Boyfriends I have known

The boyfriend of why don’t you introduce me as your boyfriend?
The boyfriend of peeled oranges.
The boyfriend of plums, and a sister who said my toenails were too short, and subleases.
The boyfriend of implied mob connections.
The boyfriend of poetry.
The boyfriend of folk songs about Jesus.
The boyfriend of arguments I couldn’t win, whom I married.
The boyfriend of big hands and sports radio.
The spirit boyfriend, who jumped to his death years later.
The musician boyfriend.
The boyfriend of friends in bands.
The lawyer.
The bartender.
The boyfriend of one concert.
The boyfriend of one Christmas party, in the coat room.
The boyfriend who already had a boyfriend.
The boyfriend of nine phone calls.
The boyfriend of email, and the boyfriend of long-hand letters.
Neither took to the other form, or any other form.
The boyfriend of Germanic insistence.
The boyfriend of homoerotic resistance.
The boyfriend of endless discussions about becoming my boyfriend.
The boyfriend of we can’t have sex because we’re not in love.
The boyfriend of I didn’t break up with you, you broke up with me.
The boyfriend of if we’re not married in ten years let’s get together.
The boyfriend of if I move back let’s get together.
The boyfriend of we’re compatible.
The boyfriend of sadness that could not be allayed.
The boyfriend of arrogance who would not be swayed.
The boyfriend of old money who declined to pay.
The accented boyfriend.
The boyfriend of bow lips and jail time.
The boyfriend of laughter, pale and pasty-faced.
The friend's boyfriend.
The boyfriend who left a change sorter.
The boyfriend who left a photo of Greece.
The boyfriend of tiny birds and Ford F-150s.
The boyfriend who left one shirt, blue, neatly folded, in a drawer I don’t open.
I think that was one boyfriend too many.

How many times do I have to learn, it's not about me?

So Dave and I are headed out last night, to sit shiva with a friend whose dad died a couple of days ago. Things are tense for a couple of reasons already: we're late, we're nervous, Dave worked all night and it's catching up with him--that's more than a couple.

Why are we late? Because we'd planned to leave at 6:30, but I didn't get into the shower til 7:00. Why not? Probably because I was nervous about going to this event. For all the reasons I usually get nervous about wakes and funerals: I won't know what to say; I won't know anyone; I will be intruding. etc. And given that it's a Jewish friend, I can add, I don't know how to sit shiva. I don't know what to bring. This is not helped by leaving at 7:30 at night.

Baked goods, I have been advised. Something really for the other guests. That's easy. There are many great bakeries around. I can pick something up during the day, when they are open. Except I didn't, because I don't know what I was doing yesterday. Not working on the screenplay. Oh yeah, I spent most of the day messing with audio clips to send Lloyd for Obscure News because I wouldn't be at the meeting. Because I was going to sit shiva. Which, as a nonJew, I don't even feel I have the right to say. I was going to pay my respects while they sat shiva. And of course, in retrospect I could have gone to the meeting because I didn't get in the shower til seven anyway. Anyway.

So the thing starts at seven. It's about a half-hour away. We figure, as long as we get there by eight, eight-fifteen, we're okay.

We get in the car, start driving. Dave asks, "Do you have the directions?" "I thought you had them." Heavy sighs. No one's pointing fingers. We drive home. I run up and get directions which are sitting next to the door. Get back in the car. More heavy sighs. We start out again.

I remind him, "Go up to Kedzie, I need to stop for something to bring."
"Right." He turns onto Kedzie. Most bakeries are closed at 7:30 at night. All the cute little places like Bulldog Bakery, and Kitchen Chicago, and Dinkels. And I don't want to get something from a grocery store. It will look like I didn't plan ahead. But the baclava bakery on Kedzie is always open. And they have fantastic baklava and are very nice. So Dave parks, and I go in. It's 7:30, it will be empty, right?

Almost empty. One guy is leaving with his purchase, a woman is standing at the counter waiting for hers. Perfect. The man behind the counter smiles as I come in. he’s filling a large box with baklava and all kinds of honey-drenched delicacies. Are they all called baklava? The woman says, “You can go ahead, too.”

“Oh no,” I say politely, “That’s all right.” After all, how long can it take to fill her order?

