New Friends

Tags

adulthood, driving, friendships, geography, life, living, moving, new york, NYC, relationships, teens, wine

Making new friends is awkward, touch and go like learning to drive a car as a teen. Already uncomfortable in the skin you’re in, slamming the brake when you know you shouldn’t, but you’re scared, so you do, this is how it goes.

Making new adult friends is this but with coffee, cold from the afternoon, still in hand as a prop. It’s this with wine in plastic cups like Dixie, like the teeth-brushing rinser-outer cups for me and my brother, but see-through and bigger. More room for more wine for the silences.

But I’m new here so making friends is what I’ll have to do, always slamming on the brakes with Dixie cups of wine.

Things I Don’t Do: Return Phone Calls

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Cold War Kids, communication, distance, friends, friendships, geography, letters, love, mail, pen pals, phone calls, post office, relationships, voicemail, writing

Note: See other items on a list of Things I Do or Things I Don’t Do here: Cook Dinner, Watch TV, Make the Bed

The conundrum of the phone call situation is that I do actually have the mathematical time to return them. But, considering what it takes to return a phone call: the geography, the headspace, the time commitment, the concentration to conversationally catch up, the mathematical time isn’t a great quantifying measure.  Returning phone calls is up there with serious commitments like getting married. So when I say I don’t have time or that I’m too busy, I don’t mean in minutes; I don’t mean that I’m flying around with my jet pack strapped to my shoulders on the run all day. What I mean is that I can’t sacrifice all that it takes to commit to a phone call. Or, to be real and raw, I won’t.  I value the now too much; phone calls don’t feel like right now to me.

It’s part of the reason I tried so hard and for so many years to brand myself as a letter-writer. Everyone knows. Everyone who knows even a little knows this about me. And they don’t write, no one does (Yes, Strongs, except for you). So I feel, even self-righteously (I’ll admit), totally justified in my ignored voicemails, when my mailbox is empty of your letter.

With a letter, I can choose my geography and a comfortable headspace. I can start the letter on the train, where the cell phone towers can’t reach, and stop when I arrive at work with minutes to spare. I can finish when I get home, listening to Cold War Kids in my stereo speakers and eating an apple at the desk. I can take a walk while I deliver your letter, I can make an appointment, or call my mom (my mom does get calls back; don’t fuss, it’s different). I enjoy writing in a way I do not enjoy the labor of calls, especially calls back, when I’m on the guilty end of the exchange, so stuck and jailed by my phone call obligations. If these nuances could just be public about the weaving and knitting inside of me, I would never have personal, only professional, voicemails.  In the meanwhile, I make no sincere apology about this thing I do not do.

Things I Do: Watch TV

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Christina Applegate, comedy, drama, entertainment, hobbies, life, love, Mulder, Mya Rudolph, relationships, Scully, television, The X-Files, travel, tv, Up All Night, Will Arnett

The last time I watched a television series, I was in high school. I watched The X-Files alone every Sunday night because none of my friends were remotely interested in the Fox drama. Clearly–I was so brilliant to understand the paranormal investigations and subtle humor, and they were so remedial to find the expertly designed one-hour drama uninteresting–clearly.

And so, with pride, I asked my secretary (Mom) to hold my phone calls, and make no plans (my schedule was pretty open at 9pm on a school night) during the airing of The X-Files. I watched for maybe four seasons, keeping track of the character development, noticing the ways Mulder was always, unbelievably, right, yet Scully’s skeptical and logical opinions were necessary and balancing for Mulder and for the show. I was definitely obsessed

I’ve never been, not now, not since, much of a television junkie. I don’t often get caught in front of the TV for hours, or mesmerized with a channel, watching show after show. No Oscar watch-parties for me, no DVR recordings, and a lot of HBO-based conversations that I’ve faked my way through.  I just can’t think of a time since The X-Files when I planned any part of my life around a television show.

On the plane ride home from our honeymoon, my husband and I had pretty much exhausted our onboard resources. We’d finished our books, read the in-flight magazines, finished a crossword puzzle, nibbled on the snacks I’d packed and listened to our ipods. The television was showing 30Rock, which my husband thinks is very funny so we plugged our headphones into the armrests. Afterwards, a new-ish show came on with Christina Applegate, Will Arnett, and Mya Rudolph; lots of names we knew, and a catchy roll of opening credits which kept us plugged in until the landing powered us down. I laughed aloud on the plane, embarrassingly, watching this young couple try to be cool parents.

