Eldridge Street, New York City

Have I come to the moment where I can retire this diary? It seems that way sometimes. It's not that I've been so busy.  In fact, I spend quite a bit of my time alone these days. Long stretches of no one.  Sometimes it is so maddening that I am tempted to hurl one of my books against the wall, just to hear myself make a sound. Other days, I cannot bear any noise. The drone of NPR offends me, Beethoven a kind of ringing in my ears. And then I go out and see my friends and have a lovely old time.  But all the while all I want is to be home.

The days and the hours pass.  I am watching the clock.  One year.  I am fine, so far.  I don't know what will happen to me in March. Maybe nothing at all. Maybe everything.

My mother needs me to call her now, to give her some kind of comfort after a big old fight with my sister. But I don't call and I don't write.

I am reading a book about a large family and I see myself in each of the children.

Yesterday, I went to a synagogue in the Lower East Side/Chinatown for a little exhibit called The Last Word where people write on slips of paper things that they wish they'd said.  I got there before Wendy and on a piece of a paper I wrote: "I hope you weren't my last chance." I hesitated a few seconds and then I signed my name -- Zoraya.

I don't know if I meant the lost man or the aborted baby.

When Wendy showed up and started pulling out bits of paper and reading, I wondered if from the hundreds of sheets of paper rolled like cigarettes, would she find me?

Bad Boyfriends and Sam's Mom

Last summer, I lost my mind over someone's sonogram photo of a baby.  I spent last Sunday with the mother of that baby.  The baby's name is Sam and he is a few months old now. His mother is lovely.  Every time I said his name, How is Sam? What's Sam doing? I felt something in me stir -- a pang of love, regret, envy, God knows. 

Ericka is Sam's mother.  She drove to New York from Vermont so that we could help our friend CC move from her boyfriend's condo into a studio apartment a few blocks away.  Three days after a double mastectomy, the boyfriend kicked her out.  I could use my powers of description and turn this into a drama. But that seems gratuitous.

CC now posts the strangest things on Facebook about having hope in the dark and other crap that I've never found comfort in.  I hope all these cliches do something for her because it's pretty obvious that this cancer and boyfriend ordeal may be the worst sorrow of her life.  

Sorrow can only be endured alone, this is what I kept thinking as I packed away CC's things.  I folded her underwear because she can't move her arms--if that were my underwear, I would have run away from embarrassment. Ericka moved furniture that seemed too heavy for her.  Another woman put away kitchen things in a matter of hours.  Four children lifted too many boxes. All of us trying to make a home for someone incapable of doing anything for herself, all of us with good intentions.  But at the end of the weekend when all the boxes were gone and we all went home, CC is still sick and humiliated and helpless. 

"I cannot bear to think of the cruelty at the core of this foul world."

I just read that tonight.  The end of a novel I've been struggling with for weeks.  And it is true, isn't it? I don't want to believe it.  Even as I sit here typing this, I do not quite believe it.  I'm not the negative old bag I make myself out to be -- I am, at heart, hopeful and strong.  

But I worry about CC.  It's frightening to realize that none of us can do anything for her, and this seems like too much all at once.

I am a porcupine.

On Saturday I ran into A in the subway. I was struck by how ordinary our encounter seemed. I was walking down the length of the train and there he was.  I saw him first. I nudged his foot with mine and sat next to him.  After we said goodbye, he called. And then he called again, he emailed, he called, he emailed. It started to piss me off. Last night, I answered. I couldn’t stand his questions about what I’d been doing, I didn’t want to tell him anything. I started off slow and cold. Then something broke and I wanted to tell him everything.

Two objects cannot occupy the same space – this is what I have realized. If A is around, there is no hope for anything with anyone because there is no one I like talking to more, no one who annoys me so much, no one I love, no one who loves me more than he.  No one else I almost had a baby with. That’s a lot to say – even I can see that. None of it is enough to change anything. And there’s no one who replaced me faster than he did. That last sentence is a hypocritical statement. I tried the same thing – I tried to replace him.  The only difference is that he succeeded in finding someone else and I did not.

All these words and those men I fucked are just different ways of missing A. If only we had been brave enough.

I think this time we are going to do it – this is the parting that will stick. I could keep telling myself I’m getting over it and that might even be true. Some days, it is.  As long as he’s around, I’ll keep hoping (though I will probably never admit it to anyone) that he will wake up one day and realize that he loves me enough to take a leap of faith. Intellectually, it’s pretty obvious to me that that’s not going to happen.

As we talked, four and a half hours according to my phone, I realized that we are still very much attached.  It felt good – banter and tenderness. Then I felt demoralized and rather desperate.  That’s when I told him he had to leave me alone. “Help me get over this,” I said.

This is hard for me to write.  It’s an admission of failure in many ways. But it’s my fetus anniversary again.  11 months.  March might find me in worse shape. It took an hour to start typing – I will be embarrassed about this as soon as I post it.

How is it that I can write all this about A and then think about M and hope - naively, sincerely, foolishly - that something will happen between us? Why am I not smarter than this?

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. 

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!

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.

What I Don't Want to Share

So if you know who I am and you happen to read this, mum’s the word.