“Thank you very much,” says the man behind the counter. He continues filling the box. The woman is eating a pastry as she waits. The man fills the tray. He hands me a piece of baklava. “For your being so patient,” he says.

“Wow, thank you!” I decide to save it for Dave, who probably doesn’t feel as fat as I do right now.

The man finishes loading the box, and carries it to a work table. There I see a few other filled boxes. Which he then packs into sturdier packing boxes. Which he then secures with strapping tape around every seam. And then adds Nazareth Sweets labels to. And then weighs. And then offers a price to the woman. “How does sixty-seven dollars sound?”

“It sounds great!” she says, and gives him her credit card. Which he processes. Then he takes her unfinished pastry and packs it in a to-go-container, which he then wraps in shrink wrap. And then packs in a small shopping bag. The woman is effusive in her thanks. About twenty minutes have gone by now. In terms of lateness anxiety, I have gone from nervous to resigned. The woman prepares to leave, and I hold the door open for her. I can see Dave sitting in the car. I don’t want to think about what he must be thinking. “Now, what can I do for you?” says the man behind the counter.

“I would just like a box of cookies,” I say.

“From down there?” The man points to the cookie area, a little surprised. Of course he is. He has the best baclava in the entire world, and all different kinds of it, or whatever it’s called. But while waiting, I suddenly wondered, is it disrespectful to bring sweets from a middle eastern establishment, perhaps an Arab establishment, to a Jewish house in mourning? I mean, I don’t know this guy’s politics. What if he hates the Jewish people? But he couldn’t. He’s so nice, and such a good baker. Maybe he is Jewish, for all I know. God, I’m ignorant. And I know my friend David has Arab friends. But still. Does a box of baklava say somehow, screw you? So yeah, I have to go with the possibly less-delicious cookies, because they will be invisible. “Yep,” I answer cheerfully, “just cookies."

But what if he thinks I hate his baklava? I haven’t touched the one he gave me. Is he eyeing the untouched piece in my hand? I take a nibble, to demonstrate my support of his baklava.

Another ten minutes go by as he carefully packs the box. As many times as I say, just an assortment, he consults me on each selection. He also advises on which ones he doesn’t recommend. I want to scream, “Just pack anything,” but I hold it back. At this point, what difference does it make? We’re going to get to Dave’s mom’s house, and everyone including David will be gone, and David’s mom is going to open the door in her nightgown and ask confusedly, Who are you and what do you want? So there’s really no rush.

At last, my cookies are ready. “It’s twelve sixty-seven,” says the man. “Twelve is good.” I get out my money, and we introduce ourselves to each other. He teaches me to pronounce his name.

Khalid loves the Italian people. “I have some Italian friends,” he tells me, “And they are so crazy!” He seals up my box, then slaps a large, pretty “Nazareth Sweets” sticker on the box. I see there’s Arabic writing also on the label. So much for ethnic anonymity. I might as well have done the baklava. And as a matter of fact, I think the first time I had baklava, it was in the house of some Jewish friends. Oh God, get me out of here.

Not yet. “I have something special for you to try,” Khalid says, and begins packing me a to-go container of special treats from the baklava section. “That’s not necessary,” I protest. “It’s to thank you,” he says. He wraps the container in shrink. Then puts it in a small shopping bag.

We say our good byes, and I make it out to the car, where Dave’s been waiting about a half-hour. We sigh heavily. “It’s gonna be one of the nights,” I say carefully. “I’m sorry I was so late. It’s just gonna be like that all night.” Dave nods. We head for the highway, but just before we get there, we run into the scene of a recent accident, where cop cars and an ambulance have gathered. So Dave takes a detour.

Finally, we get to the house. Which is filled with people. And David sees us right away and comes to greet us. And thanks us for the sweets. And hands them to someone and asks her to write down what they are and who brought them. Dave and I exchange a worried glance.

David spends the next half-hour talking with us and making sure we have something to eat and drink, even though as he explains, the family is not supposed to serve others but be served. Which, as so many things in the Jewish faith do, makes so much sense. I love the directness of this religion. The complete acceptance of emotional intensity.

