the habit of being

I woke up hot and sticky at 3 or 4 in the morning.

Full of chocolate and a sad movie and still tipsy from before I fell asleep, I was dying, melting away with a throbbing head. I got out of bed and stood in front of the fan, whose head slowly was turning right and left. I walked back and forth following it, and already the naked man had invaded my side of the bed. I’d never get back in. Those pokey knees. He’d thrown the blanket off and was snoring a little, shiny in his whiteness, asleep.

It was a jungle in there, a furnace, a crematorium, a whorehouse - dark and sweltering.

I drank tap water from the kitchen faucet; my cheek nearly resting on a pile of dirty dishes. We’d had tofu stir fry for dinner, with baby bok choy and not enough rice. And the tofu had all turned to moosh so it looked like vomit, but it tasted okay and I ate it all and watched the sad movie. It was kindof funny too, that movie. We walked to CVS for ice cream and vanilla Coke, looking in windows and leaning on trees. I remember saying I didn’t want to fuck him, and he said I did, but I can’t remember why it came up.

I was lying in bed when he told me a woman had seen us as I was trying to choose an ice cream flavor. He’d drawn a smiley face in the condensation of the refridgerator. He had his arm around me and the woman had smiled at us. We looked happy. We’ve been looking happy for years, maybe, except a few times. My boss said to me, when I told her we were breaking up, that it seemed like we had such a nice little relationship.

I made the fan stop shaking its head no, and pointed it straight at the bed. I pushed him out of the way enough that I could lie on my back with my feet on the pillow, head nearest the fan, at the end of the bed. I never got cool. I woke him up, kindof, and said I had no room, and he moved over about a millimeter and fell right back asleep. I went to sleep too.

. . .

I have cobalt blue paint on my foot from painting a hallway at the yoga studio.

I put masking tape all around the molding and the door frames and up the stairs. I unscrewed the screws and took down the little panels around the light switches. I got up on a ladder and painted the edges with a brush, trying not to get any on the ceiling, and there were these hallway lights you can’t turn off in my face. I wore one of my homeless shirts; James had written “nomad” on the back of the collar in capital letters with a black sign marker. It now has cobalt blue specks on it. Kevin taught me to make v-shapes with the paint roller, and told me about a boyfriend he’d had who sung him U2 songs in bed.

The next day he told me I’d done a good job with the paint roller - that usually dark colors need a lot more touch-up work.

. . .

I’m turning twenty in nineteen days and today I wrote a get-well card to my great-grandmother, who broke her hip.