I am alone on my birthday.  Up until 5 p.m., I had plans. But then I lied and said I had to work late. My phone is turned off and my friend Jonathan has called me three times wanting to talk. He has no idea it's my birthday and no idea that I don't answer the phone even on regular days.

This is the first time I’ve ever been alone on my birthday, and I hope never to repeat it again because I don’t ever want to be in the same place as I’m in right now.

This is what mourning feels like.

To badly quote something I read in the New York Times, there is no emoticon that could convey what life has been like this year. It has been one loss after another. But I always come back to this.

During my somewhat miserable childhood, after one or two of those incidents that involved my crazy family, I remember striking deals with God (that seems like the wrong thing to say – I don’t think I ever believed in God) – “okay, I’ll do it, but no more after this” or telling myself that whatever the bad thing was had to be the absolute last bad thing that could happen because life wouldn’t be fair otherwise.

What I have learned is that life, with all the moments of happy and wretchedness, is quite indifferent to us humans.

My shrink asked me why I wanted to do be alone and I didn’t have an answer at the time.  Now I do – it is because I want to look at myself. No liquor, no friends, no exes, no family.

I’ll never know why I didn’t keep my baby. All the rational thoughts that led to that decision could be written down, but right next to that column, would be just as many reasons for keeping it.

I wanted that baby.  It’s hard for me to admit that even now because it makes me wonder how I could have done it. I do know that I want any child of mine to have better childhood than I did, and at the time, I didn’t think I could provide. I wanted to be fair.

I don’t know if I will ever have enough guts to decide on whether I was a brave girl or a scared girl or if there will ever be a time when making a judgement on myself won't be so important.

On very bad days, I find myself saying “sorry, baby” again and again as if I’m talking to a person.  It is all I have to say and it’s not enough and it’s too much at the same time.

What kind of girl am I now?

Love After Love

Derek Walcott wrote that poem and I first read it years ago in a piece of shit book.  Someone else’s words were the best part of a 400-odd page novel. I ripped that poem out of the book and have had that page somewhere in my apartment for the last four years, something I read once in a while, sometimes out loud.

A called to wish me a Happy Birthday. Three days early.  I think he did it on purpose to show me he’s forgotten or maybe he did forget.  But never mind that.

Happy Abortion Anniversary, Lucy/Reticent Diarist/whatever I am today. And oh my body remembers.  I am sick again.  I almost didn’t cry today.  Maybe one of these months I won’t.

It is cold tonight, the wintery sort of cold that gets in under your skin.  Unmistakably the beginning of another season. I keep track of time in a different way now, as if I feel every change on my skin rather than by what the calendar reads.  I don’t know what all of this means, if anything at all. But I remember what it was like to take a walk in the summertime and in the fall and now when it hurts to breath because it’s so cold. With each season, I am more myself. I am less hurt.

It probably doesn’t sound true because tomorrow I will wake up with puffy eyes and a hoarse voice.  But these episodes pass. And it is less about a lost relationship and more about a baby.

With my shrink last week, I discussed how joy and grief can coexist. I think now that the good times were almost a kind of punishment, it underscored the grief.  The joys of the last few months were so fleeting; and at home at night, it is not what returned to me.

This is what comes to me at night now – sometimes nothing at all, sometimes words from the book I happen to be reading or the memory of someone else’s body. Always there is fear of remembering and forgetting. Both things can’t happen, can it?

I think of jewelry.  I pass by the windows on Madison Avenue and imagine myself plunking down one of my credit cards for something shiny. Not because I need another bauble but because I want a kind of memento for this year, to keep close to me.  That probably sounds morbid and a little bit shallow.  But I would like a little memory to remind myself of something I had but couldn’t keep. Hello, Lou Reed.

Ordinary Days

To set the scene: I am in my apartment in New York City and it is almost 9 pm.  Music I do not recognize is playing on the radio – a violin. Schubert maybe? My apartment smells like cigarette smoke, my dining table is clear of paper and pens and could actually function as a dining table rather than a desk.

I’m brooding.

This afternoon, I went to Brooklyn to meet a friend to see Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage. I wish I’d seen it alone—there was hardly anyone in the theater and it was the kind of movie where other’s people’s opinions are best unheard.  Devastating is not too harsh of a word.  And I mean that in every sense of good and bad.

Supposedly the original miniseries that was shown in Sweden includes an abortion.  If that had been included in the cut I saw today, I don’t know if I would have been able to stand it.

“I love you in my own imperfect and selfish way…and I know you love me in your own pestering way.” –Johan to Marianne

Tomorrow I am going to see Figaro – I’ve realized that I do like company at the opera. And so I’m going with a friend. A comedy will be good after today’s entertainment.

A few minutes ago, I came across this blog: http://limagequotidienne.blogspot.com/

One portrait of one person every day for one year. Pretty awesome.

I need to some lightheartedness in my life.  But the thing is, I don’t enjoy light as much as I enjoy the kind of shit that keeps me awake at night. Call it masochism. I’ve always been drawn to a kind of sadness.  Not the poverty-stricken, hopeless, drug-addicted, hungry kind of sadness (I think that is unbearable); it is the emotional struggle of people that sucks me in.  The trouble we get ourselves into knowingly, as if we do not have a choice.  And really, do we?

