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.

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.

From the Looks of Things

One of these nights I will sleep well again. Until then, I will write to you.

If someone stumbles upon this blog looking for more abortion posts, they will be disappointed since the last few entries make little mention of that. I think I will be writing more about aborted fetuses though. I can feel it coming and I am hoping this time it won't be so bad.

It is a possibility that I will be spending Thanksgiving alone after all.  I should be working on wangling another invitation or taking up one of the ones that came my way. But if this first plan doesn't work out, I have decided to brave it.  So maybe Thursday will be weepy, feel-sorry-for-myself day. Or maybe not.

The Book and My Inferiority Complex About Writing

Mai and Ricardo -- these two don't always make themselves available to my blogging or novelistic wiles. I don't know how to structure the novel. How do you go about writing 30 years of a person's life? Beginnings are nice though. Easy enough.

My novel is a fucking great idea for a book. But how do I do it?  Who cares if it's a good idea if it doesn't get written?

I was thinking this morning that the Ricardo character is turning into my alter ego. Not the woman, the man. Will this be true a few months from now?

I also wonder what will happen to the my blogging when and if the more maudlin events that have preoccupied me all year fade a bit more. Will even care to read about the crap that goes on in my mind?

Work and My Beautiful Shoes

At work I am making friends with a huge man named Doug. He makes fun of my smallness because he is 6'5. I make fun of how he is always cold and wrapped in down. I can tell he is half surprised by everything I say. A few of the women seem to like me well enough but they all just want to talk about shoes. They notice what I am wearing and want to know where things came from -- I do not like to discuss where I shop.

Clothing and shoes are my secret vice. Very few people know how much money has been spent on my shoes or the scarves. I will drop $500 on a pair of boots without a second thought. This embarrasses me because it turns me into a stereotype of your basic New York single woman. Or the Imelda Marcos Filipino thing (everyone mentions this as if they thought it up themselves). I choose my clothes for their plainness so it always surprises me when people notice.

Kindness

People are generally nice to me. I've mentioned this before. But lately it is quite obvious and it is to the point where I am a little freaked out. People are nicer to me than they are to other people.  I bring something out in people.

What is it?

At work, there is an Asian lady who slips me packets of green tea and leaves me mints and chocolates on my desk. She wants to know about my family and where I've been.

There is Professor Dick who I am about to ask to leave me alone.  HOW do I do this? I feel so ungrateful but I want him to leave me alone.

I think about kindness and this IT thing often because people often suffocate me.  But probably the bigger issue is that I am afraid that whatever this thing is that makes people nice to me will desert me one day and I will be lost. It's much like the beauty of some people.  What happens when the lines come in, when breasts begin to sag, when the woman loses that sexy thing?

What do *I* have to fear losing? Will I someday act or say the inappropriate things that I say now, fully expecting to get away with it only to realize that I have lost that thing that made my borderline behavior acceptable?

Is it because I refuse most things people offer me?

My Parents

It just occurred to me that I could be describing both of my parents.  They haven't lost their charm yet.  My father is as charismatic as ever. When we lived in Kuwait, my mother used to hate walking with my dad because all the Filipinos knew him.  It was like being with a celebrity.

And my father, I think, has always been proud of being the one to have married my beautiful mother.

In case you doubt me, reader, here is photographic evidence:

That's it for tonight.  This blogger has a date to keep with Colm Toibin.

Good News Monday

The best news about CC  -- well not the best because the cancer is still there.  But according to Cornell, it's totally curable and in the beginning stages.

Phew.  I cannot even begin to say how relieved I am.  My CC is going to be fine.

Lucy's Perfect Days

It seems like too much to hope for good times in the midst of all this trouble with CC.  But it happened. 

CC

CC is mad at me.  I am the bearer of bad news, the burster of the bubble, the rain on the parade. She is letting people think she is at Stage 2 because her doctor hasn’t given her an official diagnosis.  I think she is at Stage 3.  Yesterday I told her this. That was a mistake on my part.  Mostly because it made her sad and angry. And also because I don’t really know what I’m talking about. 

I just don’t want her to downplay things and end up not getting the right treatment from the right facility with the best doctors.  It’s not my business and I have promised to keep my mouth shut now. This is about no one but CC. I want to be a good friend to her.  Pissing her off at this point is a bad idea.

