Books I've Never Read

Hi. 
I realize that I have not updated this in several months. Formal complaints have been lodged*. And you have my sincerest apologies, Seven People Who Honestly Care**, but I just haven't been struck by the bloggiest thoughts of late. Which is probably a good thing, considering the archival abundance of sad-blogging. 
I am super not-sad right now. 

But never fear! This one's totally got sad. Even if it's not totally true. Parts are completely true in that they happened. Parts are completely true in that I just re-read about them in an old dream journal***.  And parts are completely made up. 

Anyway, I might do more of this. Stories about books I've never read. We'll see.

*******

I've never ready any Jane Austen.

I told that to someone I thought I loved once, and they whispered 'me, neither', and I thought that meant something. 

There's a cultural assumption that women love Jane Austen, and that's probably why I never bothered. Besides, plucky heroines aggravate, pining is a bore, matchmaking is gruesome. I gave Bridget Jones a shot, but watching someone whimper their way between a snooze and a sleazeball tries the nerves. Of course no one likes the singles table.

At a reception I regretted attending as soon as I arrived, a woman spent twenty minutes complaining: “I am so hungry. I might literally faint. Do you think they have any bread? Honey?”

Because of course there was a Honey, a dead-eyed hunk starting into his beer, counting the seconds until he could have another without her asking if he shouldn’t slow it down some. She pawed at his elbow. “Honey? Can you ask if there’s bread?”

I signaled the waiter for another and told them about my morning: While emptying the bathroom wastebasket into a larger bag, a roach tumbled out. A giant roach, with what looked like a second roach emerging from its rear end. By the time I realized what it was: a giant egg sac, engorged with a billion little pre-roaches - it had maneuvered its way to the outside of the metal basket, which I tapped against the toilet until it fell into the bowl, and I flushed it away.

Hungry Woman was silent for a gorgeous moment before she asked why I would tell a story like that. I finished my wine. It was really good wine. The waiter appeared at my shoulder. Honey got up to get another beer.

I said: “I bet you’re not as hungry now.”

Do you want me to tell you that’s where I met the man I thought I loved? Of course it wasn’t. I didn’t make a single new friend that night. I don't live in a very Austen world.

One night, I told the man I thought I loved that I loved him. He'd said it first. I thought that meant something, too.

But then I started having these dreams.

In the dreams, we: myself, the man I thought I loved, and my dog, ran through absurd, Dali-esque airports, everything melting or turning into mountains. We were trying to find something: the gate, the plane, help. In the end, someone had to choose: the flight, my dog, each other - the situations varied. But every time, he left on his own.  

It is probably unreasonable to hold someone accountable for things they did in your subconscious. But he left us, every time. So maybe I got a little cold after that. Maybe I let things get a little strange.

He moved. Not far, but far enough.  

A friend told me, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

I said: “Bullshit. Absence only abstracts.”

I wondered if any of Ms. Austen’s characters understood that love can exist, yet mean absolutely nothing at the same time.

A few months after I was pretty sure it was over - mostly over, at least - I started having a different dream. We’d be in a classroom, or a prairie house: me, some other people, and my dog. We’d pass a lovely afternoon until funnel clouds appeared on the horizon. Everyone scattered. Some took off through the fields, some went in search of a basement. Other people stayed in the classroom, the prairie house. My dog and I always stayed. We hid under a table, he laid across my chest and I covered his head with my arms, his eyes with my hands. When it was over, we crawled out through the wreckage together, to see who else we could find.

There’s a lot of love in a life, in a person. I don’t think we’ll always know what to do with it all. You might have to let some of it pass. Like books you’ll never read. Pining’s such a waste of time.

*Seriously. Three people have lodged sincere, formal complaints.

** I really really do appreciate anyone who reads this, ever. Even if you only hate-read it just to be able to tell me to shut up in your head, that is still totally cool and I recognize it is a legitimate vital brain function and am honored by your selection.

***Of course I did.

Dr. Scarfinger or: How I Learned to Stop Fighting and Tolerate 2014

I have a habit of hurting myself in the same places.

I'm not even being metaphorical. I mean like, my foot. I've broken my right foot twice. And now I've fucked up my stupid right pinkie finger. Again.

The first time was at Gwendy Pagan's ninth birthday party. I always felt out of place at birthday parties when I was a kid. I was uneasy around children so fully inhabiting their own childishness. It was a skill I didn't acquire until my twenties.

Gwendy's family lived in graduate student housing on the UMass campus, buildings that have long since been torn down, buildings my memory continues to superimpose on the landscape. There are these holograms of our past, things we never get used to not seeing.

There was a row of single-story garages across from the apartments, built into the hill somewhat, enough to entice children to climb onto their corrugated-metal roofs, if those children were so inclined. I, of course, was not, but I was equally unwilling to be the only able-bodied fourth grader left on solid ground. I was the last to climb up, however, and the only one to slice her pinkie finger open on the edge of the roof. So I was also the first one off the roof, the first one back into the house, the only one in the bathroom with Gwendy while she poured hydrogen peroxide over my finger, her giggling as I despaired over the bubbles, both of us shushing the other while we wiped my blood off the tile before her mother noticed.

It left a tiny scar. It's been more than twenty years, I haven't seen Gwendy in at least fifteen, and you can barely see the scar unless you're looking for it. I look for it sometimes. It's nice to have a physical link to a memory. Of course, I have a new one now. Thanks to Wednesday night.

Hasn't 2014 been an absolute bear so far? I figured we were due some reprieve after the strangeness that was 2013, but no. I wasn't even that scared of February this year, I went into with my head high, and then...it was like a month of bombs going off around me. I got through fine, but Jesus, the casualties.