And, simply, this is the way it goes now. Up All Night is our show. We don’t have need for a cable package because we can watch Up All Night on the internet (for now) without any illegal activity (thankfully). Wouldja loogit that…we have a TV show.

(a) Eyw, we have “a show” or (b) Yay, we have “a show!”  (not sure which to choose)

My adult self has never had a show, but I think I’m happy to have this one. It’s about a couple roughly our age, in roughly our stage of life, having hilarious arguments not unlike some that we’ve had, feeling things I know I’ve felt and laughing about it in the end, because they are oh-so-in-love, also, like us. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Embarrassingly, we also have The X-Files, because my sweet thinking-about-me husband purchased the first season on DVD and has been enduring it with me. It’s so nineteen-nineties, of course, but I still like the plots and the Mulder-is-always-rightness of it, just like I did a decade and a half ago.

We have two shows. (Woot?!) I value them. I will make time for TV. Wow—the things you thought you’d never say.

Things I Do: Cook Dinner

Tags

chicken, cook, dinner, enjoyment, food, garlic chicken, life, love, marriage, New York City, NYC, relationships, things i do

Someone should tell me that myspace isn’t a trendy social network anymore (see below).

It’s not even that I’m oh-so-totally-obsessed with taking pictures of myself. I have no emo photos with sultry eyes at the camera, thick gray eyeliner drawn to my ears, bangs in my face, bathroom mirror in the back, bra strap curling off my shoulder. Eyw, gross. It’s just that there’s only two of us and I want life to be frozen and framed like only photographs can.

I hate “welcome back” posts in the blogosphere. I just realized that I actually hate the word blogosphere, too. Eyw. We shall focus on the positive. I do, apparently, enjoy the blog more than I recognized. Catharsis, practice, brainstorm—something about it just works.

I like to do a lot of things. Herein begins a list of things I do, which is really just acting as a footbridge to cross to the more important list of Things I Don’t Do. A Shauna Neitquist book that I’m reading piecemeal, leisurely, has me talking all this inside out list-making nonsense.

And thus, I cook. We cook. We eat dinner (obviously…like you). Fish and chicken, beef stew, tofu. We let the crockpot simmer all day, we cook dessert before dinner, we eat while we heat, do dishes and play, grind vegetables and fruits to a glass full of of juice (and do dishes again).

The night we made garlic chicken and sweet potatoes from an internet recipe, I bought a whole chicken because I’m usually pretty great at following directions. The recipe never said anything about a head. It said whole, but it didn’t say head.

After defrosting the chicken, the visible breasts, thighs, drumstick legs, and wings, I lifted it from the sink and the head flopped down from it’s neat little place tucked under the chicky. The chicken hit the sink with a splat when I let it loose from my hands. I ran from it (in case?) like a tiny little girl.

I guess I’m not great in high pressure situations. When the smoke alarm went off a few weeks ago, I ran around the apartment, flapping a towel furiously overhead and shrieking “What do we do?” in what was once a whisper. You can imagine how helpful that was for clearing the smoke. Much like opening a window would have been.

Chicken heads and smoke alarms included, we shall continue to cook. Beware. (…or come over?)

Elevator Linguistics

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babies, baby, children, city, conversation, culture, English, ethnicity, experience, family, language, Latin, life, men, New York City, NYC, people, pregnancy, pregnant, relationships, sex, social security, spanish, urban

The woman who was in line ahead of me at the social security office is ahead of me, still, at the elevators to exit. We stand with another woman and her stroller.

“How old?”

Silence, the most brief.

“Cuantos anos?”

“Tres meses.” The woman from the line gasps and peers into the stroller, then cups her own belly, which I hadn’t noticed beneath her layers.

“Oh my God! Seis meses,” Rubbing her belly, still, the elevator lights up, dings, opens. We all climb on. In Spanish, now, the women coo and laugh about their children. Unmarried, each with more children at home and small children in strollers or bellies right here at social security, the elevator fills with beautiful Latin linguistics. They don’t know that I know.