I remember a conversation I had with CC about A.  I was aware of the flaws of character, his as well my own, but I said to CC, “what am I not going to do it?”  And I think I said the same thing to her about some other event in her life. 

Do you turn down newness out of fear?  Does that make you a smarter person when a year or two later, you are unscathed? Or does that make you a coward who has shut herself/himself into your world, which needed a little shake up anyway?

Four years ago, I was well on my way to being a permanent supporting actor in my own life.  It seemed to me that everything was happening to everyone except me.  I was the listener and the supporter, the one to provide the snarky one-liners—the Rosie O’Donnell/Carrie Fisher to the Meg Ryans of the world.

I hope I am not on my way there again – it might seem like a strange thing to say because when I think of my life, I realize it’s someone’s idea of interesting. I have a friend who would even go so far as to say it’s a sophisticated life, vaguely intellectual, something to be desired. I could go out every night of the week if I wanted and I would have the appropriate clothes to wear for each occasion. I even have a stalker.  (Well, HAD.  I sent the email asking him to go away.  More on that later.) And I feel myself getting smarter and better.  Is that a crazy thing to say about oneself?

But I’m locked inside myself, I have chosen to be quite visible but no one is really allowed to see me. I don’t talk on the phone, I don’t talk to A. I’m on retreat even as I move forward.  My life feels a bit like a game of pretend – I enjoy it, but I realize its limitations, its artificiality and I know that it can’t go on forever.

Am I going to have to make a conscious decision to end this way that I’m living at the moment or will I find my way out without my even knowing?

I’m reading Lark and Termite. But tonight I don’t know if I’ll get anywhere with it.

This has been quite an ordinary day and while I’m not in crisis mode or anything quite so dramatic, I am restless.

Digging around the family tree

Feels like a mighty long time since I last wrote anything.  But two days is not long.

Again, I feel my interest in blogging wane. This means I am doing fine mental health-wise.

My body, on the other hand, not so great.  I am sick sick sick.  Well, actually I am not that sick.  But I am not a good patient.  I get cranky, self-pitying and gluttonous.

For the last seven years or so, my friend W and I have had a standing date on Sundays.  We take walks, we sit in the park, we eat dinner, we do whatever.  But we always see each other on Sunday. There was a period of two years where we met at five in the afternoon and ate at the same restaurant and each ordered the same dish. We joke that we are two old women trapped in our youngish bodies.

Yesterday we went to a crappy Chinese restaurant in the Upper West Side and laughed so hard I felt like my eyes were going to fall out of my head. If I were to retell what made us both lose it, it wouldn't be funny so I won't even try. I just wanted to say that I laughed so hard that it felt like my eyeballs were going to fall out.

My big week:  my funny friend Larry and his friend, the guy Larry described as the one with a radioactive pellet up his ass (prostate cancer). Another A man, only this one is young and gay who sometimes surprises me with his mature insight and then flattens me with his youthful arrogance. I think that's all that's happening.

A link about abortion: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2009/11/23/091123taco_talk_toobin

There is a lot of talk about abortion lately.  I sometimes want to join in, just among my acquaintances. But I stop myself. I steer the conversations toward other things. Not that my view has changed on the matter but now I understand the ramifications.  I see it as something more than a political issue and lately I have become a firm believer that emotions should be left out of these debates. Tears somehow lighten the gravity of a situation.  Is that the wrong thing to say?

Turn on Oprah, Barbara Walters (is she even on the air anymore?), watch chicks cry. No one takes that seriously.  I don't take it all that seriously because it seems exploitive and calculated. Even though when I'm doing the crying, I take myself pretty fucking seriously.

A and I paid for my abortion. I don't know why I felt the need to say that. But we did.  We split it down the middle. Maybe the one time in our relationship we went dutch.

Ironic, no?

I believe that is the right way to use the word.  But if anyone is reading this and recognizes that I made an error, speak up and correct me.

My sister and I talked over the weekend.  She told me more family stories, some new and some just confirmed:

• our mother's father is the husband of Aunt Lydia (this means granny had an affair with her son-in-law)
• the big old house my mother grew up in was lost to a gambling debt -- an uncle used the house as collateral
• someone molested my mom, that is why she seems to think it's okay when it happens to anyone else
• Aunt Lydia's companion Ellie told my sister that their relationship was platonic -- this makes me doubt everything Ellie has said, but maybe she doesn't want anyone to think Lydia was a lesbo
• gay people should have spousal rights everywhere -- poor Ellie deserves some acknowledgement as a widow
• Granny arranged the marriage between son-in-law and Aunt Lydia while already having an affair with him (my mother had already been born)
• there is one living relative named Milagros who knows most of these stories and I will never meet her

I used to think my family was so dysfunctional that those of us of child-bearing age should all be sterilized. But who am I to judge?  Seriously though, what is wrong with us? Was my grandmother evil? How did she meet the Muslim (my father's father, who she eventually "married")? 

How can so much fucked up-ness exist in one family, generation after generation?  I still want to have a baby someday. Someday. But I don't want to do it alone, I don't want to do it with someone who doesn't really want to be there.

