The other woman

Sometimes things don't fling. (For some girls I'll never meet, and have been.)

ELIZABETH,27
Hi. Thanks for coming. Can I get you something? You want a coffee or something? I bet you drink coffee, you seem like you’d drink coffee. I drank a lot of coffee in college. You sure you don’t want a tea or something? Thanks.. for meeting me. Sorry I don’t mean to stare. And I’m staring. Nice weather today. It’s LA I guess it’s always nice weather. I’m not used to that. I like having the seasons, feeling things. If it’s sunny what do you have left to dream of? Snow? How is he? No don’t answer that. I’m sure he’s fine. I’m sure he’s happy. I’m sure you’re happy. Are you happy?
I don’t know you, and I’m not going to assume anything.. about you. Because my imagination’s been doing that for a while, Creating this empty-outline person. To fill in. This girl. Who’s simple, not in a stupid way. But less complicated. And I realized that’s not fair. That’s not fair. because you don’t know me, you didn’t even know I existed. I’m not even the past. I’m less than that. And I don’t pretend to know about whatever it is you’ve gone through. But you’re lucky. I think you’re lucky. I don’t know you, but I think you’re lucky. Because you get to do laundry and watch movies, and have fights, and be real. And you’ll have a beginning, middle and an end. Unless you uhm-you’re lucky. And I think you should know that.
And yeah he’s difficult, and childish and everything I never knew I wanted, and maybe he’s different. People change. Grow. I just need to- no I don’t need to know anything. I just need to tell you that right now, you’re lucky. And you should know that.

Timing’s a funny thing isn’t it.

Yes, you, you there I'm talking to you.

I know there are a few of you, reading this stuff. (You've told me drunkenly at parties). My cheap form of websiting as I don't have a camera man to shoot these things yet, nor can afford a url at the moment. So if you're so kind as to listen to these voices, and they make you think something, anything('Melissa has a lot of free time' 'God I've never seen the phrase 'I mean' used so much' 'I hate these people and your face', good, bad, indifferent thoughts...whatever) Give a shout back.

The talk

I am the daughter of a therapist, I have a friend who has never been. I can't tell who's better off."
>KATIE,29 First time in Therapy
I just talk I’m a talker. I talk.. too much. And I’m trying to not do that, to be a better listener. Talk less. But it’s hard you know because there’s that lull. And I know I know some people can sit with the lull, the silence but the truth is I can’t. And I’m being too honest, maybe. That’s my other thing, I guess it leads to the talking but I’m just too honest. My dad, my dada used to say ‘Our little Katie Kat doesn’t know a stranger’. That’s what he called me. My real names Katherine. But everyone calls me Katie, right, you know that. I’m trying to phase back to Katherine, at least professionally you know, but uhm. That’s a nice print. Flower print. Uhm supposed to be calming, well it is. Anyway he used to say I didn’t know a stranger cause I’d just talk to anyone, you know on family trips and stuff, and I don’t.

Am I talking too much? I mean I am paying you to listen right. I mean just not listen. I mean I’m sure you do more than listen I’m not saying you got degrees just to listen. Although I’m sure you are, seem like a good listener. But I’m supposed to be, honest with you. This isn’t like real world practice is it? Like a model for how I’m supposed to interact with others? It’s more for analyzing it. Ha I guess right? It’s called analysis. Sorry its just I’ve never paid to talk to anyone before, and now I feel guilty. And suddenly I’m just extremely self aware and feel narcissistic, which is ironic I guess. Ironic right? I don’t know I was a finance major. I’m a type A. You figured that out. Of course. So how long have you been doing this? Sorry, can you answer that? You don’t need to. I’m just trying to.. listen. See progress, five minutes in and progress, I told you I was a type A! This must be a humorless job. You can’t exactly laugh at your patients. Right? Even if what they say is funny you can’t laugh at them. I, I laugh a lot. I try to laugh at work. Accounts payable is not funny, nor fun really, but I try to laugh. Laughter is an integral part of physical wellness. It oxygenates your blood, thereby increases energy levels, relaxes your muscles and works out all your cardiovascular and respiratory systems. It’s paramount really. I’m just a happy person. Always have been. Sure things get you down but you just have to treat a crisis like an opportunity. Like this, this here, why I’m here, this is an opportunity. An opportunity for more knowledge of self and wellness. To learn. Because we’re broken open for a reason. I’m not broken, I’m broken open that’s different. I’m more exposed…so you can see the layers. Does that make sense to you?

