The Ramble

Frigid weather again. I have so many items of clothes on that I have a hard time moving.  This must be what it feels like to be terribly fat.

I need to stop talking to strangers.  Today a street vendor asked me to remove the scarf I was wearing and wanted to take a photo of  it. Then he asked me to wear it again and took another photo. I suppose he is going to go back to some sweatshop now and copy the design.  He gave me a pair of gloves for my trouble and as I was leaving, I heard him telling someone, “that scarf was expensive!” True, but no one's business but mine. I went from being amused by this man to being terribly offended. No mood swing if I could have just kept to myself.

·

Friday night, a pedestrian was struck and killed by a car on Broadway and 90^th Street.  M and I had just finished having dinner at some Belgian brasserie in the Upper West Side and were on our way to Riverside Park to have a walk when we happened upon the “crime scene”.

M was not prepared for the weather.  I gave him one of my scarves – a swath of magenta cashmere with gold and silver sequins.  I wrapped the length of it around his head and neck and then we forced his had down his head—a ridiculous look for anyone (including me, but I sometimes love ridiculous things). For someone as uptight as M, it was pee-in-my-pants hysterical.  I tried to take a photo but he yelled at me and demanded that I just “enjoy” our time together.  I told him he was cranky pants and he bitched even more but in the end ended up laughing at himself. 

I am not sure what is going on with us now.  I keep thinking this is all in my head but we have our nice times (really, these times are not so grand, but it feels, to me, just right). It seems impossible to me that I would be the only one who feels something.  Then again, stranger things happened.  We come very close to moving toward each other BUT we don’t. 

This is all in my head isn’t it?

He is moving six blocks away from me in a few weeks. I suppose we will continue our strange friendship and nothing will change but there is some part of me that hopes for clarity.  The only problem is that I don’t want to lose him. Wendy suggested I jump his bones.  I don't see this happening -- it's not my style.  But a funny thing to contemplate.

·

Saturday morning I ran into A in the R train on my way to the bookstore.  He was on his way to see a flick at The Film Forum, a Kurosawa.  Probably with his girlfriend and her friends.  Seeing him was not as bad as I have imagined it would be.  After we said goodbye, he called to tell me I looked great (really he is a bottomless pit of compliments, it bugs me) and that we should get together for a drink soon.

I’m not sure how I feel about seeing him on purpose.  I do know that I’ve been quite fine without him in the last few months.  So maybe a meeting would just set me back. This is not making me run to my calendar to schedule a get-together. 

Could it be true that I might actually be a little bit over him? Could it?

What does he want from me? It’s kind of weird.  I’m rather unpleasant when I don’t know how to act around a person. I imagine I must have been awkward this morning.  Mean, even?

Last week, I ran into that tall guy I briefly dated over the summer (6 foot 7 to my 5 feet). It happened at the bookstore.  I couldn’t stand the thought of talking to him so I actually hid from this perfectly nice man. 

Maybe I need to find somewhere else to spend my Saturday afternoons.

·

CC had a double mastectomy on Wednesday.  She seems to be doing fine.  I am so scared for her.  What happens when the pain medication and whatever dope they have her on wears off and she realizes, with a fully lucid mind, that her breasts are gone?

The other night at dinner, I said to M, “we are sitting here having dinner like nothing has happened, but just a few miles from here, my friend is sitting somewhere a totally different person.”

M is not the kind of person who can have such conversations. I didn’t elaborate on it. But I thought of CC all night.

·

On Thursday night, an unexpected trip to the opera house to see Turandot. The opera makes me wish I were rich and could see performances any time I want.  Oh well.

Tomorrow, I am going to see Carmen. I swear I live my life like an old lady. But that’s quite all right.

Glass Houses

Finished reading The Glass Room in the early afternoon. I was sitting outside a cafe, damp cold and raining.  When I got to the end, I started to cry.  "I am Ottilie" reduced me to tears. Just as I was wiping my eyes, my friend stepped off the bus and we set off on our usual Sunday expedition. We laughed at me.  Am I soft today or was that amazing writing?  I will have to reread the last part to ascertain that.

I want to know what house Mawer was describing in his book. It exists apparently but it is never identified outright.  Somewhere in the outskirts of Prague this glass house still stands.