So Wednesday. It was late and I hadn't eaten, hadn't made Thursday's lunch. Sometimes it gets past 10pm and I abandon responsibility, but Wednesday, I said: 'No. Handle your business.' Business step one? Dishes. There weren't a lot, but I washed a bowl and a spoon, some forks and a mug, and then my favorite wine glass, a stemless number from a wine tour this summer.

You know, now that I think of it, I do remember knocking it over in the sink that morning, hearing it bang loudly into a mug. But it didn't look broken, and I was in a hurry, so I forgot. It was the last thing I needed to wash.

You never remember the immediacies. One minute I was humming some Beyonce, hands gloved with soap suds, the next minute the sink was full of blood. Why the hell do your fingers bleed so much?

I have lovely friends, to whom I probably undersold the nature of the injury by neglecting to mention that I could see my tendons and shit, and who advised me to splint and wrap it. Since my first aid supplies consist of a dusty package of wisdom-tooth-removal gauze and a miniature tube of off-brand Neosporin with the cap missing, I was pretty impressed with the Q-tip and Scotch tape bandage I jerry-rigged together. And I slept fine. But when I woke up on Thursday morning, I a) was dismayed it was not Friday, b) spent 15 minutes cutting the tape-gauze-swab tenting off my finger, and c) could still see my fucking tendons. So I went to the hospital.

I don't like hospitals. I assume no one like, really does, but they honestly upset me. The nakedness of the experience is too much. People come in on stretchers and I just shut down. I feel complex emotions, and this deep, overwhelming, simultaneous desire to smother them all. But I didn't have too many choices. I considered just powering through with butterfly bandages and gauze, daydreamed about the resulting mean-ass scar I'd tell people was the result of a particularly gnarly bar fight - but nothing scares the vain of heart* more than the possibility of gangrene. I can walk to Georgetown Hospital from my house in eight minutes. Also, I might have mentioned - tendons. Visible tendons.

Whenever I go to an emergency room, I am irritatingly polite, because it's never been a real emergency. I always look for something more appropriate, like a 'Moderately Uncomfortable Triage Lounge' because hi, my finger is just fucked up. It's not like I'm missing my finger. So I apologize my way through all the intake stuff, which is awkward. Especially considering everyone who looked at my finger was like 'Oh..hhh' in that way where people are trying to be nonchalant, but are really thinking 'Bitch, those are your tendons."

Also, it's a teaching hospital - which I HELLA SUPPORT - but I'll admit it's not entirely heartening when your student doctor literally doesn't know where the band-aids are. It was her first day in that particular ER, which, I mean, that happens! And she was mostly super competent and lovely, but there were still moments when I was like 'okay, can that supervising lady doctor take over because I am not convinced you've ever seen thread before.' And that, people, is a lesson in the power of confidence. Or at least projected confidence. Listen, I have NO IDEA how to heal people. All my faith is in you. So if you're projecting "Oh, I got this', I'll assume you've got that. Even if you're like, randomly sewing my other fingers together, I'll likely rationalize 'they are probably on some holistic wellness tip'. You can do anything. Just please don't act nervous. Because then I get nervous. And then I have an anxiety attack. Because of course I do.

I didn't realize what was happening at first. I assumed it was a reaction to the numbing medication, despite the fact that I've never had a reaction to medication in my entire life**, despite the fact I recognized these feelings: the nauseau, the sudden cold sweating, the impending swoon. "Is it normal if I feel like I have to throw up?" I asked, trying to ignore the big green globby gumdrops dancing across my field of vision, the gold fireworks, the descending panic. "I don't know," she said. Not the answer I was looking for. "Is it okay if I run to the bathroom for a minute?" I asked, because that seemed way politer than ralphing in the trash can behind her. "I don't know. Let me check." Also, not the answer I sought, but I heard her supervisor say 'of course' from the other side of the curtain and I took off down the hall. Of course, this was mid wound-irrigation, so I took off trailing bloody water down my arm and onto the floor, every single event another weepy, diluted version of an emergency.

I was fine, of course. I didn't even throw up, just coughed dramatically and took some deep breaths behind a locked door. Sometimes that's all you need. When I got back, they gave me water in a plastic cup marked with measurements, and the supervising doctor patted my arm and offered consolance so sweet and completely rational that I was actually offended for a minute. I'm not afraid of pain, I'm not afraid of needles, nothing scares me less than my own blood, I'm the toughest. Then the student doctor got to work tentatively shoving a curved instrument through my finger and it all happened again. This time I just sweat in silence and fended off the swoon, and fifteen minutes later I had Frankenstein tracks curling towards my palm, compliments on my nail polish, and permission to leave. Try to leave, anyway.

I could not get out of the fucking hospital. None of the exits took me to a reasonable point of departure. I wanted a main entry, some circular drive where there might be cabs. I kept finding myself in employee parking lots. Finally, I was like 'fuck it' and decided to make my way to the road through the parking lot. It looked like those edges met. Of course, they did not. The parking lot was about four feet below grade, getting up would require a hoist and a scrape, actions I don't relish, even without a busted hand. But it snowed on Monday, and it's been cold, so like a frozen ladder from heaven - there was a snowbank, exactly the height of the sidewalk. Perfection.