Insomnia

BETH ANN,31

I don’t want to go to sleep. Because if I sleep I dream. And the dreams. The dreams. The thing about the dreams is eventually you have to wake up. And I don’t want to wake up. Because it’s just a reminder that this, this is it. And that, that is not. So I pace, and I drink these teas, you know. That sleepy time tea with the little bear-man in the nightcap. In his little nightgown, people don’t wear nightgowns anymore. I like nightgowns. And I count things. More to appease myself than anything else. And sometimes you know I start the dream when I’m awake, so maybe I remember like part of it. But it’s not fair, because it’s always better. And they’re mine, they’re my secret you know so I’m not going to tell you. It’d sound stupid anyway. But the waking up. The waking up’s the hardest part. Cause you can’t remember it all.
And people say be happy you know, be happy as if it’s a choice you know? And maybe it is maybe I’m just not choosing hard enough, trying hard enough. My mom. My mom used to say smile and the joy will follow. What else did she say? Something stupid uhm ‘Safety doesn’t happen by accident’. And ‘ I could care less’ which is wrong because it meant she actually cared. She did. Or pretended to. She wore turtlenecks, wear’s turtlenecks my mom. She’s very chipper, perky. Sweet. I wish I was more sweet. I mean she’s not dumb. She seems dumb but she’s not. She’s just southern. And we don’t believe in medication, my family. They don’t. We believe in prayer. ‘The lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped’. And that’s fine I just think the Lord made Zoloft. He made this. And I wasn’t raised Christian scientist or anything, it’s just it’s just you dealt with your problems. Well you ignored them. You pretended to be happy until you were. Simple as that. God my head hurts. I don’t drink enough water. I don’t do a lot of things, enough.
Sorry I didn’t mean to yawn. No I’m fine. Thanks. Thanks for sitting up with me. You’re exhausted aren’t you? No go to sleep I’ll be fine, seriously. It’s sweet of you really. Bless your heart. Ooh that’s another one she used to say. I had this English teacher in high school that used to just say ‘bless’ when someone sneezed, and I hated it. It was like just the verb. Like who was doing the blessing? was she? I don’t know it just seemed pretentious. Please go to sleep. Really , I’m fine. Will be fine. I mean I’m here.
It’s funny when I was little, real little I never used to dream. Isn’t that when you’re supposed to, you know dream, have childhood dreams? All that. But if I did I never remembered them. I just slept straight through. Crashed. I don’t remember exactly, when they started. Maybe it was when I needed them. I don’t know. High school or something. Is that strange though? Do you remember yours? And I don’t have nightmares neither, those are when I wake up. When I wake up the nightmares begin.

The Perfect Day

I often day dream about Sunday mornings. Mine are far more selfish than this.
The perfect day involves a morning run by a river. A good paced run past West Village Streets. Which is ironic as I don’t run, but would like to learn. Then return to a three story brownstone, I own. The perfect day is wholewheat pancakes with a side of NPR or dancing to The Supremes with a curly haired toddler with blues and a man with ones that match mine. New York Times read in between laughter. The perfect day is no makeup, maybe mascara, burtsbees. The perfect day is farmer’s markets and cobblestones., and tailored coats. Perhaps a golden retriever. No, a Lab. No puggles, definitely no Puggles. Trees. Grass. And parkbenches and both toddler and dog fascinated by birds and street music. Bubbles maybe. Honeycrisp apples. Little roses. Cider. God forbid a muffin. Muffin crumbs to pidgeons. Full family on the swings. Walk home. Stop. Coffee. Little legs get tired. Carried. Alternating He laughs as she questions, inherited. I smile. Home. Tuck in. Nap. Lil roses in- vase mom bought, in kitchen. The only one we haven't broken. Drawing on fridge underneath a copy of ‘this is just to say’. Which they both agree is corny. Now. Both on couch, toes touch. The perfect day is feeling better just because you are in the same room. Feeling safe/loved/needed/ wanted but not thinking this. We divide paper sections, read, then switch. Both forgetting glasses. Toes touch. Bodies squished. Need new couch. Need another day off. But not thinking about these things. The perfect day is silence and words and feet that smell rank sometimes, and laughter due to getting pushed off the couch. Pillow smack getting back on the couch. Forgetting we’re the adults. Are we? Shit. The perfect day is Casablanca on AMC followed by Annie Hall or Manhattan or maybe even Shawshank. The perfect day is knowing the words to all the songs on the radio. But we never listen to the radio anymore and know most of the words to the songs on his ipod. But he’s obsessive about music so perhaps that’s not true.
Okay. We know all the words to those songs written before 1990. 93. Nap time over. Damn. Kid, darn. The perfect day is colored pencils and crayons and suns with smiley faces inside, although they are indeed unrealistic. The perfect day is take out, sitting on a floor, eating thai or Indian. Good thai or Indian. Without gas. The perfect day is a phone call with a sing song voice on the other end. The perfect day is baths. Stories. Tuck in. Silence. The perfect day is a good book. Read. Excavated. With cup of tea in hand. Perhaps 2 cups, glass of wine. White. Time stops. Pen. Words. The perfect day is hands holding, dancing, searching. Then a familiar kiss, followed by good sex. Good sleep. Good sex again. Better sleep.
This isn’t what I thought perfect would be, she thinks.

I want to see music

My greatest two regrets are quitting the alto saxophone in 4th grade, and not really learning to play the guitar my dad bought me. Growing up I had an imaginary band called 'Running on Empty'. Music and those who make it, amaze me.