Today was supposed to be a trip uptown to the Cloisters but the rain made us lazy. Wendy and I stayed in the Upper West Side. We watched a movie about Queen Victoria and ate terrible Chinese food and complained about the cold.

I have never been to The Cloisters. There is always an excuse not to go. In a way I was glad because I would like to see it alone.  I have a strange love for buildings, there are structures I prefer to see alone. Mostly because I never know how I will react to certain places. The Maparium makes me catch my breath and I can never explain to anyone why that is. The Temple of Dendaur, not the temple itself but the room it is housed in, makes me sad and happy in the same moment.

This morning I found out that my friend Sara does know the violinist I was raving about in December.  Her cousin went to high school with him in Livorno and her husband knows him from the chamber music world of New York. "Do you want to meet him again?" she asked me.  "We could arrange it." My fanhood is not quite so devoted so I declined.

My twin friends are trying to fix up with a friend of theirs. He is kind and trust-funded, they tell me.  He could buy you season tickets to the opera. I met this friend on Tuesday (not part of a set up), been to his big townhouse. I don't know about dating him because he is so shy it sort of hurts me, and I am happy to continue self-financing my expensive habits.

Last night I wrote many pages to add to the novel.  I hesitate to use the N word.  It scares me. The bursts of ideas amaze me, how for months on end I am backed into a corner not knowing how to go from one chapter to another and then suddenly, with two clicks of the mouse, everything falls into place.  My haphazard prose has been there all along, it just needed to be organized.  Here's hoping for more of last night.

Brava

I'm having one of those nights when I don't know what to do with myself.  There is no comfort to be found in sleep or in my books or in other people and so I just give in to this. The reprieve, I know, will come in the morning. Tomorrow, it will be as if tonight never happened.

Sometime last spring, maybe it was in May, I was at CC's boyfriend's office helping him with his dissertation.  It wasn't long after the breakup or the abortion.  I was a live wire.  CC's boyfriend told me that life would be strange for a long time, that at the oddest moments even after the crisis had passed, I would hear a song or see something that would bring everything back.  He was right.

Almost a year ago today, I was sitting with CC at a bar on Madison Avenue, telling her that A suspected I was pregnant and that I thought he was crazy.  Of course, I knew he wasn't crazy but I didn't know what else to say. CC went to Grand Central Station, and I, for reasons unclear to me, walked to a Times Square drugstore to buy a home pregnancy test.

This morning, A sent me and a few other people an email asking for an opinion on a pitch video he'd made for his movie.  I don't know why that email upset me so much. I told him I didn't want to be included.

That is the truth even though I hold on to him in some way I don't understand, even though I refuse to see him or even take a phone call.  Or maybe I do understand that this is what it means to lose someone.

Everything I pick up lately has a story about an abortion.  I'm seeking it out even as I hide from it.  It makes me crazy that what I deny shows up where I expect forgetting.  That's not fair, is it?

All my friends have babies and that does not bother me.  Just tonight, I emailed Secret Friend from Vermont telling her I wanted to meet her daughter. And I meant that sincerely.  Real babies do not upset me, it's the fictitious ones that bring me to my knees. Maybe it is because my baby feels like a fiction in many ways, most of all to myself.

On Tuesday, I ran into CC on Madison Avenue.  She has lost weight since I last saw her less than three weeks ago.   Even her wig seemed dull.  Next Wednesday, she will have a double mastectomy. I bought her a sandwich and for myself a cup of coffee and we talked about her losing her boobs.

After CC and I said goodbye, I ran into my friend AW's old boyfriend.  I'd thought that they'd get back together (but hoped that it wouldn't happen because I don't like this guy).  But from the awkward way he talked to me, I knew no reconciliation had taken place.

Then A called and then M and my friend Ann called but I didn't talk to any of them.

All that in one hour. Nothing out of the ordinary but I was reeling in the subway, my heart was pounding.  Some superstitious part of me was disturbed.

After all that, I made my way to Central Park West to a dinner party.  Nice people, nice townhouse, nice time, my angst slipped from me like molting skin.

