I was away on business, I’m sorry. I should have spoken to you sooner, but I didn’t know how to piece everything together - so I left it like this:
I want to get an arugula, pear, and gorgonzola salad ($16) and I also want a panini, any panini ($16), but when the waiter takes my order he says, “add chicken?” really fast about the salad, which makes me feel like he wants that to be my meal - not the salad and the panini. So I’m like, okay, add the grilled chicken. To get back at him, I order the meatballs ($12) on last minute impulse. It’s a weird meal and it costs too much money.
My friend who’s a lawyer is talking to a law student. Unprovoked, the student addresses me: “I take it you’re not a lawyer.” I give some sort of impish response. Can you smell the way I’ve been adrift in life? Does it linger on me, even now? Or am I just wearing silly shoes.
I watched fireworks here last year. I had more friendships, but I realize now they were probably hollow. I’m told I’m incredibly perceptive, and it feels like I’m being pat on the head. Good dog! I usually sniff out the bad ones, but I will admit I’ve grown tired.
“New York needs a new coat of paint.”
I write that down in my notebook.
I am watching the new season of The Bear. I am incredibly affected by the seventh episode of the season; it’s titled “Forks.” It’s an episode about Richie. Usually I hate Richie.
I am not 45 and I don’t have a daughter or a best friend who committed suicide, but I am still the saddest character on every show. Richie learns about the value of service and hard work as a stage for a Michelin star restaurant. I google what dining in a Michelin star restaurant is really like, if they really stalk your instagram. No answers are obtained, but Ally and I agree later we would still like to dine at a Michelin star restaurant for once in our lives.
I am out to dinner with a friend from college; we talk about careers and somewhere through the conversation I realize I am deeply unhappy.
I see what looks like a pool of blood on the hardwood floor - I follow it to nowhere. The waitress wonders what I’m transfixed by. The blood is water from the AC unit; I shouldn’t have investigated, it should have just stayed a pool of blood.
My belly sticks out at odd angles around me when I look in the unflattering bathroom mirrors. Am I pregnant? I buy a pregnancy test and a card for my coworker who is quitting.
I don’t take the pregnancy test because I know I’ve only gotten fatter, but I obviously give the card to my coworker. It sort of feels like I’m watching a prisoner who dug a hole escape.
Let’s look at the positives: I just tried Trader Joe’s freeze dried mangoes and I love them. They are so simple and satisfying to crunch.
Let’s look at the negatives: they melt in your mouth before swallowing; it leaves a mush-like residue you spend a few minutes batting your tongue around. The taste evaporates.
I go to the park to read and the boys playing by the water are all enormous. They remind me of my cousin Austin, who was always bulky. He tried to lean into it, he would enter eating contests - but he could never win. It felt impossibly sad - to eat so much but not enough. You lose, then you must feel sick. My other cousin Nicole and I would build a gingerbread house every year together during Christmas time and one year Austin bet he could eat all of it. He did not. This is a story to remind you of men’s ceaseless hubris.
The way you touch my hand is like nothing ever done before. I put my palm out flat for you, and you stroke it. It’s satisfying, you’ve probably done it to all the loves of your many lives.
I have to pick up lunch for the office. As I stand in line, I see beautiful cupcakes. I buy one with the company card, burying it in the fridge when I return. After lunch, I sneak into an empty room to unbox my gift. It’s red velvet, which always begs the question: is it real?
Some red velvet can be fake - food coloring and chocolate. Sleight of hand, not magic. People think they taste the difference. My grandfather had it every year for his birthday.
I am eating a dead man’s favorite dessert. I eat it somberly, like I am sitting at his funeral for the second time. I desperately wish he’d come back now.
I want to die, only to wake up and say, “the joke was very funny; you can come out now.” And he would enter from stage left, humble and perfect to me.
The first thought I had when he died was that it was good, because now I could also die. If I ate red velvet more, I would worry about mortality less.
Another social event I am failing at, I write sadly in my notebook, only to myself:
the world is over. it has been over. no more cold women, no more judgmental men. one more drink though. i’ve slipped into the spinning party light. i won’t cry, it’ll ruin everything.