This family history is one of the reasons I couldn't have the baby with A -- he didn't want it. The way I saw it, my forcing a baby on him would increase the chances that we would be raising a child in strife, be it emotional or financial.  A's reluctance to be a father also increased the chances that our relationship would not last when the baby arrived. And while there are no guarantees in life, I want/wanted to bring a life into the world with as much in the right place as possible, where everything is not so fraught with compromise and angst.

Well, that's all I have energy for now. 

I will say, even though my love life is not exactly filled with promise of romance at the moment, I am pretty certain that if I were to have a child, I would be a good mother. 

Cleave

All these months and only now do I realize that whenever I go crazy, I am never thinking about the abortion.  There are no images or fantasies—all that comes later when I recall my bout with that kind of madness. In the moment, there is only the feeling of absence and it never changes – always overwhelming, interminable and the thought of being alone with it is unbearable.

Right now it feels as if I am imagining this for a story, not that I am writing about myself.

The last time A and I talked, he told me that it hurts him less.  I felt like I’d been slapped. But why shouldn’t he feel better?  Why shouldn’t I?

In What I Loved, the couple whose child dies end up separating. She moves to Berkeley, he remains in New York.  They never divorce, never have too much rancor toward the other, never came back together and never really parted.

This makes me think of the word CLEAVE. It means to come together and to come apart.  It is the opposite of itself.

But that’s just a word and the couple in the novel are not real. It’s too soon to know what kind of relationship, if any, A and I will have in the future.

I have nothing to do for Thanksgiving. I worry being alone that day will make me sink. And I worry that not being alone will have the same effect, only with other people watching. For someone who claims not to care, I have too many hang-ups about this holiday.

AL had a funny post on Facebook last night that made me miss him. Why I am “friends” with someone I will never see again is a little silly, isn’t it? Without reproach, I will say that AL doesn’t care enough to delete me.  And I keep him on because he reminds me of something I want. Which isn’t him per se.

It is the idea of someone new, someone good who would love me. That AL and I spent so little time together and did not love each other is not the point. AL isn’t even relevant is he? He could have been anyone.  I could have been anyone.  Maybe we were feeling the same thing.

I once knew a man named Cleave. We both live in New York but met in West Virginia at The Greenbrier.  He is a musician we hired to entertain our rich guests. He liked me as soon as he saw me. I was momentarily infatuated – something about a musician.  But after talking for a few minutes, I realized he was an idiot. He kept on mentioning God and being blessed. When he found out I like to drink scotch, he informed me that the best scotch came from Scotland.

 When we got back to New York, he called me and I made myself disappear.  We never went out but saw each other at work functions in other states. He’d always start our conversation by asking me if I’d gotten married.  

I’ve run into him twice in New York. Neither of us acknowledges the other.

Sometimes life seems like one long game of chance.

Ahead

Where's He Gone?

Have I finally gotten rid of Professor Dick? He hasn't responded to my email from a few days ago when I told him I wouldn't be spending Thanksgiving with him and his family. I feel bad for all my little lies in avoiding him, but I don't know what else to do.

I wish there was someone I could ask (and who would tell me honestly) if I have turned in turned into such a wreck that the most random people want to take me under their wing and fix me.  The flipside of this of course is that if no one paid any attention to me, I'd be just as disturbed.

Silent Choices

My friend Faith invited me to a screening of her documentary about abortion and black women.  The screening is next week, right around the 8th month anniversary of MY abortion.  Faith doesn't know about that at all. Is saying that these two events happening around the same time is ironic the right way to use the word ironic?  Or does it just suck?  Sometimes I confuse suckage and irony even though they are not synonymous all the time.

Aida and Carmen and Figaro

I've gone a little opera crazy.  On Monday, I'm going to Aida with M and at the end of November it will be Figaro. In February, Carmen.  I'm excited about Monday and seeing M and putting on a new dress. We haven't seen each other since we had that weird conversation.  So it'll be a little awkward probably.  But it's an awkwardness I kind of like.  The awkwardness of possibility rather than the kind that comes from knowing there is nothing left.

What I Loved

I am reading What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt. The book came out a few years ago but I have resisted all this time for reasons I can't recall.  I had a feeling a child would end up dying in the novel.  And I was right. But there is also art and love and friendship. It's about people who occupy a rarified kind of world, the kind of novel that I like but irritates me at the same time. I like these sorts of books even though I never feel as if I ever get inside the characters--they are the kind of people never seem to have to do dishes, where being poor is a mere stepping stone toward intellectual and fiscal prosperity.  I want to say this is the kind of book that only the well to do or the educated would appreciate, but I obviously contradict that statement.  Very gauche thing to say, isn't it?

Therapizing Myself

Sometimes I am ashamed of the thoughts in my head.  My progressive, insanely liberal friends would disown me  if they knew that I believe there are things -- stereotype-y, classist, racist, anachronistic things -- that hold a certain truth.

My New Job

I actually like it. This makes me a true nerd, I think.  I sit there for hours writing about the dullest matters. I like how the document grows, how I start off with bullshit and then come to understand what needs to be said.