I'm from New England, so I've essentially been climbing snowbanks since I could wear a snowsuit. Even if you hate snow, climbing banks of the stuff is just fun as hell. You'd think, then, that I'd remember the particular physics of snowbanks in March, when the temperature is above freezing. Their tendency to give suddenly underneath you, like when, say, you've reached the top and are shifting your weight to your left leg so as to hop onto the sidewalk. In those circumstances, the snow beneath your left leg tends to...disappear. Your leg along with it, plunging all the way to the ground. Just your left leg, though. Your right foot will still be firmly planted on top of the snowbank, leaving your right knee somewhere around your ear. This will of course happen in full view of everyone on the street and the sidewalk, including the small horde of people waiting to cross the intersection. In that moment, you may make a few choked sobbing sounds before you begin to laugh uncontrollably, wriggle yourself out of the hole in the snow, belly-crawl onto the sidewalk, and hide behind a bush to finish laughing and wipe the snow off your tights. That's what I did, anyway.

And it was then, half-concealed behind some shrubbery, pretending two dozen people hadn't just watched me perform impromptu frozen circus yoga, that I gave up. Okay, 2014, I get it, you've proved your point. You're tougher than me, and there's nothing I can do about it. Big deal. 2015 will be here before you know it, and I'll still be here, new battle lines and all***.

So here it is, my newest scar, down the street from the Pagan birthday slice, and right around the corner from the dish-washing wound I incurred this summer in Maine. Our last morning, I cut the side of the same stupid pinkie with a knife hidden deep in the oatmeal colored sink suds, literally an hour before we left. We drove to Kyle's parents' house and I taped it back together with some incredibly effective Star Wars band-aids I found in the medicine cabinet. That one didn't scar.

Not everything does, I suppose.



*Or Deadwood super fans, is gangrene even a thing anymore?
** My mom later confirmed it was probably a reaction to the medication.
***Also, maybe I am just fucking terrible at climbing on stuff.

Travel Tips for Post Modern Women

I like this time of year because I travel for work, and 80% of my work travel consists of 'walking around New York in the springtime taking pictures of lovely old buildings'. Honestly, it's pretty great. Even when it's exhausting, or cold, or I'm lost in Brooklyn on a subway that's basically a Jurassic Park Ride of Underground Trash, it's still pretty great. There's a lot of takeout sushi and trashy television and fresh towels and other such things sorely lacking in my everyday life. And all this work travel actually improves me as a person. After weeks spent with someone else emptying your garbage cans and replacing your toiletries when you hoard them in your suitcase, it gets that much harder to tolerate your own filth and disarray*. But there are challenges. I was going to tell you about all of them at once, but that post was so long I didn't even want to read it, so I'm separating it into three parts. This part is about subways. The next parts will be about peeing, and hotels. Aren't you so excited! Okay, Part One:

On The Train: Avoiding A Terrible Fate

Subways are a great invention. They allow you to zip through subterranean parts of a city like some kind of PowerMole. They allow for delightful multi-tasking, like reading en commute. Sometimes there's cool views. They reduce your obscene American carbon footprint, if only somewhat. You're exposed to an interesting cross-section of the population you might never encounter otherwise.

Subways are also HORRIBLE. You're trapped underground with thousands of other scrambling assholes like some Escape From NIMH gone horribly awry. It's too hot, or too cold. It smells like...something unidentifiable, with whiffs of human stink, rat parties, desperation, and poop. You are occasionally crammed next to and up against the very worst humanity has to offer - by whom, I mean, PEOPLE WHO DON'T TAKE THEIR FUCKING ENORMOUS BACKPACKS OFF.

In the end, though, it doesn't really matter: subways are a necessity. And there's almost nothing that makes you feel more competent and self-actualized than being able to effectively navigate a subway system. And it's a skill that translates! To other cities! It's an awesome skill. But there are things to watch out for.

Don't Be A Statistic
When I was little, my mom told us not to stick our arms out the car window. When we persisted, she informed us that, were another vehicle or stationary object to collide with our outstretched limbs, they would be sheared off, likely mangled, and unsuitable for reattachment. I've never stuck so much as a finger outside a moving vehicle again without recalling that warning. I've passed it on - to children under my supervision in at least one instance, several adults in others, and have noted it's immediate effectiveness. On the children. The conclusion here is that adults are incredibly stupid. Because the last year has been filled with stories of people FALLING ONTO TRACKS AND GETTING RUN OVER BY TRAINS. The simple solution here is 'not standing too close to the tracks'. Especially if you're drunk or physically unstable in some way. It's not hard not to fall down there. In the getting pushed scenario...I suppose a crazy person could drag you from by the wall and push you, but that's a lot more effort. And if they're really intent on you as a target, you might be able to buy yourself some time by like, yelling for help. Which you can't do if you're basically standing on the yellow line, dude, just STEP BACK.

Listen to Your Rape Alarms
Some of my friends laugh at me because I'm insane and we'll be going somewhere when all of a sudden I'm like 'my Rape Alarms are going off' and we need to turn around. I am not embarrassed at all about doing this because we live in a horrible world where horrible things happen to everyone, and this COMPLETELY includes small women who wear giant headphones and tend to be lost in their own worlds. Knowing this about myself, I try to be extra-aware of even the faintest alarm bells. As my mother told me (years after the limb-shearing warning) 'If you stop at a rest stop by yourself, you will get raped'. She is totally going to deny saying that, but F was standing in the Hunter's Hill Circle kitchen with me when that bit of knowledge was passed down. When we got into his car and pulled down the driveway (she dropped that right before a road trip) he was like "The scariest part of that was how sure she was. I'm scared of rest stops now, too."

So anyway, sometimes my rape alarms go off in subway stations. This is because subway stations can be hella creepy. Especially isolated tunnels and stairways. ESPECIALLY THIS COURT STREET STATION ENTRANCE FOR THE R TRAIN. Holy shit.

