bike. Also, take a damn dance class. Your adult self would appreciate it.
June 16th, 2009
There is a wrinkle that goes across my forehead and gives me much grief. It’s not a cute little laugh line; it is a crevasse. It’s become one of those things which in photos, I cannot NOT see. I’m 34 years old so I realize wrinkles are now a part of my life but this little fucker is deep, permanent and sadly, not all that new. People’s body issues and self esteem hang-ups are tedious, I know. I won’t bore you with [all of] mine except to say growing old gracefully is a lovely aspiration. Aspiration being a key word.
Last spring I briefly spent some time with a man who I knew immediately wasn’t someone I wanted to date. I did, however, find him somewhat amusing and fun and we hung out several times as friends and exchanged many lengthy emails bemoaning a variety of topics. He was in the process of getting over a woman he had dated a few months prior, and I took careful pains to gently but firmly encourage him to MOVE THE EFF ON, because she clearly had. He didn’t listen to me, but when he checked in with me mid-summer and I asked how he was faring in the Forgetting Whatshername experiment, he told me that he had met someone new. (Or re-met: as I recall he had dated this person back in 2007 and felt no spark but when encountering her again, things had changed.) I congratulated him, we stayed in loose contact and then a few weeks ago he announced on Facebook that he was engaged.
Here is what I remember about some of those emails he and I exchanged: I once received a long message in which he detailed what was expected of any woman he would take on a date. It went without saying, in his mind, that she should show up with manicure, pedicure, bikini wax, long hair blown straight, fitted (but not too tight) clothes (with the requisite gym-toned body). Short hair is a No, he said, Curly hair is a No. Based on what Facebook tells me (a truly horrifying sign of the times, that phrase), his fiance fits that description. (As an aside, one of the less, um, feminist or modern thoughts I had after spending time with certain men was: THIS IS WHY WOMEN WANT MEN TO PAY FOR DINNER. Because the hair appointments, the waxes, the manicures, the makeup, the sheer effort of grooming? IS EXPENSIVE.)
I remember him also making it clear that he basically wanted an MBA with a hot body who was cool with ditching her career in order to move to the suburbs, raise kids, maintain the gym-toned body, the brazilians and mani/pedis. And I want hot brain surgeon to bake me lemon bread and laugh at my jokes, but DUDE, you gotta loosen up, I think I said.
Although I didn’t spend a lot of time in the dating world there were times I feared an entire generation of Tucker Maxes was on the prowl, raised on the unrealistic expectations of Maxim magazine and internet porn to believe that any woman who couldn’t strip as a fallback career was not worth their time. (GOOD RIDDANCE, is my general attitude toward any man who would potentially reject me on account of chipped polish or frizzy hair, to say nothing of actual tits and ass.)
I am sporting both, by the way. My nail polish is flaking off and my hair has been frizzy for, oh, EVER. It’s been raining for what feels like eternity and all efforts to show up to work looking smooth and polished are thwarted the minute I step outside with the dog to walk her in a steady misting drizzle. Whether it’s the weather or the wrinkle on my forehead (34! How did I get to be 34!?) or the bad haircut I am desperately trying to grow out, I have been a hot mess for weeks on end.
I have contemplated Botox, for heaven’s sake. NEW YORK, DID YOU DO THIS TO ME? I want to ask. Because sure, there is some truth to that - this city is jam-packed with hot women and shitty men and the combination of the two, all smooshed up together, can at times bruise the fragile ego. But I know better than that, and this city is also jam-packed with every other imaginable human form and personality, so I can’t blame the city on these mornings that leave me wanting to return home to my stretchy pants and ponytails. And I guess that’s the art of aging gracefully: acceptance, patience, forgiveness, gentleness.
Which is all just to say, I joined the gym last week. Because I’m pretty sure a hot body helps.