CC

CC's tumor has shrunk to the point of being "undetectable."  I wonder if this means that she doesn't need the mastectomy anymore. I hope so.


A.

We are on another round of "let's not talk too much."  The frequency of our conversations and the intensity of our arguments was starting to really make me hate us.  Inappropriate intimacy can make a person crazy.  At least this one.

So we'll see what happens now. I showed Lyna an email A sent me and she said, "It's getting tiresome for you, isn't it?"

It is. But that's just this week.  Who knows what happens in November? Sometimes I feel this burst of happy when I am by myself, on my way to somewhere.  It never lasts long but it last long enough for me to believe that I will not always feel broken by this whole fucking year.

So maybe I will end up getting a life.  Soon-ish and for real.  I want that more than I can say.

Next week is going to be a little rough for me.  I expect I'll be back here often.

--Lucy

Summertime and the Living is Easy

I'm thinking of that old song -- from Porgy and Bess maybe?

Family

In every family with more than one child, does it automatically happen that each child is assigned a role that they are to play throughout their lives?  I want to say that this is particularly the case for Asian families but I know that would be wrong.  Families are not all that different across ethnic lines, it just so happens I have the most intimate knowledge about Asians.

So what’s my point?  That we eldest children are expected to be provide a kind of reassurance that other siblings are not.  Even Lyna, who is kind of a wreck, is expected to hold her sister’s hand through childbirth.  No one seems to know or want to acknowledge that Lyna is drowning.  Never mind that – the other daughter is having a baby!

CC

My friend CC and I have not been in touch much lately.  This is what happens when you (well, CC) tell someone too much about your life.  She has revealed too much to me about her boyfriend. I decided he’s an asshole.  Now she feels bad/resentful that she told me all this because she knows that no matter what nice thing she tells me he did for her, I will keep remembering that he said to her “You do you and I do me,” meaning that he didn’t want to hear about her cancer problems.

This isn’t the first time this has happened with me and CC.  It’s funny that we keep getting back together.  I have had a lot of friends in my life and kept a good majority of them.  I find her to be the most trying.

I am a bit more careful with sharing than she is.  I tell 2/3 thirds of most stories.  I leave out the ugliest parts (or what I deem to be the ugliest).  I’m too concerned with what happens when the emotions calm. Damage control should be kept to a minimum.

Professor Dick

I am more and more uncomfortable with his “caring.” Today I wrote an email telling him that I’m going to San Francisco for Thanksgiving.  The truth is that I have nothing to do for that dreaded holiday. I am going to risk insanity rather than be around him and his wife.

Professor Dick’s kindness to me reminds me too much of the way A hovers over me. Not that these gestures go unappreciated or unreciprocated by me, but I do wonder what the point of it is.

Politically Incorrect Self Labeling

Before I left for California, A and I were talking and he said something weird.  I called him on it and he called himself an “emotional wetback” when it came to me. I have no idea what that even means, if anything at all. But I found it quite funny and felt bad that I couldn’t tell anyone I know that anyone I know said that to me.  My friends are all screaming crazy liberals.  Sometimes, they are oppressive in their embrace of political correctness and sympathy. 

Summertime

At Columbus Circle about a week ago, on Broadway and West 61^st Street, I had the clearest memory of an evening in August with A. I was wearing a blue dress and the wind started to pick up and the rain came pouring down.  A and I ran north in search of some kind of shelter.  It was a lovely time to be had by two broken up people.

Another night – M and I on his motorcycle roaring up Riverside Drive, across Manhattan to the FDR and onto the Brooklyn Bridge and then back across to the Westside Highway.

And another day – Heather and I napping on a blanket at Riverside Park at twilight.  A boy asked to take my picture.  Later the fireflies lit up the evening and we sat there to watch their show even though the bugs were attacking us.

And then that first night with AL on LaFayette Street – a first kiss at the entrance of the F Subway line and that was all. 

In between all these days and nights I mentioned, there were desperate days and nights. What is my point?  That I had a lovely awful summer.

I don’t know how it’s possible for me to say that, let alone mean it.  I’m having trouble accepting that despair coexisted with a kind of happiness.

Snooping

This I have told only my shrink and CC.  I told most of the story.  I have access to A’s personal and corporate email accounts. For a few weeks, I checked both sites, hands shaking (from shame, maybe?).  I don’t know if he’s changed any of the passwords.  I don’t go snooping anymore. Not that I’m not tempted.  But I am less interested for whatever reason. It’s too pathetic.

Baby

For the four or five days I was in L.A., I didn’t think that much about the abortion/fetus/baby.  My mother didn’t say a word about it. But last night after everyone had gone to bed, I found myself thinking about it.  Nothing specific, nothing I can name.  But it was there.  I suppose some part of me was fantasizing how it would be if I had a baby to share with my family.  I couldn’t give in to the fantasy.  Will there ever be a time when I can allow that?

Is there ever going to be a baby for me?  That's the real question, isn't it? Funny that's the first time I've ever actually said that out loud. I wish someone would say for sure.

Against Epiphanies

That title is from a Charles Baxter essay.  He was talking about the craft of the short story.   I am talking about myself and what is turning out to be the longest story of my life.