Another ding, door opens, we exit. She turns to me, the bellied, vibrant one, not in Spanish, but accented in a way she can’t help.

“I hardly gained a pound, you see? You can’t even tell I’m pregnant.” She pulls back her vest and shows her belly nested in a thermal as we walk.

“Wow.” I’m smiling, but unsure of what to say. I can’t understand the comment she makes next, but assume it’s in English. Then,

“You can’t depend on a man these days. Have to do it all yourself.” So matter of fact, she makes her last statements. And with a wave, hustles out the door of the social security first floor and around the corner, skinny jeans hugging pregnant thighs.

I stand perfectly still in the sunlight and cold air at the intersection wondering at the impossible gap between our two lives. Yes you can—should I have told her? And, no—you don’t have to.

Rings on Her Fingers

Tags

beauty, character, girl, life, observation, people, relationships, storytelling, subway

There are rings on all the wrong fingers, slender knuckles, long nails, no polish. Chunky stones set in silver, twisted metal caressing smooth skin, beaded trinkets hanging from bent wood. From her fingers I decide that when they choose her it’s only for one night. Or for weeks at a time. Never—yet—for a lifetime. And I can’t figure why.

I fell in lust with her on the one train downtown. Her long hair, tousled, hadn’t seen a brush yet today. It was late in the afternoon, locks still latched on skyrise buildings, Wall Streeters not yet freed to the streets, and only the running of her fingertips through the curls on the ends of her locks had kept the thick mane tame. Her perfect form, bronze glow, curves of all the right sizes in all the right places, wrapped casually in subtle straps, a gray tank, woven shoulder-strung purse, jean shorts, torn.  She fit like a whisper between two faceless bodies on the plastic blue infinite subway seat.  Her almond eyes, lashes long, that blinked curiously around the train car as it cushioned with late-lunching New Yawkers. She never squinted cruelly at them. Never bristled. Only slid back effortlessly into her headphones.

And as she wondered, I wondered about her. About what makes her, impossibly, just a one-night girl, with rings on all the wrong fingers.

Cut Off

Tags

bold, Chicago, communication, falling in love, friends, Godly man, letter, love, mail, past, relationships, visits, words

I’m always the one doing the cutting off. I don’t know why, exactly. I’m not necessarily the type. I’m a pretty likeable person, they say. Unless no one tells the truth around here. I love to have fun, love to love–sometimes too much. But I tend to see my weaknessess and hesitate to step in too far where I’ll falter. That’s where I find myself cutting off. You’d say I cut you off, right?  Or, tried.  It was the way I thought things should go.

I try to be clear. I use my words. I remember to never make promises, because that’s not fair. I sit at kitchen tables, in parked cars on the street, on the steps of some church down the street from your place, all to explain why I think this way will be better. You fight it, you don’t hear me, only I understand.

Memories and loneliness make me turn the choice over and over, make me make sure it’s right, in the months that follow. We write letters because I said we could. I frown when you call. And when you send messages meant to make me laugh. You are breaking the rules we made, but really only I made them. I’m the one cutting off because only I understand.

Your words are as clear as these months are long. You’re stuck on me, which is not good.  So to be clearer still, I tell you about the man I fell in love with years ago. Whose salvation I involuntarily wait on. Not because it has anything to do with you and me, but because the way I wait on him is the way you’re waiting on me. And I can’t figure who’s the bigger fool. You don’t see what I’m saying, but you see something else. Something more. Because you love me, you see the way I’m stuck on this stubborn man and you see how it’s crushing me. In the end, because of it all, you cut me off.

I’ve never been cut off before. Not really. Not unless I was the one building the wall between us. I’m stunned at your finality. I will not expect a letter from you, you say. I do not think it’s a good idea to see you–and you underline do not. The ball’s in my court, you tell me, but only if I want to love you. And I can’t make myself love you.

The stiff arm you give me is bold and sure. You’ve not spoken to me with such confidence before. With such assurance. With such leadership. When I asked you for leadership–and I asked you for leadership–you never gave me this. But I ask you not to wait on me, and you give me a man of God that I could fall for. The distance of being cut off feels so isolated. And isolation is not a feeling with which I am well-acquainted.