June 10th, 2009
It was one of those lazy unstructured Sundays on which you do a whole lot of nothing which is somehow beyond exhausting and you find yourself craving odd foods at inappropriate times, like root beer floats for breakfast and hot dogs at noon and oatmeal cookies for dinner. As such, we spent a lot of time flipping around on the television and hopping around on the internet, doing that aimless train-of-Google thing which somehow (seriously, HOW?) sucks hours out of your (at least, my) day.
And at one point I ended up on the Wiki page of an actor I very much like, and it happens to be an actor D. very much likes as well, and I’ve always sort of fancied this actor as a perfect love interest for the movie version of me in the movie version of my life and I think D. has long fancied this actor as a perfect sort of sidekick friend for the movie version of him in the movie version of his life. So when - in the Wiki entry - we encountered an ambiguous name in the “Personal” section, as in “This Actor lives with Ambiguously Named Person,” our interest was piqued. Further research indicated that This Actor lives with - and is romantically linked to - a man, news which did absolutely nothing to alter my imaginary casting of him in the movie version of my life and if anything, made me like him even more. D., however, was flummoxed. He just seems so…straight, he said. I KNOW! I said.
I’ve met plenty of masculine, sexy gay men and just as many straight men with all the sex appeal of cotton candy so sexuality and sexiness have never seemed especially linked to me, which is not the same as saying I’m not turned on by blatant things like: broad shoulders, the ability to throw both a punch and a baseball, men-with-baby-in-baby-backpack-things, sweaty guys running in the park, strong hands, faded jeans, etc etc etc. Because I am. But straight or gay has little to do with it, once my immediate romantic feelings are taken out of the equation, and the added benefit I’ve found with many of my gay friends is that I hear a lot less about Megan Fox or Erin Andrews than when around straight guys. (I believe in my heart that most people are good, and I believe equally strongly that most men are not assholes, any more than most women are crazy bitches, but that because men and women are different there is a lot of bad PR on behalf of either gender which has lead to SO VERY MANY terrible sitcoms and movies with lunkheads, shrews, damaging stereotypes and terrible dialogue. That being said, I get really, really REALLY tired of hearing constant male litanies of Who’s Hot, especially when followed by Who’s Fat. Because I get it. There are lots and lots of hot women. Lots. But when I hear middle-aged men with saggy manboobs calling Jessica Simpson fat, I want to punch things.)
Which is not to say that gay men cannot be judgy bitches. Dude, everyone is a judgy bitch at one time or another. EVERYONE.
For whatever reason, I have always had a lot of gay male friends. Like, a lot. I’m not a big fan of the brassy fag-haggy WOO I LOVE THE GAYS thing that some women do, but dude: I love the gays. (I love anyone who makes me laugh, really. Straight, gay, human, canine, whatever)
In the past year or so I’ve come to realize that love is a miracle. I know people like to talk about childbirth as a miracle, and I recognize that it is profound and magnificent, but it’s also biology. I can very easily understand how it works (although it is much harder to understand when it doesn’t). But love? Love makes no sense, offers no explanation, holds little constant, makes the smartest people stupid, the strongest people broken. It can heal the deepest hurt, ache like nothing else and still leave you wanting more. From where I’m sitting, love is a fragile, fragile miracle and sexual orientation should be the least of love’s obstacles.
Upon reading that this hunky love-interest type actor is in fact living with another man, my first thought was not so much, Huh, I Can’t Believe He’s Gay, as it was, How Nice. I marvel at how easily some people seem to pair up, settle down. It hasn’t been easy for me. I’m reminded time and again that there are no guarantees in love, and I don’t know if it’s age or experience or insecurity or awe that makes me pause when I see a family - and I don’t mean mother-father-kids, but rather any people who are living as one, no matter the equation - and think, They are lucky.
Most days, I believe that I am lucky. I feel lucky. I also at times feel sad, scared, lonely and other times I feel content, protected, delighted. I very much enjoy daydreaming about my future and prefer to think that any movie made about my life would be an interesting one, with bittersweet moments, belly laughs and clever dialogue. I prefer to think I’d be played by someone lovely, with good hair (Oh, how I hope for that), and while I’m not sure who I want to play me, I’m very happy with the love interest.