Today I went to work for the first time this year.  It went fine but all day I felt awful.  On the way home, I felt the prickle of tears.  In the fucking subway. A woman wearing too-expensive clothes and beautiful taupe shoes losing it in the New York subway.  I managed to keep it together -- this was a bad day but not so awful that I couldn't control myself. I prefer to lose it in public when I am unemployed and wearing ugly clothes and riding the bus.  Never in the subway. Not if I can help it.

At home, on my way to fetch a glass of water in the kitchen, it occurred to me that give or take a few days, it is seven months since the abortion.  Voila.  This is why I broke up with AL on Friday, why I drove him away. This is why I had a terrible day today.  This is why, like a drama queen, I threw myself on my bed and sobbed.  I haven't heard myself make those sounds in a few months. It hurt me to hear myself in such agony. Is that a strange thing to say? It was as if I'd separated from myself.

I called my friend Ann -- an SOS. She didn't know what hit her.

I am tired of this sorrow.  But I am not even past it enough to create new problems for myself, am I? I keep going back.

And I feel awful about AL. I wanted him to make everything better for me. How can I ask that of anyone?

My urge to tell people about the abortion has left me.  I haven't told anyone but AL. It's not that I've run out of people to tell, it's that I've become a bit ashamed of my neediness.  Every person who finds out tried to comfort me and that is all I want.  That is what is impossible to find and might be for a long time.

Day 2 at work tomorrow.  Let's see how well I can fake it.

You Again

My reluctance to sit down and write something for this blog is disturbing.  Is this a harbinger that my days as a mad diarist are over? I think not.  There was a possibility of that but I’ve made a few decisions over the last few days that need to be recorded so that I can revisit myself after some time has passed.

Much has happened in the last month – a new man for a time, a new job due to start tomorrow, my sick friend, my dead cousin, floods in my old country, crying over the wrong things but not realizing that until after I’d made myself sick with too much whiskey.

A New Ex

AL and I became something of a couple.  Together, we went out, we talked, we slept, we watched movies. I found myself doing things I would not normally do because he asked me (playing video games). That’s a kind of couplehood, isn’t it?

On Friday, after an incredibly expensive and fun dinner, we broke up.  My fault – I started to think I liked him too much. He started to think I liked him too much.  But the truth of the matter is that I pushed him out and I don’t like him as much as I wanted to or as much as I led him to believe. This is not to say that I don’t like him.  I miss him right now, in fact. But I am not capable of feeling anything real for anyone new.  I thought I was.  I wanted it more than anything because it makes me less sad.  But I can’t hide behind a man. Not for too long anyway.

It seemed to me that AL and I weren’t getting to know each other better. We were stuck on third dates, if that makes sense. We had a good time.  But in the middle of the week, we had hardly any contact.  Any emails exchanged were more perfunctory than anything else.  I thought I would be content with that.  But I have to admit that I want more.  And that I probably won’t find it now because I’m not ready.

AL told me that I was different from his other girlfriends, that I was outgoing. It seemed that he didn't like that about me.  "Not that you walk down the street making friends or anything," he said. I almost contradicted him, but realized that this is how he knows me -- I am a little desperate these days, more vulnerable than I have ever been in my life maybe. Before this year, I was a bit of a hermit.  But now?  There are weeks when I go out every night with a different person.  And I dislike myself a little for it too.  I kept thinking that I wished AL knew me before this year.  I was a different person a year ago.

Would things have turned out differently for AL and me if we’d met six months from now? I feel like I'd be more myself again.  But maybe I'm not so bad now. 

The end of things with AL has left me very sad. It's just me again.

CC

She is losing her hair.  Tomorrow, she will get it all shaved off.  The hair looks dirty and shiny.  When I saw her yesterday, she had no energy. I guess this is how it is after chemo.

Her boyfriend is an asshole.  One of these days, I will have to see him again.  I don’t know where I’m going to find the energy to fake being nice to him.

New Job

My ex A found me a new job.  I will be working a large hospital in the city doing project management.  Exciting. I start tomorrow.

A

I hope that A helping me find this job is going to absolve him of some of the guilt he feels over our relationship.  I could say that he continues to hover around because he still loves me.  That might be true.  But really it’s guilt.  He thinks I’m going to be damaged goods forever because of how things turned out between us.

Baby All the Time

Last week, when I thought that I was falling in love with that guy AL, I told him about the abortion. This is what AL did – he said nothing, he whispered my name and wrapped his arms around me and I cried.  But it wasn’t enough.  He did exactly what I wanted him to do but it was not enough.

And last night I cried about my baby again. At first I thought I was crying over AL.  But then very quickly it came to me that even when I’m thinking of other people and other things, I’m thinking of my little fetus.  It’s not so bad anymore, but it’s still there and even as I say I’m dealing with it, some part of me still wants to run away.

Dating

I’m quitting that game for now. How long with this hiatus last? 

Fire Island

Next weekend, I’m going there.  I was there at the end of spring when I was half crazy.  There is a picture my friend took of me where I am holding a glass of wine.  I can’t bear to look at it.  Five minutes before that picture was taken, I’d been crying. 

I was there in the middle of the summer – no more tears.  But it was hard. 