Another A
I’ve been seeing a man whose first name starts with A—let’s call him AL. He won the green card lottery a few years ago and has lived in New York for the last six years.  He’s from Dublin.  The accent is cute, but not enough to make communication difficult.  I don’t know how long he will be making an appearance in this blog.  We haven’t seen each other that much.  But so far, it’s fun.  I like him. 

On Saturday night, we went to dinner in SoHo after my bookstore gig ended and after he finished work.  He kissed me in the middle of a bar called Puck Fair. Ah the romance!

Then he got a call from work – end of date, I thought. Apparently not.  He decided not to go back to the office.  Grand Theft Auto would wait till Sunday morning, he said.

Okay, I said, but you’re not getting laid tonight.  He laughed and said he wasn’t really expecting that.

Then we went to his apartment in Brooklyn.  He has more books than I do.  He has a little gizmo that scans all the titles and he has a pretty accurate count of what is in his collection.  Very endearingly nerdy, especially for a girl like me.

I like this guy’s style.  Straightforward.  He makes fun of me a little bit.

No one got laid.  I want to see AL again.

Faith and Central Park
Faith is my ex A’s friend.  When my ex introduced us, I was somewhat put off by her I-am-a-strong-black-woman thing. I liked her immediately, but I am wary of self-labeling as defense mechanism.  To me, it is a too-transparent attempt to justify what has gone wrong.  And it means that a person like this would be easily offended by my mostly good-natured but politically incorrect commentary about life.

Yesterday, Faith and I went to see the last performance of the season at The Delacorte. The play was Euripides’ Bacchae.

I queued up for tickets at 9 a.m., she showed up at noon.  Before she arrived, I lay down on my blanket and listened to Bob Dylan and bits of opera. I almost wished she wouldn’t show up. It was cool and sunny in the park.  I could have stayed there all day. I lay under a canopy of trees, the sunlight drifting down between the leaves and water from the previous night's rain occasionally splattering down.  There were a few hundred people in line with me. 

We got our tickets and wandered around the Upper West Side together, got our nails done, drank wine, ate pizza, talked about her movie, talked about men. We carefully avoided the subject of A.  She is uncomfortable being friends with the both of us.  Understandably.  So I told her that we were fine, friends even. Does anyone ever trust an ex-girlfriend when they say this?

Faith is 40.  She is going a little crazy over a man she went out with once three months ago.  They had a falling out after one date and he called her again last week.  I’m not sure what is going on with that.  But I have to say, it was nice to see her shed that I-am-a-strong-black-woman armor and allow herself to obsess about something as simple as a date that didn’t go the way you would have wanted it to.  And to hope that it still has a chance to turn into something. 

Will Faith and I remain friends or was yesterday a fluke?

The Bacchae was probably pretty good.  To be honest, I didn’t pay much attention till the end.  It was a beautiful night.  Between the moon and the sky and the view, and the top of the turrets of Belvedere Castle that was visible from where Faith and I were sitting – I couldn’t concentrate. And later, raccoons that were supposed to be part of the play escaped their cages and I kept looking under the seats for that flash of red eyes. I kept thinking "this is the end of this lovely awful summer."

How could it be that this year, thus far, has been so bittersweet for me?  I don't think I ever truly knew what that word meant until the last few months.

Toward the end of the play, after Pentheus had died and his mother cradled his severed head, I finally started paying attention. The actress let out a wail that pierced the air and I myself tearing up.  I wish I could remember all those lines. “I love you more in death” or something like that. 

Of course, I was thinking of my baby. But honestly, it wasn’t so bad.  It was a reminder, that’s all.

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?

Musical Evenings

And sometimes, it's hard to remember feeling despair when the day goes well. It's as if the stars align just so and I can forget how bad I felt the previous morning. There are small mercies to be found everywhere.

Last night I went to a free concert at Lincoln Center. The star of the show was Yo Yo Ma and his cello. There were many musicians playing instruments I'd never heard of before. Someone blew on a conch shell.

I have a friend who believes that art soothes. Sometimes I think she's full of shit and find myself searching for silence. Other times, like last night, I know exactly what she means.

K has stopped writing to me.