Somewhere on Broadway after the party, one of the dinner party mainstays/hosts hugged me goodbye and invited me back.  Definitely you have to come back, he said. And I felt a thrill, not of desire or anything even vaguely sexual, but something that I imagine a performer would feel after having put on a good show.

Bitter Winter Day

This morning, on the Downtown 2 train, it was very crowded.  There was a bike at rush hour.  Woman 1 got on at 72nd Street.  She shoved me, Woman 2 and everyone else around her.

Woman 2 snarled: "Excuse me."

Woman 1: "Wouldn't you just love it if I got my leg got cut off?"

Woman 2 shakes head. "Jesus."

Woman 1: "You would wouldn't you? You'd be happy."

Woman 2: "Oh give it a rest. 'Wouldn't you just love it if my leg were cut off?' Jesus."

Woman 1: "Shut the fuck up."

Woman 2: "Okay, since you asked me so politely."

Woman 1: "Fuck you."

Woman 2: "Fuck you...." (repeat several more times)

Random little girl I couldn't see: "Mommy, why is everyone so mad?"

Mommy: "When you're older you'll get it."

Random little girl: "Like pubic hair?"

Mommy: "For the love of God, that is inside conversation. Shut up."

Everyone started laughing, even Women 1 and 2. 

Random biker dude: "If anyone touches my motherfucking bike one more time, I'm gonna kill ya'll." 

And the doors opened at 42nd Street.

I never saw the kid or Woman 1's face.  I just saw the back of her head.

Someone left a comment on this blog with a link.  Well, it wasn't a comment, it was an invitation to view Japanese porn or something like that.  Can't that jerk see that this blogger is making an earnest attempt to get a life? 

I saw my shrink yesterday, and (surprise!) I told her things I didn't think I could share. As I was walking to the  bus, I felt resentful of her. 

Reading Anagrams and don't think I will finish it. I'm on page 30-something and there's already been an abortion. Of course, there can't possibly be two abortions in one novel could there?   When I got to the abortion / pregnancy plot line, my heart sank.  I can't even think of another way to say it.  I'm not against it, I don't think it's bad, but I simply do not want to read about it.  Even if it's fiction.  The odd thing is that I keep seeing it.  If I hear about someone who had an abortion and didn't feel that bad, I start to think I'm a freak and that I made the wrong decision. I drive myself crazy trying to quantify the loss of something that was never there. 

It turns out my friend Tom was right -- this whole mess nearing its one year anniversary is going to tear me apart a little. He didn't say it in so many words, but there you have it.

It's time for another good cry. I've been trying for days now but it doesn't seem to be in me anymore. 

I do not want to turn into that woman in the subway. 

Get lost in a book

I sometimes think that the lives led by obsessive people can never be clean.  There will be collateral damage, harsh words, unsaid farewells, heartbreak, shameful acts. But then I backtrack. Clearly I am thinking of myself in comparison to people I have deigned to label unobsessed. On bad days I think of these people with some derision mixed with more than a healthy dose of jealousy.  But who is anyone to judge another person’s life and actions? No one is allowed but we all do it anyway, don’t we?

The reason for this rant?  A book by a beloved author.  I was reading the Times an hour ago and came across a review of a book by Amy Bloom.  I went a little crazy, called the bookstores in neighborhood (there are two) and found out that the title isn’t due to be released until tomorrow. I begged the manager to unpack it and let me buy it.  I went to the store and it turns out I know the manager.  Eight years ago, when he was a grad student and we were next door neighbors, we dated. Or more honestly, we slept together for a few months. Small world.

We fell into a strange kind of conversation that lasted all of three minutes because I wanted to get back home to (a) write about how crazy books make me, (b) how I used to sleep with the manager of the bookstore and (c) obsessive behavior.

Amy Bloom does not generally get me all riled up but this collection of stories has a story about Lionel and Julia.  Every year or so, I reread the stories she has written about them. I don’t know why – it’s twisted and doomed and unclassifiable. At least to me. My plan is to read the old Lionel and Julia stories and then to crack the new book.