I've been to other entrances, but I sort of stumbled on this one after taking pictures of a building across the street and thought 'Oh, I'll just jump on here' and went down the stairs. When I got into the station, surprise: it was one of those weird entrances that are primarily for elevator access. I HATE being in those giant elevators with strangers, I always think some Lord of the Flies shit is going to break out, so I look for the stairs. There are always stairs. Although sometimes...they're horrible creepy. Like this time. It was a really long, narrow staircase. I'd gone down about a flight and a half thinking 'Yo, this is an incredibly rapey stairwell' when I came upon THIS:

Oh fuck, is that a CARDBOARD RAPE PAD? Jesus, okay, that's weird, just keep going Katherine, deep breaths**.

HOLY SHIT WHOSE PANTS ARE THOSE? At this point I seriously considered turning around. Like, it was noon on a Wednesday in fucking Brooklyn Heights, and I assumed I must be halfway down the stairs already and I had an appointment to make, so despite the CLANGING alarms, I pressed on, down the next flight: 

OH MY FUCK WHERE DOES THAT TINY DOOR GO? IS THIS LIKE RAPE NARNIA? I still had no idea how much more of a descent I was in for, and I couldn't run, because everyone knows when you run  down stairs in a horror movie, you fall down the stairs and Kevin Ware your leg in half and then have to drag yourself down the grimy ass steps all wounded and dirty, but I will tell you: I have never walked so swiftly and carefully in my life. 

Of course everything was fine, I realize it was just an odd collection of possibly-homeless items on a stairway. I caught the next train and made my appointment on time. An appointment at which a crazy old guy showed up on a bike to let me in, and then offered me champagne, and he seemed kind of drunk already, so it wasn't clear if he was joking or not. I declined, politely Note: the only time Katie Neuner declines free champagne is when a crazy old man offers it to her while she's essentially locked inside his house. Even if it's Veuve. Which it was. (YOU DID SOMETHING RIGHT, MOM AND DAD!!!)

The irony is not lost on me, that much of my job entails entering strangers' super expensive houses where large wooden fortress doors close behind me and pretty much no one knows where I am. But sometimes I guess you have to figure on the good in humanity, and assume that most people don't a) have a torture dungeon and b) want to trap you in it. I, at least, have to figure that, or else I'd never leave the house. Just stay out of abandoned stairwells, kids. 

Of course, later that day I was exiting another subway station and came across this: 

So, wtf, everything, maybe we should all just totally stay inside.

*For those of you who know me well, this something of a mind-altering shift. Filth and Disarray have been my homies for a long, long time. Shh, don't say too much about it, I might get scared.
** I call myself Katherine when I need to steel myself, or get my shit together. I use my Mom's voice and it is a SUPER effective motivational tool.

Good Friends and Squirrel Bombs

The week before Christmas was unseasonably warm this year. Remember?

Everyone left town early, until it felt like it was just G and myself, the rest of Glover Park entirely empty. Smoking on my porch before bed one night, I thought: even the lights on the horizon look dimmer. We took to the porch again the next night, finished a bottle of wine nestled in second-story beach chairs. We went inside, then away for our holidays. I left the bottle out there for months.

I am the kind of asshole who clutters a perfectly lovely back porch with unwanted furniture, disintegrating cardboard boxes, discarded books, bags of clothes for Goodwill. Why bother with a table and real chairs when we could just sit on this old desk? You're too good to sink your ass to the floor into one of those terribly awkward canvas chairs? Of course you're not, I'm just kidding. I'm aware it's a terrible system. I've thought about changing it, about throwing all the shit away and making it a pleasant space to sit and chat. I think about it for two minutes before declaring: 'Isn't it already a pleasant place to sit and chat simply by virtue of being a porch? Just let it be a porch!' So it stays how it is, and yes, I see that's pretty bullshit and mostly a function of my general laziness and because sometimes I am a shit friend who does not care about your comfort. You know who is not a shit friend? Kyle.

A few weeks ago we were standing out there while I determined the proper outerwear, and Kyle, as he has done in the past, handed out the gentlest of porch shamings: 'It's so nice out here; 'Chairs would be awesome'; 'I could help you take the boxes down'. Wonderful, kind hints to which I typically respond "Come on Kyle, then I couldn't throw my garbage out here" because I am the kind of person who will regularly throw a bag of garbage or empty box of wine out onto the porch rather than carrying it down to the cans. Then, as usual, he left it alone. There are only so many times you can ask an adult to throw her trash away properly before you start wondering why you're still friends with this lunatic.

I had to go to New York last week for work. The Saturday before I left it was sunny and kind of nice and I opened the porch door hoping maybe it was reading weather. It wasn't. Even if it had been, the environs weren't exactly conducive to relaxing. Unless broken pieces of ashtray, scattered dead leaves, crumbling boxes and mildewing bags of clothes are part of your preferred spa experience. I picked up the months-empty bottle and accompanying glasses, took them inside to the kitchen. Got a garbage bag. Went back and swept up the leaves, the shattered bits of lacquered ceramic*. I pushed the broom under the a/c unit in the window, and noticed something protruding from the largest bag of Goodwill clothes, an enormous black canvas duffel bag, characteristically unzipped.  What initially looked like a stick, was, after closer inspection, clearly a leg. A small, furry leg.

My first thought: How did one of Baylor's toys get in there?
My next thought: Oh that is not a toy that is not a toy that is not a toy that is a dead fucking squirrel and it is super dead, super dead, all the way live dead, how do I get it out of...do I reach in...are there more...OHMYGOD NO, OH MY GOD DEAD SQUIRREL TOUCHING CLOTHES THAT USED TO TOUCH ME. 

I went back inside and had some wine and decided it was time to start packing. And I did. And I shut the squirrel out of my brain for the rest of the afternoon.