And now in the fall when the island will be deserted, I’ll be back again.  How will I feel this time?

I met A in Fire Island in the summer of ’07.  

Lucy Writes

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.          – E.M. Forster

Maybe I’ll start calling myself Lucy in honor of Miss Honeychurch, E.M. Forster’s heroine in A Room With a View.  This could be the Reticent Diarist’s pseudonym.  Reticent is not so catchy, is it?

I’m writing almost every day.  This is unusual for me but maybe not that surprising given the workless days. It occurred to me that I might write about things that happen that have nothing to do with heartache --is that even possible?  I toy with the idea of dividing each entry into sections: FUCKING SAD and NOT SO BAD and GREAT.

FUCKING SAD would have to be a major category because there is a lot of that in my life right now. But I don’t want to be a drip or seem like I sit around collecting sad stories.  I do believe that it is in the misery where our characters are formed. But in the midst of all that there is fun and hope and dirty jokes and weird/stupid stories that make a lot of things worthwhile.

Personally, I’m willing to put myself through an unusual degree of weirdness in the hopes of finding the good. I think this is a good character trait. It also shows that there is a part of me that is a gambler. And all gamblers are stupid. That is not a criticism, exactly.

But when I write to you, dear reader (well, when I write to myself), I find I turn away from what is almost happy.  Guilt perhaps?  There’s no perhaps – it is guilt, pure and simple. And fear. 

FUCKING SAD

•  My abortion
  
•  My dear friend has cancer
  
•  Ex/impregnator fell in love with my less cute doppelganger in a matter of weeks post break-up, causing me to question how much/how little he valued our relationship
•  My mother is nuts and regretful about her entire life
•  I am hung up on my ex even though I know it ain’t happening anymore
•  I had sex with a beautiful man who had the smallest penis I have ever met (and I’ve met a few)
  
•  Dating too much with little success
• Loneliness
• Having sex with my ex (the one now in love with the ugly version of me—I realize this is mean, but give me a break.)
  
• Not having money due to unemployment
  
•  DID I MENTION MY DEAD FETUS and my broken heart?  This occupies five bullet points each, just so I’m clear. FUCKING SUCKS.  I miss my A like a missing limb; I’ll miss my baby forever.

 NOT SO BAD

• I had sex with a beautiful man who had the smallest penis I have ever met (sic)
  
• Dating
  
•  Trying to be friends with my ex
  
• My attempts at dating have been met with little success -- but really, am I capable of having an honest relationship at this point?
• Unemployment
  
•  Having sex with my ex – it’s good for my ego
• Drinking
• Loneliness

GREAT

• Writing 
• A man in Boston who I might never meet who tries to help me with every dilemma I throw at him, including finding a person at Memorial Sloan Kettering who would be able to help my friend CC get better treatment
  
•  Interesting men that I’ve met who I'll never see again
•  The man with the small penis also came too fast. He could do it multiple times, each sex session lasting all of three minutes or so -- sorry for not being more accurate as I did not think to set a stopwatch before each encounter. After Round 2, I observed that he was quite sweaty and he replied, “It comes very fast.”  I died laughing, but I was the only one who got the joke.
• Meeting Michael, who I thought might turn out to be the greatest rebound boyfriend of all time. But it turned out all I wanted was to be his best friend and he wasn’t so pleased about that (this last bit makes this bullet point an eligible entry for FUCKING SAD but I have bigger fish to fry).
•  Making new friends in desperate attempt to distract myself from misery
•  Reconnecting with Jon in real life and remembering how much I love him – I have my doubts as to whether or not this would have happened if events in the FUCKING SAD category did not occur  
•  My ex and I stalking each other on OKCupid and sending each other stupid notes
•  Stealing the apartment/sex analogy from my friend DY and taking it to a whole new level of absurd with his sister LY. I will write about this later.
•  Making a kick ass apple pie for my sad sick friend – it is a stupid thing to do, but it was what she wanted and what I could give
•  Re-finding another Michael, my reluctant male friend.  He gives me rides on his motorcycle and drives us over the Brooklyn Bridge
•  Going to the beach with CC
• New York in the summer
• Loneliness
  

So does the categorization work?  Probably not.  Too pretentious.  A too-self conscious attempt to be funny.

But I'm keeping Lucy.

I'm going to gamble.

On My Mind -- Honesty

Nothing to write.  I'm starting to treat this blog the way I treated my journal. I am disappointed at how repetitive I am.  M told me this a few weeks ago, to watch out for redundance.  He was referring to other things I write but I see how this problem bleeds into other things in my life.

I've been talking to A about this blog. He asks me for the address and I tell him I don't want him to find it.  That is mostly true. I am afraid the loss of anonymity will make me self-conscious and I will end up lying.  I think I keep enough to myself as it is. I've said a few things out of sheer desperation that might be hurtful.  

But if you do find this, A, tell me. It's only fair.

I don't feel like talking about the abortion much these days. Last night, after the evening conversation with A, I thought about it. I lay in bed and concentrated, willing something to come to me.  Tears, rage, something. I want to feel it all when it is gone. And when I'm feeling it, I want it gone. I find relief in crying about it, solace in the pain. Is that grief or punishment?