The bookstore manager is from Kashmir. We met when I first moved to New York and we had sex on 9/11. I don’t own a TV and went to his apartment to watch the coverage.  Together Amit and I watched that guy jump out of tower on CNN at least 20 times. Post apocalyptic sex that lasted longer than I thought possible.  Anyway, we parted amicably and I haven’t thought of him in years. I forgot that his eyes are that strange shade of green and that I used to have a hard time looking at him because those eyes of his were a little too intense for me (he wasn’t creepy, I was simply uneasy about everything when we were “together”).

My obsessive behavior amuses me most of the time. (I was never obsessed with Amit, we were a diversion to one another.) It makes me wonder if I am hurting myself in some way.  I come form a long line of crazies after all.  The book thing is what gives me the most satisfaction. I do not like to borrow books (I won’t want to return it). I don’t like the books with a cracked spine unless it’s from a used bookstore. I don’t like to lend books. My favorite book about being a book freak is Longing and Literacy in L.A.  It’s chicklit really but it hits home with me.

My friend Wendy is the only one who can judge if I will like a book and gives me books knowing she will never see it again.  I trust her judgement.

I’m hopped up on cough medicine right now.  Forgive me for sounding a little manic.

I'm thinking of my friend Alice. She is one of the unobsessed. I have always been jealous of her even though I don't want any part of her life. Sometimes we talk and I wonder how we remain friends.  We're past the two decade mark at this point and no matter what happens, she and I always love each other even though we might not understand the other much anymore.

Alice doesn't hurt people or say mean things. She's never had her heart broken. She's never been through a break up. She has the quietest, most stable life. What is that like?  She is the person I understand the least -- what I cannot imagine. Sometimes I think I love her because she is like a fairytale to me -- I don't want to live her life, but I like being able to see it once in a while because it does seem to have its charms.

Guada

I am sick again.  My immune system has let me down and I am a little pissed.  I should probably not anthropomorphize this or else people will think I am mentally ill on top of everything else.

A childhood friend from International School in Manila found me on Facebook. It's hard to explain what it is like for me to be remembered by people I knew in the Philippines.  With relatives, it's expected. But the 3rd grade, not so much.  Maybe it's because of the circumstances of how I left school in Manila or my intermittent attendance -- whatever it is, I have always thought of these classmates. 

This girl was the richest person in a school of rich people.  I can't even begin to describe her house -- a white mansion with a blue tile roof, a guardhouse, dogs patrolling the property. She had a Hello Kitty bedroom. 

If I ever go back to Manila, I wonder how I'd feel. There is a deep attachment even now.  I think it's a bit unusual because I was fairly young when I left and I am, for the most part, completely assimilated.  But my Tagalog is almost perfect, I know big words.  People are surprised at what I remember when kids who left later than I did claim to remember nothing.  

My good memory is a kind of currency.  I didn't set out to do this, but I have learned that people like you simply because you remember small details about them.  And why not?  I can see the allure--it's the same thing as my getting happy that Guada remembers me--it is existential reassurance.  

This weekend, my friend CHS was here.  I admitted to my clinginess and she was surprised. She said she thought I was a person who could take it or leave it (I'm paraphrasing). I won't deny that it's easy for me walk away, but it comes at a high price. When I fall in (romantic/family/friend) love, it's pretty much a guarantee that it will last a long time.  

I can't manage any more than this tonight. 

Next time, don't come.

A year after we moved to America, my mother, faced with the burden of supporting me and my sister and herself for the first time in her life, had a kind of nervous breakdown.  One day, she dropped us off at school and disappeared. 

Over time, I've begun to wonder if abandoning us was a strategic move or surrender. Make of it what you will.  I don't suppose I'll ever know and I have tried with all that is in me to make that time a minor episode rather than a pivotal event in my life (I've been to therapy, I know there's damage). 

No one wanted me or my sister.  We got shuttled from one relative to another.  Years after my mom came back and life got better, I refused to see the relatives because seeing them made me hate my mother and reminded me of being unwanted. 

For three months or so, my sister and I stayed with my cousin CB in the Bay Area.  She couldn't keep us for reasons I didn't understand when I was 13.  Who could blame a person for not wanting to take on two adolescents? She never knew what to say to us, me especially. She watched us do our homework, she picked up my textbooks and my dictionary and studied my vocabulary words. Cousin CB began to study the dictionary the way I did. This probably sounds silly to Americans but to immigrants, learning new words is a big deal. 