A few hours later, Kyle came over. We were hanging out, deciding where to go for food, and I actually considered not saying anything, but then I did: "Want to hear something really horrible that happened to me today?"

I finished telling him, and I think I assumed it would be like confession - once it was out there, the squirrel would magically disappear. I said "I didn't know what to do about it, so I just did nothing." Without judging the ridiculous words that just came out of my face, he said, clearly, reasonably: "Okay, you have to do something." He was right. I did. He helped.

What happened next was Dennis the Menace masterful, something I never would have thought up on my own. It was Kyle's idea to put garbage bags on our arms, Kyle's idea to position the giant outdoor trashcan directly below the porch, to maneuver the monster duffel over the porch rail together, heave it at the can. When the bag failed to land as aimed, crashing face down onto the patio stones a foot away, scattering clothes but concealing the squirrel carcass, I want to say it was my idea to get the snow shovels out of the utility closet and scoop the clothes into the trash can, but that was probably him, too. I invented the term 'Squirrel Bomb', although I also invented the situation that created said Squirrel Bomb, so I'm not sure what kind of pride to take there. Regardless,  the squirrel bomb was successfully diffused. And then we went to Surfside.

And my goodness, if the porch doesn't look so much better without that giant bag of unwanted clothes! And their attendant dead rodent limbs! Who knew? I'm thinking about getting rid of all the boxes now. I'm even considering a table and chairs**.

Happy Birthday Kyle!

*Sorry, D, I really did love that ashtray.
**Where do people get tables and chairs?

Everyone Is An Asshole

So everyone's been sort of a jerk lately. Not you, reading this, of course. You've been terrific, I'm sure. You're probably one of my friends, and my friends are wonderful. People have just not been super wonderful to them lately. It seems like hearts are breaking all around me. And I'm sensitive to that shit now.

It's always the surprise that's the worst part. The rug pulled out from under you, that patch of black ice on the sidewalk. The sneakiest kind of disappointment: I just didn't expect this. Everything seemed so great. They seemed so great! That insidious little betrayal: I trusted you. I let you in. I told my friends about you. And like I said, I know all these wonderful people, so they're mad, of course, but they also turn the anger in: How could I not have known? How could I let myself get tricked again? Everything seemed so great. 

That is not just about love. It happens with friends, it happens at work. It happens everywhere. The thing that made you the happiest takes down its own curtain and leaves you with nothing. Or worse, more common: it takes part of you with it. And it seems impossible, that you could have been so wrong, you're sharper than that, you're smarter than that. But it's still ever-present, that threat: you're in danger of being let down every time you trust something, from the very moment you let it in. And it happens for one, simple, universal reason:

Everyone is an asshole. Sometimes.

It's true. And it's the only comfort I've been able to give anyone recently, when the people and things that they've trusted have let them down, again, for unbelievable, stupid, tiny, mind-blowingly painful reasons: everyone is an asshole, sometimes. Even the best people who've ever lived, Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr., your angelic little Nana: they were all assholes, sometimes. Even the person who has shown you the greatest kindness in your life, whom you are forever grateful for and to: they're an asshole, too. Or they were. Sometimes.

We're humans. We make a mess of absolutely everything we do. Even the most revered and accoladed among us, even the kindest and the most charitable. We feel so deeply. We want so many things. We act impulsively, jumping first and apologizing later. We cover things up. We are imperfect, so we miss a spot. We are tortured, so we let ourselves get caught. We hurt each other and run away. We stay close enough to see just how bad it really was. Sometimes we do this because we know we'll be forgiven. Sometimes that's the meanest part of all.

Of course I'm guilty, too. Sometimes I think I'm the guiltiest. I've been selfish. I've been petty. I've been cruel. I've lied, I've cheated, I've stolen. I've taken more than I needed. I've been reckless, I've been short-tempered. I've expected other people to clean up my messes. I've been manipulative, I've been immature. I've been careless with other people's hearts. I've been destructive with my own. I am an asshole. Sometimes.

And you, wonderful person, darling friend who has undoubtedly acted beautifully and selflessly, who has been there for someone when no one else was, who has helped loved ones through tragedies large and small - you are an asshole, too. Sometimes.

But we're also great. More than sometimes. That goes for me and it goes for you, too. Kind and caring and sympathetic, helpful when you don't have to be, accepting when you'd like to disagree, patient when you're frustrated, open when it would be so much easier to close. True, it's because of these things, these beautiful capabilities, that we make ourselves vulnerable to the assholes, potential victims to the concealed, predatory worst parts of everyone. And because of that - because you know that anyone, at any time, can kick a hole through your heart - when you know that, and choose to extend your hand anyway, it lifts us all up, a little. Makes us better than we are. Makes all the messy, gory, excruciating, tedious, lovely, hideous business of being a human worth it, if just for a flash, before you descend back down into your baser elements. Don't let that get you down. Don't let any of it get you down. You're beautiful right now. We all have our moments. Just remember:

Everyone is an asshole. Sometimes.

I Swear, I Read Them For the Articles

Yesterday, one of our board members was in the office, doing what-ever-the-hell-it-is-he-does-when-he's-in-the-office, and, on taking in my outfit, said: "I don't think it's fair I have to wear a suit through this heat, and you get to run around in your fairy clothes." And my boss replied: "You know what's unfair? That women have to wear high heels." And I thought: "You know what's insane*? THIS ENTIRE CONVERSATION."