June 1st, 2009
Here is why I like to vacuum:
It is satisfying and provides immediate visual gratification and I like emptying the cannister of all the Fuzz because no matter how often I vacuum I am always horrified/delighted by HOW MUCH can be sucked up, even when just considering an 8′x11′ square foot surface that is vacuumed once a week, plus while I am far from a germaphobe and am one of those dirty, dirty people who sometimes goes over two weeks without changing my pillowcases and cleans the toilet only when it looks so icky so as to make me pause and think, Dang I better clean that toilet, I cannot stand a dirty floor and am on a one-woman mission to erradicate my apartment of dust bunnies: as such, few things give me greater satisfaction that an audible ‘tthwwp’ that comes from sucking up a dust bunny that has been living, feeding and growing in the deep confines of Behind The Couch or Beneath the Dresser.
Here is why I hate to grocery shop:
New York is a bastard city full of bastard people who make something that should be systematic and simple into a painful, soul-crushing, inefficient, expensive, and frantic process. When people ask me if I miss California I often say that I do, and I mention the summer nights and the coastline and the lifestyle but honestly, what I miss most about California are the grocery stores and the fact that you can buy Red Vines at the movies.
May 28th, 2009
Vacuuming
Stacking things into tidy piles
Wiping the bathroom or kitchen floor with Method wipes
Making the bed (daily, without changing sheets)
Removing burners from stove and scrubbing the grease and gunk
Taking out newspapers and magazines to recycling bin
Purging my closet
Throwing out empty-ish containers of things in fridge
Throwing out empty-ish containers of things in shower
Using Draino
Dusting
Laundry (the washing part)
Sorting the mail
Dishes (washing; note no dishwasher)
Making the bed (like, bi-weekly, with new, clean sheets)
Dishes (putting away)
Trash (taking out)
Trash (replacement of trash bag)
Trash (bathroom)
Laundry (folding)
Laundry (putting away)
Breaking down any sort of cardboard/disposing of boxes and packing materials
Taking things to/from dry cleaners
Grocery shopping (putting away)
Anything having to do with shower and grout
Grocery shopping (the actual act thereof, especially if at Fairway)
May 27th, 2009
I was once asked, in one of those getting-to-know-you-flirty-email-banter sessions, Which is worse: bad sex or a bad haircut. HAIRCUT, I answered immediately. It’s very, very hard to shake a bad haircut. Bad hair clings to you. Bad hair follows you around all day. Bad hair can ruin everything.
I recently got a bad haircut. Not one of those “Oh, it’s a quarter of an inch shorter than I wanted and WOE IS ME” bad haircuts but a legitimately bad cut, both in style and execution. And the thing was, I knew it was going to be a bad cut before I even walked into the salon; I just had a feeling. I had intended to bring several photos from a magazine, but I forgot them. I had an appointment with one stylist and upon arrival discovered he had called in sick and I agreed to see someone else. I ASKED FOR BLUNT BANGS. You see how easily something like this could have happened.
I live with a very nice man who will sometimes tease me about my hair (BECAUSE IT IS THE BANE OF MY EXISTANCE) but made it clear that he doesn’t really care what my hair looks like. You know I don’t care what your hair looks like, right? he said.
I, however, care very much. Very much indeed.
The bad haircut has grown out a bit, which is good. It’s unfortunately grown out into a news anchor/soccer mom hybrid-bob with a tendency to flip up at the ends, so that it looks both dated and matronly. (It was a really bad haircut.) I am trying to go a bit longer before my next haircut, hoping that any added length will be helpful in the re-constructive-styling phase.