One day she said, "Do you know what vex means?" Yep. 

"Do you know what ejaculate means?" She meant the other definition -- to exclaim, to yell. 

And so CB and I developed a way of talking to each other by using malapropisms and hyperbole. She used every opportunity to use the words vex and ejaculate. And even though it stopped being funny, I laughed every time.

Then one day in June after the school year was over, CB apologetically announced that my sister and I were moving to L.A. to live with other relatives.  My sister and I were driven down in the (covered) flatbed of a pickup truck to Carson, CA where another cousin's ex wife lived.  She wanted to take us in.

I avoided CB for years.  I eventually moved to the Bay Area as an adult and she called me repeatedly to ask me to visit.  At first I said no and then eventually stopped taking her calls altogether.  It was not until I moved to New York that I became comfortable around her again.  Each time we talked, she talked about those words and I faked a laugh.  No fail.  

This year, my cousin Danny's family moved to L.A.  His wife F is much older than him, religious and conservative and uncomfortable with my family's kind of excess.  His children are awkward and shy.

One day over the holidays, my brother asked me, "What does finagle mean?" So I told him. He tried to use it in a sentence, incorrectly.  So I corrected him.  He tried again. Bingo.  Then I told him about Finagle a Bagel in Boston.  My mother started laughing and making up stupid things just so she could use the word finagle.  My other brothers joined in and so did my dad.  After we wore the word out, I told them about CB, how she used to say vex and ejaculate all the time. 

This made everyone hysterical.  Cousin's wife F sat there staring in disgust while we laughed when one of my brothers said "F., you look so mad. We're just joking around. Please don't ejaculate."

Our mother, out of politeness, said, "Don't talk to your cousin like that.  She's not used to us." And then she started laughing again.

A few days later, we all drove to the Bay Area to CB's house.  CB looked at me (we had not seen each other in at least four years) and said, "You never visit even though I know you come to San Francisco every year. I am vexed." 

My mother and my brother said in unison "Don't ejaculate!"

F walked right out of the room and CB said "what's wrong with her?" 

That was the end of that.

This entry is about to get overlong and repetitive.  It's been a trying day.  A emailed wanting to get together.  I said no but I felt like shit about it.  M called and I didn't answer.  Instead I went home and tried to cry.  I was unsuccessful.  

I wonder now if my sadness is more intense than it was six months ago. I keep saying it hurts less but I realize I'm working too hard to not feel bad. The hurt is not so visceral anymore. Now I feel humiliated and reproachful and rational. Bitterness coexists rather peacefully with the longing.

It's probably fair to say that everything I wrote above has always been in me but it's only now that I can face it.  

Caught Blogging

A fit of paranoia. My cousin saw me writing and asked me if I kept a blog. What could I say? He asked for the address and I refused to give it to him but who knows if he might have gone through my computer later.  He is 17-years-old.  Hardly an innocent at this point, but I don't want to share this.

So I have deleted my photo.

It always surprises me how little I disclose to people, especially when I think of what they share with me. The other night, a friend told me she'd been trying for weeks, without success, to have an orgasm. I know someone who has a massage parlor/happy ending habit. My 17 year old cousin got a blow job in the fitting room of a JC Penney in Glendale. My ex's new girlfriend was a virgin (at 30!) when they met (this knowledge I would pay a pretty penny not to have because this makes me think my ex has no standards). I know someone who has to do everything in multiples of four (the optimum number being 16). I am fascinated by the things people do and how they live and I want to know everything. 

I just realized almost everything I listed has to do with sex.

Saw CC yesterday.  She is in the west coast with her family.  When she returns, someone is throwing her a party. I have no idea how one is supposed to celebrate under the circumstances.  She is getting a double mastectomy in a few weeks.  When we were saying goodbye, we both began to cry. I wished I could be the kind of person who could come up with some positive aphorism but that is where I come up short. All I could do was cry and I felt like I had failed CC in some way.

On my way home from work today, a beautiful girl got on the train at 103rd Street. She belted out an old Donna Summer song called Radio. She sang so well I considered staying on the train just to keep listening even after we arrived at my destination. I gave her five bucks. I don't money to anyone on the subway so that was a first. 