Later, I was reading an article in GQ about a Spanish bullfighter who'd been gored through the eye and returned to bullfighting. Besides being pretty much the most fascinating shit ever, it was brilliantly written. By Karen Russell! Who I love. A few months ago, I read a profile - also in GQ - of James Deen, also fabulously, fabulously written - by Wells Tower, another of my literary super-crushes. Benjamin Percy writes for Esquire.  The list of incredible writers who've published short stories in Playboy - Marquez, Nabokov, Nadine Gordimer, Margaret Atwood - is daunting. And then I started to get a little upset.

It's been years since I opened a Cosmo, or any of its ilk, so I can't say for sure, but I do read their covers in the grocery store just like everyone else, and I would be straight-up shocked to find pieces by say, Zadie Smith or Dave Eggers, a new story from Junot Diaz sandwiched between articles about keratin treatments and '85 Terrible Sex Tips We've Published 300 Times, Slightly Reworded'.

There's nothing wrong with articles about fashion and make-up; listen, I personally could talk about eyeliner for a goddamn hour. Probably longer. I also love bracelets and dresses and tips on deep conditioning and looking at pictures of shoes because that shit is awesome. Being a girl is the fucking coolest. But that's why I'm upset. Because pretty stuff is super fun, but we also need content. Real, 'use your brain and dissect this weirdness of the world' content. Which I've found sorely lacking in 'women's magazines'.

And then there's the tone. The men's magazines - which I am literally 'reading for the articles' because sometimes there's like, a four-page spread on tweed jackets and scarf pairings - just don't seem to have the same pall of negativity. Women's magazines are mostly a list of shit you're not doing right because of stuff you don't have. Men's magazines certainly do that, too, but you can skip those parts and get to the...wait for it...content.

I don't know man, people much smarter than me are out there analyzing this shit right now, with results they didn't just completely make up, but I think it has a lot to do with the general culture of sickness and self-hatred that is like, frustratingly pervasive among women. You can't just tell people what's wrong with them and call it a day. You have to feed their brains so they have weird, fascinating things to think and talk about besides purses and mascara (which are FINE to talk about sometimes, I actually want to talk about my new mascara a lot). And skip the parts that tell you how you have to be. I don't know about that whole suit thing - that seems to be some cultural craziness that everyone's signed up for, but sweethearts, you don't have to wear heels. You don't have to do anything.

Demand more, ladies. I think it'll make us all feel better.

(Also, if you want sex tips, put down that inane Cosmo already and just consult a slightly older, slutty friend. Boom. You're good for life.)


*Also insane to me: that man spent more on lamps last month than I'll make in a year and a half. And can we PLEASE with the fairy bullshit. 

Night Moves

I want to tell you about how it's different, but I don't know how to explain the difference, when so much of everything is still so entirely the same. I don't have the vocabulary yet, for this new strangeness.

At night, I walk by myself, twenty-nine blocks back to my hotel. I love walking at night, I love cities at night, the bigger the buildings the better I feel. So many faces looking out of so many windows all day, but night comes and they're empty. The same person will look out a window for years, then leave, and some other face will be there. The window: 'Who cares?'

I stop at dive bars, in tourist areas: places full of people escaping the crowds they've been dragged into by loved ones. People likely to understand your desire to be left the hell alone.

I wonder what I will hang on to, and what I will leave behind.

Yesterday: "How great would the city be without all these people?" and I chided, because that's my role sometimes, but in truth -- yes.

I would walk forever. It is dark and I don't want to talk. I could walk through Central Park for hours, lamps lighting water, moon shadows making alien formations from rocky outcroppings. But I can't, I know, I shudder to think of the Post-Apocalyptic possibilities of the park at night. Even if they told me it was safe. Nothing can ever be entirely empty.

Twenty-nine blocks, back to the hotel; at the end I walk along Fifth Avenue, hugging the park, coveting the shadows of those lamps across the ponds. It looks dangerous like a fairy tale. I've always liked fairy tales the best.

Carts wait for passengers. The smell of horses will always remind me of childhood, and I walk as close to the edge of the curb as I can, trying to get in the way of their breath. Everything is dark, and shiny, and the sidewalks are crowded, and people are together, and alone.

A Dear James Letter

Dear James,

Maybe you remember me. It's okay if you don't. We met last year: a Sunday afternoon in early April, on the train from New York to DC. You sat near the front of the Quiet Car, by the window. By the time I boarded, it was one of the only open seats left. You indicated no one was sitting there, and did not seem at all alarmed when I collapsed shoulder-hauls of duffel bag and camera bag and giant purse and a plastic shopper of extra shit I could not manage to cram into my suitcase onto the seat next to you, then rustled through it all for ten minutes until I found what I was looking for and settled the fuck down.

I was about halfway through Anthony Doerr's 'Memory Wall'. There are those among us who feel very strongly about Mr. Doerr's stories. Specifically, we feel like 'keep small-talking at me while I'm in one of his worlds and I will fucking cut you.' I'm one of those people.

You did seem like a legitimately nice guy, what with the nice questions and the offering to get me something from the cafe car every time you got up. Even though I declined (politely, the manners don't waver easily, trust), and I tried to really shut it down by getting my own wine at one point, I still appreciated that you brought me back a water and a bag of pita chips. I am human. Pita chips are always nice.

So James, thank you for your lovely manners - buying a girl a water is actually quite chivalrous. Rare when a man meets a woman and doesn't immediately encourage her to drink. I was about to start drinking, but you couldn't have known that. I also wanted to thank you for the book recommendation. And apologize, a little.

