Misdated notes
Friday, April 8, 2005
January 30th.
Crescent rolls for dinner, with another semi-autobiographical novel about sex and drugs and violence. Jennifer went off in her hat and her scarf and her huge 1970’s sunglasses that cover half her face. “Those shades are the very definition of quirky,” I said, “and it’s even better when you wear them in this weather.” The good people of Astoria are still shoveling last week’s snow, and the same over-processed waitress presides over the falafel joint in those tight black pants she doesn’t have the body for.
Sometimes it’s like I’m only pretending to love the City. Whenever I make the effort to go out, I only copy what I think some other hypothetical girl with interests like mine might do to entertain herself in this vast, vast playground.
February 2nd.
“The problem with subways is that you’re so focused on getting on them or off of them when they get there that you don’t see where you are on the way or where you’re going when you get off.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem with depression, too.”
“It’s like something just broke.”
“I know what broke means. That’s what my life is - broke.”
“Mine too.”
“Did you know I haven’t cried? I haven’t cried,” I tell him, as the tears come tumbling down.
Undated.
There are pictures on my walls. They’re photographs by talented far-away friends and cut-outs from magazines and poster prints and they’re all women. My walls are covered by women in various stages of undress, with various looks on their faces, often sadnesses. It took a man coming into my apartment (trying to get into me) and pointing it out for me to even notice. He said made him feel unwelcome, and I realized how thoroughly I live in a world of women. I might let a man into my bed at night, but I’d never put one on my wall, to look at while I’m alone. I get into these long, complicated relationships with men, I love them and I tangle myself up with them, but in the end, I am always forced to admit that I never understood them. More than a husband, I want a daughter. More than a boyfriend, I want a best friend. Best friends are, by definition, girls. Men are wonderful, especially for making decisions and handling things, but its women I worship.
March 1st.
Martha told me I was being avoidant, so all the way home from the counseling center, I planned out what I would say. I planned and executed a knock-out blow - a break-up that would not take me a year to finish off. I said it was over, I said we will never have sex again. I said it as nicely as I could, but with all the assertiveness he’s never seen in me in the past year. He went crazy. He acted like a child. He acted like me.
March 6th.
Coats everywhere. Running through halls of coats under dripping sweating pipes covered only by garbage bags and masking tape over the side where the coats hang and not the side where I run with them, brushing by wool and fur and quilted puffy. The boss yells at me - “Just look at the fucking numbers” - when I wasn’t even the girl who messed up. I just take the next ticket and go. Back and forth. 1, 2, 3 in the morning. Coat after coat and the scarved have to be wrapped just so - back and the hook and around the horizontal so they don’t slip off. By 4 they’re so drunk they don’t know the difference between the yellow coat check ticket and a receipt from the drugstore in the same pocket. “It looks like this, sir” says the boss, who calls me “Kate” and “you.” I carry some coats for a lady who makes me pretend I saw her friend selling jewelry on QVC and she doesn’t even tip me for it.
March 8th.
In the tunnel, a Mexican boy plays guitar and blowpipes. Simon and Garfunkle’s Sounds of Silence, a favorite on the train, maybe because of the “words of the prophets are written on the subway walls” part. His hands are full up with the guitar so he can’t hold a pole. He wobbling all over and the screech of the metal is louder than his song. Prophets maybe, but there’s not much silence on the subway.
March 11th.
I’m in the tub with the cheapest Belgian beer in walking distance from my apartment, a $75 candle, and a book of essays I wish I’d written. On the floor are three pink towels. One of them was originally pink, I think. On the ledge are two rusted disposable razors. On the sink, both tubes of toothpaste are clogged. I gave up this morning and brushed with water. There are seven bruises on my thighs. Seven on the tops of my thighs. I don’t know why. Maybe when I slipped on the ice and my library books flew and the old man told me to walk on the sunny side of the street, where it’s safe.
March 13th.
A teaparty in Park Slope.. cloth of the table, plates of finger sandwiches stuck with toothpicks, stickers stuck on the end of toothpicks, mismatched cups and saucers from fleamarkets, a kettle from the street, talk of Columbia and flying trapeze, a bunny under the couch, two lesbians working in publishing, a stack of LightDays on the toilet, mermaids by the toothbrushes.
March 15th.
This is one Indian restaurant in a string of Indian restaurants, and like all of them, it’s strung up in lights. Some of the lights are red peppers, but not all of them. We picked this one because it had the greatest variety of lights, even if the place next door had dinner specials for a dollar cheaper and we were being actively coddled by a man with a big smile at a place halfway down the block. This one has “rose” in the name.
She has a couple zits on her forehead and something bright tied around her ponytail. She makes me feel young. We laugh and say stupid things to one another like I can’t do with any of my other friends because I’ve known them too long and have hurt them too much.
I try to remember the Sanskrit names of yoga poses and she tells me about what may or may not have been carbon monoxide poisoning. I’ve forever between courses and forever until the check comes but that’s alright because I like the red lights hanging from the ceiling and how the restaurant is long and skinny with mirrors covering the walls to make it seem roomier. It feels like a circus trailer, a wardrobe, a place to meet an alcoholic psychic. With curry. And Leigh.
March 17th.
Baroque at Lincoln Center. The seats were perfect - had to plow over many nicely-dressed older women to get to the center of the row…
March 21th.
The building shook. It was raining out. I had one pink pajama pants. I’d just shed my work clothes, which were soaked from the walk home in the rain. The building shook as if a tree had fallen on it, as if a bomb had dropped. Jennifer was in my room. “What the fuck was that?” one of us said, and we decided it must have been thunder. But then. We heard voices. Out in the hallway everyone was looking out of their doors. I shouted down the stairwell, “Does anyone know what happened?” No one knew. We walked down the stairs in our pajamas, looked out the front door. It was raining. There was no smoke, no fire. People were saying that the building that used to be behind ours was gone. That is had exploded. But there was no fire. We got dressed and went out looking, without an umbrella. We walked around the block to see if we could see anything from the block behind ours. We couldn’t. There were sirens. When we got back there were three fire trucks and two ambulances in front of our building. The neighbors were standing in their doorways. It was just a wall. A brickwall between our building and the next one collapsed. It collapsed and slammed into the side of our building and made it shake.
March 27th.
On the train. Not MTA, Amtrak.. NYC-DC-NYC.
April 4th.
I wait in line for an hour to get my book signed by Jonathan Safran Foer…
April 7th.
I can’t believe it is April. What happened to March? Did I do anything at all in March? I have no idea.