JEREMY, 28. Stoned.
I want to write a song man. Like a song. A song is like the perfect art form. Like a story spliced with math, like a mental auditory dream. Auditory right, hearing auditory. Like pulmonary like unconscious/subconscious whatever. It’s like poetry but cool. I don’t know, it’s more open. It’s like you can say stupid shit as long as it’s put to music. I mean you can say things that sound stupid at first but really aren’t, they’re like deep. Multifasceted. So much more is just permissible. I mean I admire that. . The skill. How do we not run out of notes, note combinations. I mean I guess I don’t run out of word combination but I haven’t been talking since like the dawn of time. It’s a craft right. Like to assemble a three minute escape. Like a journey. Three minutes and you have to take someone somewhere else, to your soul in three minutes, okay sometimes 2:30 , 3:15. And who knows what they get or how they get it, or what they do while they get it. But there’s like precision to it. and art and damn man. I don’t know, talking about music is like writing about sex, or painting about food. I could tell you who gets me off or why I think they do, but until you hear it- I should just stop you know. But shit. I don’t want to be a rockstar, I just want to write one good song. Hell it doesn’t even have to be a good song.

Feverpitch

This is what happens when you write on meds with the flu. Excuse the grammar and content.

Today is my birthday party and I am caccooned in a sea of blankets. Having fever dreams of 19, 21,23,24, and this, this 25. Having flicks of past ‘loves’ who have slept in this bed. Retracing the ups and downs,too muches too littles and shoulds and coulds and maybes all on a little too much sudafed. I am not a pretty sick. Pale yes, gaunt yes but not Victorian frail pretty. I am messy sick. Messy with insane hair. Pink swollen eye bag tummy hurt messy sick.


My party is happening in nine minutes. I broke. I edited, five.

Before I met men. Before I ever fell in love I kept a journal. I journaled religiously about the stupid the banal the mundane not beautifully, but I was learning, and then I wrote to them. And suddenly it had a recipient an action and didn’t seem so banal. Words sent through e-mails and letters and those never mailed kept on my desktop. I guess that’s the biggest thing now. Who now? Me? I can’t even see as I read. Is it into empty? God that’s melodramatic ‘into empty’. Well you always were. Don’t use the drugs as an excuse. Still are. Practically melodramatic. Most people get silly fevers with dreams of Brett Micheals playing bingo, you, you get fucking introspection. Sheesh. Who are the words for? Are they for you? Always were? I’d have my dress on now. (the silver one that makes me resemble a rapper’s girlfriend.) Glad I didn’t buy a new one.

‘Wouldn’t it be wild if they all showed up without you’. Had it without me. All of them there. Now. Everyone I had ever loved or thought I loved, there. Everyone I sort of thought I liked.. I wouldn’t be there so it wouldn’t be awkward. The two with the same name would look quizically as they both used their left hand to both buy a scotch. The tall tall ones would stare at the other tall tall ones and discuss their albums, Butch Cassidy, and methods of not returning phone calls. The ones that mattered would assume they didn’t and the ones that didn’t would assume they did. And the in betweens might wonder ‘what if’ while watching ‘Arrested development’ and ‘Twin Peaks’ on the bar tvs or discuss the finer points of radiohead, and my recycled literary catchphrases that I pass off as novelties. (Witty things that really aren’t so). The spiritual ones in one corner, the agnostics in another, slightly OCD most likely scorpios and sags. The ones w/ allergies who didn’t last long would bond over lactose intolerance. The actors over alcohol, the writers over… alcohol. The musicians would come after their gigs. The few that became my brothers would watch it all and laugh, feeding the others beers, while a few wouldn’t even catch on to why they were there at all. And there would be no who hurt who, they’d just be people, good people.

My friends would travel in the groups they know. Maybe be repelled by the people they remind me of. The ‘Oh you have to meet!s’ (I have them all cataloged in my mind). My 4 year old best friend would know no one, possibly my parents and maybe get hit on by my overeager co-worker. My oldest girlfriends would dance, dance in a way that I’m sometimes ashamed to but do anyway. Maybe Hannah Wang, who sent me my first letter, and taught me how to curse, would be there. There would be laughter tons of laughter, and the occasional awkwardness, two of my favorite things. No one would talk of the business: plays, films,books, ideas,stories, but not business. My little sister would be shocked to find herself in a bar. While my teachers might not remember my full name. My dad would talk a few people’s ear off, not realizing they may know the story behind him, commenting on the crown molding, making bad jokes. They’d agree he meant well, he does. My mom on the other side of the bar,avoiding him, would listen, white wine In hand and just listen. Listen with that intent knowing half smile, that’s always with you but always thinking. Occasionally she’d laugh, her cheekbones swallowing her eyes. My grandfather would whistle an aria in the corner, thinking it was all too loud obtrusive. My grandmother would no longer need her hearing aid and float around supplying just made brownies and baked ziti to the masses, decked in lapis jewelry, porcelain skin. My brother silently would watch it all and pray. Maybe sitting quietly with one of afore mentioned spiritually inclined boys, and they’d have a talk that was more silent than anything else.

And I wouldn’t be a topic at all. And I’d like to be there for all of it, because that room would be more me than anything.