When you noticed what I was reading, you made a thoughtful comment and mentioned you worked for...the publisher? I don't know, so sorry, I was straight-up half-listening to you. There's this thing, about being a woman travelling alone: creepy dudes are always out there, waiting to mack on you. And the best way to deal with this is by being totally aloof and writing in your beat-to-shit journal or like, crying over short stories or something that makes you look kind of too-intense and crazy. It's like - if you're a raccoon trying to make it through a field of coyotes, sometimes your best ploy is to pretend like you have rabies or some shit. Walk right through that coyote field in broad daylight wearing something insane. Coyote's be like 'woah, why is that raccoon out in the daylight wearing a long t-shirt and rain boots? Raccoons are nocturnal, bro! That rac's got the R for sure.' And the other coyotes are all 'Word. Leave that crazy ass alone. Also, we congregate in fields now? A whole field of coyotes? This is threatening as shit.'

Anyways. It had been a long week, and I was in Rabid Raccoon mode. It's a self-preservation thing. But my interest in self-preservation does not eclipse my interest in book recommendations, so when you mentioned Karen Russel's novel 'Swamplandia!' I asked you to write it down. And you did. And I ignored you for the rest of the trip, aside from exchanging a giggle over the old man being MAD DRACONIAN about the Quiet Car rules. You got off at the stop before Union Station. That must be someplace in Maryland. After you left, and said something lovely about meeting me, the woman across the aisle asked me if I knew you. I said no, and she proceeded to recap everything you'd done to her seat-mate, who'd boarded the train in Baltimore, closing with "I've never seen anyone be so nice." Then I kind of felt like a dick.

'Swamplandia!' followed me around for the next year. We must have met right before it's release, and Ms. Russell got mad press all through 2011. I kept running across it, and I kept not buying it. A book and I need to have a moment. I need to feel something, or find it someplace random, I don't know. I buy books compulsively, so I've set up really vague criteria that prevents me from buying too many, and allows a purchase when I really want it.

A few weeks ago - it had been almost exactly a year - I was in New York again, killing time between site visits when I wandered into the Strand. And there it was, a half-off Staff Pick, paperback and everything. I wasn't convinced - I carried it around the store to see if we bonded, like I do with a dress I'm not 100% sure about. Next thing I knew, I'd lost 75 minutes in there, and I just had to commit to whatever was in my arms and cash out.

I forgot all about it until I unpacked back in DC. I didn't start reading it until last week.  And...I tore through it in like, two days. That book was so amazing, James, thank you! I did love it! Exactly as much as you told me I would! And it's made me think about you, a little. I probably should have been nicer. I probably shouldn't treat everyone like they're part of a band of highly organized coyotes trying to maul my face off. I should probably be open and accepting and engaging, because there's all this love in my heart, and I should remember that people can enrich my life in myriad unexpected ways.

But really, James, fuck it. Whatever. It's fine. Because maybe if I'd talked to you, really talked to you, we would have become the best of friends, and you'd be a real and trusted source of perspective and love in my life. Or, maybe, you'd be one of those guys who texts me at 11.00 on Sunday night all 'what are you up to?' and I'm like 'Listening to New Edition and GChatting with D in my sweatpants, why?' and you, terrifyingly, respond 'I'm outside your apartment...I was in the neighborhood for a completely bullshit reason, because no one is ever in this neighborhood, but want to hang out?' and then we have to walk through why drop-bys are unacceptable, and no, the fact that you're 'already here' doesn't invalidate that. Ever. No. You have to go home. Unless...wait. Did you bring anything cool? Like a really fancy brownie with ganache from one of those pretty yuppie bakeries I pretend to hate? Season Two of the Sopranos? Xanax? Chai? Seriously, you didn't bring anything cool? Go home. And then I ignore your texts for two months, and you leave these really mean 2am voicemails about what a bitch I am. For not abandoning an evening of looking at pictures of crazy unicorn dresses on the internets with Miss D for your rude ass. It is Sunday goddamn night, bitch, please, the Amazing Race is on.
And then everything's awful.

This way, I write you a sort-of nice letter on my insane blog and thank you for bringing this amazing book into my life, and I'm totally going to read her short story collection now, too. See, James? Aren't you glad I didn't give you my number? We could have done this in person.

Seriously, though, everyone. Read 'Swamplandia!'

On Main Damies

Last week, I stayed at my aunt and uncle's place on the beach while I took pictures for work. Sunday, Kyle came down to accompany me to my Martha's Vineyard site visit, because it's a weird fun dork thing to do on a Sunday, and that's the kind of shit we both like to do. Because we're dorks. It's cool. 

We left around 12:00, we were taking my rental car. I guess I'd opened the front door a little too wide, because the shit would not close - the rubber-line thing on the bottom of the door got caught up on the carpet. You know. It was stuck.

So I pull and pull and pull, but the door does not move, at all. I'm using both hands and all my weight and everything, and JUST when I was about to abandon the effort entirely and turn to snap at Kyle: "HEY, motherfucker, any interest in actually HELPING ME with your man-arms, or are you cool to just stand there and watch me do battle with this Door of Degredation on my own?", the carpet gave, or something, and I pulled the door shut. Phew.

As it closed, Kyle nodded and turned. "I needed to know that you could do that on your own," he said. "For when you're by yourself later." And then he started down the porch stairs. 

"Goddamn," I said. "If that's not one of the truest expressions of real-ass friendship I have ever seen."


Because - isn't it?

Share Your SpinBrush, Whore.

(I always mean 'whore' in the good way)

Wait, so it's weird that I keep a toothbrush in my purse at all times? Everyone doesn't equip themselves with a full-time Travel Toothbrush? Other people are that certain about when they'll see their at-home toothbrush 100% of the time?