In moving forward, I feel guilty. Like I'm leaving my little baby further behind with every step. Will I someday reread this and look back and think myself crazy for not wanting to leave this? You don't owe the past your future. Or maybe you owe it to the past to look for a better future.

Not sure what I mean by saying that.  But what good is it to that dead fetus if I waste my life mourning it?  It's not as if it's floating around somewhere watching my actions, cheering me on or chastising me. Dead is dead.  I still believe that. 

But I find myself working it into conversations with people I've told.  My dead fetus something or other.  When I was pregnant blah blah blah. That must come in part from my regret that I couldn't have met him/her.  Wishing it the life I could not give it.

When I think that I decided whether or not that baby should live, I am overwhelmed by the enormity of that decision and the responsibility I had. How did I decide?  Love and selfishness and idealism, I suppose. And principle.  I always said I would not have a baby under those circumstances. I guess I meant what I said.

Am I horrible person for feeling a little smug in knowing that I have stood by my words?

I don't tell A this.  I am only half honest.  How honest is he with me? Maybe more so, maybe less. I won't ever know. I imagine him out of my life because of this -- how is a genuine friendship possible between two people who have to set put up so many rules?  Forget about the sex because I imagine that will go away eventually. What of the old emotions?

Where do I stand in those five stages of grief that everyone talks about and why is it so important for me to know where I am? 

Summer is almost over. Being unemployed and half crazy is strange -- the hours are slow but the days go fast. 

Life is short. Am I wasting mine? 

Questions of Morality

My friend asked me today if I felt bad sleeping with my ex knowing that there was a current girlfriend. I am now seething at her even though I reacted rather mildly when she asked the question.  Not that what I did was right.  In fact, I am the first the say that what I did was wrong. But I don't feel that bad.  I know it was wrong, but I don't feel that bad.

But I guess I was hoping she would keep her mouth shut.  That she would trust that I recognize my actions and live with whatever consequences need to be dealt with.

With another boyfriend, years ago, we were talking about our personal limits.  Morality, you might say.  I remember saying to him that there were things I hoped I'd never have to do, but that I knew I would do what I needed to do for myself, to survive, to keep myself sane and safe; that I would step on who was in my way.  In the last few years, I've thought about this conversation over and over again. And wondered if I had changed. 

The truth is that I have not changed much.  I aborted a baby I loved because I didn't think the circumstances were right.  I slept with someone else's boyfriend (he used to be my boyfriend but that doesn't matter much anymore unless used for context). I am not looking hard for a job.  I fill my evenings and my days with meetings and activities I don't always want to participate in just to keep myself occupied.  

So what is my point?  That I've made decisions that I knew would be hard to live with, to some extent, that went against my morals.  But I did it all with my eyes open, eyes trained toward the murky future.  

Does this make me a bad person? I don't mean to hurt anyone.  Does that excuse bad behavior if you say you meant no harm?  I know a few people who would forgive themselves with this excuse in mind.  

I will do anything and everything that needs to be done to get myself through this.  It's that simple.   Sure I feel bad.  But I have bigger fish to fry.

I've had a lovely few days.  Yesterday the beach.  Really it was a lame beach -- more like a lake with still water and an almost muddy bottom. My friends and I got into a seaweed fight with some strangers.  

And today, I went to Columbus Circle and came upon a few kids playing in the fountains.  I couldn't resist -- I slipped off my sandals and stepped into the shallow pool.  Those children made me so happy I didn't know what to do with myself.  I almost wished my friend would call and cancel on me so I could sit there for the rest of the night.  I watched those children for a long time.  It occurred to me later that I wasn't looking at those children and thinking of my fetus.  I was looking at those children and thinking how nice it would be if I had one of my own, not about how I lost one.  

Is that progress?  

I didn't not feel loss.  It was that the loss was separate from the desire. I wasn't replacing or fantasizing about was is gone; I was looking toward a future with hope that someday I might have a kid of my own.

How much of the weird/crazy am I willing to put myself through in the hopes of finding something good?

Goodbye to All That?

My ex showed up on Friday night carrying a bunch of flowers.  When I saw him, it was as if no time at all had passed and I put my arms around him.  But his body felt different, leaner and harder and not quite right next to mine.

I wrote a letter to the dead fetus.  He wrote a letter to the dead fetus. Then we went to dinner and A playfully grabbed at the sleeve of my sweater, where my hand would be if I were wearing the sweater properly (I had slung it over my shoulders). 

We went to the church, two atheists starting at the imposing doors, church closed to us. We walked to the park, my first time there at night. We walked towards the water and I cried. Oh did I cry.  I don't know how long we stayed there.  I don't know what I was feeling when I wasn't crying.

I wrote a letter to the baby I chose not to have.  I will never see that letter again and maybe it's just as well. 

I don't know how A was feeling. 

We went back to my apartment and he told me about his new girl.  I told him about my little dates, my infatuation with Michael and how quickly it passed.  Then we went to bed and at first we only held each other. I couldn't stand the feel of clothes separating us so I peeled off my shirt and we had sex and we slept and woke up and had breakfast and said goodbye.

I don't know what happens now. I haven't cried at all since.