Today is an anniversary. Or close to the day anyway.

NO TEARS.

I even forgot about it. I was tired at work, didn't sleep well so I couldn't concentrate.  But other than than, not much else to report.

No tears!

Nowhere

I hope this doesn't turn into a sleepless night.

I am thinking of the word vacillate -- it reminds me of limbo, emptiness, and of course, indecision.  Vacate, vacuum, vacation.

Vac is the Latin for empty.

This is probably not the kind of conversation that will get things started at a party, but what the hell. It's a word that defines itself when you look at it on a page -- before I even heard it used, I saw that word once and knew what it meant.  Static but moving.  Vacillate is pendulous and weightless.

I've out-nerded myself.

Another thing I think of often and for no good reason:

WHOLE
HOLE

Get it?

Why a pair of pants but not a pair shirt?  A pair bra? What makes pants (two legs) a pair but not a shirt (two arms)?

And I don't know the right time to use despite and in spite.  Are they interchangeable? One would think I would just look this up rather than spending too much time thinking about it. But one day it'll come to me.

January

I had one day alone in L.A. because I worked for a few hours at my friend's shop in downtown. If not for the sandwich adventure, there would have been no solitude at all.

After my tour of duty was over, I wandered around in search of this building.  I passed Bunker Hill and the Los Angeles Public Library, walked up the hill of Grand Street and wandered into the MoCA store where I bought a calendar for 2010. Further up was the Disney Music Center.  For years, I've wanted to go there but this was my first time.

 I had dubbed the building Frank's Folly before I ever saw it up close. I think Frank Gehry is silly, the guy people go to if they want something monumental but ultimately end up with something prefabricated. Didn't he already do this in Bilbao? And how are the acoustics? In a way he really is a Los Angeles architect.

That said, this cynical diarist fell a little bit in love. And it was then, standing in front of this building, that I realized that I am a little foolish and a lot romantic.  The kind of person who admits to falling in love with a building, who goes out and buys a calendar with a not-that-great picture of a skinny man whose resolution is to stand up straight, who talks to strangers with hope of hearing about an interesting non-creepy life.

Here is my January man:

and skinny cartoon man's New Year's resolution although I doubt it will be readable in this tiny space:

I was in a sentimental mood, I guess.  I bought a Beethoven CD and some woman named Kristina Train.  If I weren't heartbroken, I would probably find her annoying but now her songs resonate with me, a new way to say what I've been thinking all these months.

M called me on Christmas to say hello and on New Years Day, a few hours after I returned to New York, he came to my 'hood and we ate ice cream in the cold and walked around. Romantic one might say. He showed me the apartment he is buying -- ten blocks south of me.  And the end of the story is this -- still nothing happened.  I guess I would be more surprised if something did happen between us at this point.  We are a done deal, destined to be almost something.

One might ask why *I* don't do something about it. I'm chickenshit hiding behind the excuse of being an old-fashioned kind of girl.  It's pretty simple. And anyway, is he interested at all in me? I was thinking maybe he is a little bit interested -- who the hell calls someone to say Merry Christmas anymore? But then, there is the NOTHING.  So maybe he isn't interested.

Thirty six year old women writes like high school girl.  Jeesh.

So in my nine days in California, I saw my oldest friends, the ones I've dreaded seeing all year.  I saw my relatives.  It was a fucking reunion tour.  And I liked it.  And I loved all those people. And I was so happy to come back to my little apartment.

I didn't freak out at all.  When I saw my friends Daniel and Maya, I was afraid I'd break down. But nothing.  Is that progress or compartmentalizing?  All my friends and their lovely children. And then there was me. I think about it now and I get sad but while I was with my friends, it was fine. I have not lost my ability to be happy for people.

A called while I was in L.A. I didn't answer and I didn't call him back.  Is that progress or is that putting off the inevitable phone call I will make in a few days?  To my credit, I could have called by now and I have not.

I missed him while I was gone.  What a stupid thing to say.  It's not as if I have been not missing him before. What struck me was how I could miss him so much but have no desire to make contact and how whenever he asks me anything, I get angry and share nothing of value. Back to the drawing board, I guess. But I'm a little further along.