Maybe this speaks to my somewhat unstable lifestyle, but I find it's excellent social planning. No one bats a lash when you're like "Yo, can I borrow your toothpaste?", but most people are hard core weirded out when you're like 'Hey, so I'm just going to polish mes dents with your Spin Brush real quick?' (Bless the friends who are totally cool with that*.) I mean, humans do all manner of weird shit to each other with their mouths - the toothbrush seems like such an arbitrary line. A toothbrush is probably one of the cleaner things of someone else's that you can stick in your mouth.

Anyway, yeah, I do find myself wanting to brush my teeth in other people's bathrooms on the fairly regular, and no, it's not because I'm some kind of escort (I wish! If we learned anything from the 90's, it's that if you're a hooker with good oral hygenie, Richard Gere will save you in the end**) but because I have emotional problems and abhor regularity and routine and frequently find myself not-at-home when it's time to brush my teeth***.

I don't think it's that weird, or necessarily indicative of sluttiness (although I am both kind of weird and kind of slutty, I don't think there's any correlation.). But today, when my Travel Toothbrush fell out of my bag, my boss had a lot of questions about it, and it got me thinking.

Also, it had gotten separated from it's container (by which I mean 'the off-brand Ziploc bag I store it in had busted') so it was just floating around in there all raw, which is gross, but it's a pretty new purse so there's not a lot of tobacco flakes and Kashi dust littering the bottom yet. Still gross, okay. Sorry.

Anyway, Travel Toothbrushes are cool. Brush your teeth, yo! And eat your vegetables! I know I seem like a shitty person to take lifestyle advice from, but that shit is probably why I'm still alive. Also, drink water. SEE? I'm a genius.

* Like following the debased summer of 2006 when - in September - four of us realized we all thought the purple toothbrush was ours. And then were like 'We should probably just toss the purple one? Since we have worked it out.' (Word up, Spot kids!)

** And that George Costanza is mad rapey! Seriously, I'm not letting my hypothetical daughter watch Pretty Woman until she's like, twenty-eight. That movie does not prepare young girls for life. Don't trip, though, we are going to watch the shit out of Dirty Dancing. No fast forwarding through the botched abortion scene, either. That's a useful message. Wrap it up, yo!

***Which is actually like, all the time. I have the worst teeth. I look at sugar and I pop a tiny cavity.

See what I did there? Richard Gere saved you in the end!

You can try to block out the memory of opening your tray-table onto your face as much as you'd like. Your face, however, will remember.

Eat This, Dr. Spock

The Setting: Sullivan Square, a little past midnight a few Thursdays ago. My brother and I were returning from Wonderland. We were a few blocks down Broadway when we noticed, in the distance, a scraggly, hunched figure staggering towards us. This person was of indeterminate age, race, or gender. It was also unclear whether their genitals were covered. The only things that were clear, was their death grip on an unlit cigarette, and the very stained, very worn grey sweatshirt covering their torso.

Brother: "I really want to know if that person is a man or a woman. I also want to know if they're wearing pants. (Pause) But I really don't want to get thrown up on. Or, stabbed with a hypodermic needle. So...let's cross here."

We crossed the street. The person, now separated from us by four lanes of blacktop and a grassy median, twitched on towards Sullivan Station.

Brother: "I think we made the right decision."

If my parents ever get to wondering if they did a good job raising us, I think this anecdote may soothe them. Sure, we go to the dog track on weekday evenings...but at least we have the good sense to cross the street when we see hepatitis coming.

Straight Flush

You know who are totally best friends? The fat bastards who eat lamb curry on the T, use the elevator to travel one floor, and the asswads that chatter on their cellphones in the fucking bathroom stall. Not just in the bathroom, mind you, everyone has had to do that from time to time. And not just sequestered in one far stall while occupants do their business far far far down the other end of the row. I'm talking about the freakish specimens that find it perfectly acceptable to sit in the stall next to you in the tiniest bathroom in the building, and carry on to whatever poor slob has deigned to associate with them. Fucking unreal.

I mean, in what universe does this constitute a proper way to behave? Never mind that you are totally obnoxious to your own conversant, Toilet Talker, you are making me SERIOUSLY UNCOMFORTABLE. I don't like public bathrooms generally, due to the gross lack of privacy. Now you are totally knocking down all fathomable boundaries by broadcasting the sound of my urination to a THIRD FUCKING PARTY? I don't want them to hear it, they probably have no interest in listening, and what the fuck is so important that you can't call them back? Seriously, hang up the phone. My bladder is about to pop, and this performance anxiety is the last straw, lady.

Alas, there is hope in this situation. Whereas you're mostly limited to disgusted glares and angry looks in the 'stop spilling garlic mayo on my lap...really, garlic? On the subway?' and the 'you just waited 2 minutes for an elevator to go up to the next floor when the stairs are right there???' situations, in the phone invasion scenario, you can actually give it right back to them. Oh yes. I figured this one out all by myself. Why should just I suffer? When I can very easily fuck your shit up with a...flush. And another. And another. And another. Really. This happened like, 15 minutes ago, I tried it...and just flushed that trollop right out of the bathroom. She was on the phone in the hallway when I left, and tried to shoot me a death glare...but I declined the negativity. Sure, for a moment I did wonder if my retaliatory flushing was a bigger dick move than their invasion of my privacy, but ultimately declared myself the moral victor. I mean, I would never have flushed the toilet 8 times in a row if they hadn't first made it impossible for me to pee in peace. And why couldn't she have just taken her phone call in the hallway to begin with?

I am a little worried about how triumphant I feel, though. Next thing you know I'll be sneezing all over your meatball sub on the Green Line. Just kidding. Really though - meatballs? Marinara sauce? This train is bumpy as hell. You're just going to dribble all over the seat, then? No napkin or anything. Huh. Oh, hang on...ah...ah.ahhhhhchoooo.

My bad.