The bad haircut has led to a dip in self-esteem. The other morning I struggled with the hair dryer while my hot, steamy bathroom (a tiny tiled box, really) conspired against me and my hair, and I moaned and yanked and ponytailed and then I changed outfits once or twice until finally stumbling into the living room where D. and Tuesday waited patiently for me so that we could all take our morning pre-work walk. I AM HAVING A ROUGH GO OF IT, I announced. What’s wrong? asked D. MY HAIR MY CLOTHES I HAVE NO OUTFITS I HATE THE BANGS, I said.
Maybe you should get some new outfits? D. suggested. I sputtered and tugged at my too-tight black pants and brushed the hated bangs out of my eyes.
This morning I vowed not to let my hair get the better of me but still the ends, they flip up. ALL OVER, they flip up. I threw on a black sundress, pulled on a cardigan, smoothed my hair back into a pathetic little nub of a ponytail and said to the mirror, Fuck it.
I would not say I am an especially vain person. I am certainly not without vanity, and I have been on occasion totally incapacitated by a random case of Ugly (it happens every now and then, one of those inexplicable phenomenon by which nothing specific is altered or different yet somehow everything, face hair all of it, looks Wrong), but I’m more than willing to go out in the world looking like my usual rumpled self. I like my usual rumpled self, most days.
(True story: last week I wore a dressy button-down shirt tucked into pants one day and when I passed a co-worker in the hall she said, Oh, you look so nice and adult-like! and then she leaned closer and pointed out a stain on the placket of my crisp, white shirt.)
BUT THE HAIR OH THE HAIR HAS BESTED ME.
Internet, how do you cope? (Don’t say barrettes.) I like to think that I am a secure, well-adjusted woman who feels hot because of my sheer awesomeness, but lately I just want to tell strangers LOOK AWAY I’M HIDDDDEEEEOUS.
And that is why a bad haircut is far worse than bad sex.
May 20th, 2009
The kitchen in every home I’ve lived has been subsequently smaller than its predecessor. (With one exception: Warren Street was probably larger than 2nd Place although I would estimate it had less counter space. Plus, was hideously ugly and accented with Harvest Gold and peeling vinyl flooring. And, mice.) As I am now living in my sixth (no SEVENTH!) New York apartment, you can sort of guess what my kitchen resembles (a box in a box in a box…)
I love our apartment. I mean, I really really love it. I live two doors west of Central Park. I have herringbone floors and high ceilings. The living room has a wide expanse of windows that we have not bothered to cover in any way meaning we get lots of light AND are able to spy on inhabitants of the posh CPW building which we face. The bedroom is big: maybe not BIG-big, but it’s big, even by non-New York standards. It’s bright. It’s on the top floor and is therefore relatively quiet. It has a sunken living room which enables the dog to make flying leaps up onto the dining/entrance foyer bit when I shake the leash to let her know it’s time to go out and in doing so, slip and skid on the previously-mentioned herringbone floor and that NEVER gets old.
The kitchen, however, is small. Like, not-really-a-room-more-of-a-nook small. Fits one person at a time small. Stand in one place while you cook small. I know most people probably look at their kitchens and think, SO SMALL! But I’m confident that I have most of you beaten. (Not that it’s a competition.)
It doesn’t bother me, which isn’t the same as not wishing for a bit more space. I wish there were a bit more space. I forget how small it is until I am in a home with a more generous kitchen, and then I start to pine. Here is how our kitchen is set up: it is basically a corner and there is a sink on the right hand side of the corner and a refrigerator on the left hand side of the corner and the actual corner is made up of a wee bit of counter (a lovely granite counter, but still, wee) and a small oven which is smaller than your bake sheets but you forget about that until it’s actually time to put something IN the oven and at that point you curse yourself for forgetting to buy quarter-sheet baking sheets and then you put your baking sheets in at an angle, with one side resting on a higher rack ridge thingy and one on a lower rack ridge thingy and you switch it halfway through to ensure even cooking and also to separate the food which has slid all together because of being shoved in on a too-big baking sheet. There is, however, plenty of cabinet space (because you don’t have that much, having moved so often and culled your kitchenware collection frequently) which, yay!
Cooking in a Very Small Kitchen forces one to be strategic, and to Clean As You Go and also to get very frizzy and red-faced because a Very Small Kitchen heats up FAST.
But as I was saying, it doesn’t really bother me. Except that I just came home from visiting my family and my parents’ Normal Sized Kitchen and I have to tell you, the counter space was nice. The dishwasher was VERY NICE (small kitchens with no dishwasher mean lots of immediate hand-washing and lots of immediate putting-away which is somehow worse than the hand-washing, like what is so awful about putting away plates anyway, I don’t know IT JUST IS) but I think what I mostly coveted was the fullness that can happen in a larger kitchen. Multiple activities! Several people! Snacks! A small kitchen is All Business, which is fine, but oh, for just a few more square feet.
I’m not complaining. I LOVE OUR APARTMENT. I love when D. squeezes behind me in the tiny kitchen to look over my shoulder and see what’s happening on the stove top. I AM NOT COMPLAINING.
But if I were, I’d moan a little about the size of our kitchen.
I am suspicious of anyone with a Perfect Home. Perfect Homes are for design magazines and Patrick Bergin’s character in Sleeping With the Enemy (and not to stretch my point but how awesome did Julia Roberts’ little ‘You Can’t Find Me in Iowa Cottage’ look, all cozy and quaint with the Victorian details and the garden and the next-door neighbor singing West Side Story? SO AWESOME.) I have spent much (SO VERY MUCH) time pouring over design magazines and websites that I’ve dulled myself to the decor envy and have gotten much better at just enjoying my home (and ignoring the dust bunnies during the week: Saturdays are for vacuuming).
I miss my old Nelson bubble lamp, but I enjoy my home very much. Although I wish we had a dishwasher.
The end.
May 14th, 2009
I went home to visit my family over the weekend. When I’m home I spend a good amount of time assessing and re-assessing familiar things, trying to gauge what’s different and what’s the same (Oh, there’s a new painting on the wall, Oh, I don’t remember a stop sign on that corner, Oh, there’s a Kate Spade store in Walnut Creek) and I guess that’s sort of what we do to one another as well (Oh, you got bangs, Oh, what cute sandals, Oh, you take soy milk in your coffee now?). And then I get on the scale on my parents’ bathroom. (Seriously, I do, and it’s the only occasion on which I weigh myself and even though I ALWAYS REGRET IT, I keep doing it. Like a damn fool.)
The last time I was home the news of my separation and divorce from Kevin was BIG NEWS among some and UNKNOWN INFORMATION AT THE TIME among others, so on this trip home I felt considerable weight of prying eyes (and this may totally be in my head, but it’s how it felt) looking at me, trying to assess DOES SHE LOOK HAPPY (ie, Fat) and WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THE NEW BOYFRIEND and ARE WE ALLOWED TO ASK ABOUT KEVIN OR WHAT.
It had been a full calendar year since I was last home, which probably sounds hideous to all of you but in that year I saw two of my brothers here in New York and my parents visited more than once and my mother came on her own in regular intervals so I’m not the complete ingrate I may seem when I mention that I let a year go by in between visits to California. Not completely. This trip coincided with both my father’s birthday and Mother’s Day, which gave me the chance to catch up with extended as well as immediate family members, and to answer - several times over - So, what’s the new boyfriend like?
Last night D. and I were doing that goofy late night pillow chat “I can’t fall asleep” thing and I asked him, How much money would it take for you to give up a season of baseball? And after a bit of back and forth on the technicalities (no TV, no radio, no Internet) he sort of flailed uncomfortably in bed, thrashed his legs and said NONE I COULDN’T DO IT, I MEAN, I JUST COULD NOT DO IT. A million dollars? I asked him and he said, Nope, I couldn’t do it, and we went round and round with a few other hypotheticals and eventually the compromise he came to was, If given $1,000 for every Red Sox game he didn’t watch, he’d pocket maybe $10,000 in one season.
THAT IS WHAT HE IS LIKE.
May 11th, 2009
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