Before we leave, we greet David’s mom. She is beautiful in her naked emotion that somehow doesn’t evoke pity. “It’s been a long, hard week,” she says matter-of-factly.

When we leave, we feel elated. I confess how nervous I was to Dave, and he tells me he felt the same way. “But it’s always better to go,” he says as we drive home. “Because it’s not about us.”

And he’s right. It’s not about anything. It’s just the act of connecting with people we love and care about, at all stages in the cycle of life and death. That’s what makes us whole and alive.

But I do need to get the scoop on the whole baklava thing.

Can't put my finger on it

I recently booked a voiceover gig. A friend who's a radio producer called me in, as he does from time to time. Easy money, good excuse to catch up with friend, and great opportunity to do some voice work, which I love, without putting in the long hours of trying to get an agent, make a demo, everything I'd have to do to seriously pursue a voiceover career. I consider myself lucky, until I mention it to Mom. "Yeah, I got a voiceover gig coming up."
"Really, Mar? With who, that friend of yours?"
"Yeah, Jim. It sounds fun. It's for a commercial."
"Oh, Mar. I'm so glad he gives you something, to keep you hanging on."

overheard at paradise sushi on valentine's day

"Well, it's not like I tried to hit him with something."

Retraction

Today at the park, a woman walked by and complimented my dog. "She has such pretty markings!" I said, "Thank you," and kept walking. Then I stopped under the trees and berated myself. Why did I say thank you, like she was giving me a compliment? Django's marking aren't any of my doing. Am I thanking her for complimenting my taste in dogs? Am I thanking her, like, by proxy for Django, implying that Django would thank her if only she spoke English? Am I thanking her for a comment that wasn't meant as a compliment, but just an observation? Any way you look at it, I'm an idiot. The only worse thing I could do is run after the lady, now halfway across the park, "Um, excuse me! Excuse me!"
"Oh! Hello again." The lady stops.
"Uh, I just wanted to say, what I said back there, I'd like to take it back."
"What you said?"
"You know, saying thank you when you said, about her markings."
The woman is stunned. She doesn't know whether to be insulted or scared. She leashes up her chubby brown Lab. I babble on. "I mean, I think they're pretty markings, too."
"Yes," she says, "They certainly are pretty markings. You are lucky to have such a pretty dog. And you must have great taste, to have picked her out. And you can tell her for me, I'll bet she's a very, very lucky little dog herself. There, are you satisfied? Come on, Brownie." And off they go. Or would. If I had said anything other than thank you.
Which of course I didn't.

Buy your TV from a Technician

on 294, on the west side of the highway, there is a painted billboard that reads: "Buy your TV from a Technician!" That's it. No organization name. No product name.

Presumably, someone paid to have that sign created. they paid to have it posted. but who? and why?

Writers' Blog: Why Be A Freelance Writer?

for future reference. not this particular article, which rounds up the usual suspects, but the blog in general.

Writers' Blog: Why Be A Freelance Writer?

More Thermal Units of Love

I was in New York for a few days. I wanted to get this book I’d heard about on NPR at this store that was all about love. I was walking by and saw the store. It was next door to a store where they sold love relationships, but that place was more like a dating service. This was more like universal love. A store unabashedly dedicated to the study of love.

I went in and there were books and cards, each one about love. There werew all kinds of people perusing the shelves. A young woman in a sari. A tall bearded man with red hair and blue eyes. The owner was a white man with brown hair—thin and very energetic, happy. He greeted me when I came in but didn’t ask if I needed help. I walked in among all the people browsing the shelves and tried to look like I knew what I was looking for, though suddenly I couldn’t think of the name of the book. At the back of the store I looked at a book called Love: A Meditation in Free Verse. Was that it? I didn’t think so.

I walked back through the store to leave. The owner called after me, “Mar!” How did he know my name? I stopped. He said, “Did you take a picture?”

I realized he’d seen the camera in my open purse when I walked in. He thought I was there to make fun, like they were some weirdo place, but he didn’t mind. I said, “No, I didn’t.”

“Take a picture!”

“Okay, I will! Can I take one with you?” I thought maybe against a wall of books would be nice. The owner called the redheaded guy over and handed him the camera. The redhead looked at me suspiciously, and I explained. “I heard about this place on NPR and they were talking about this book. I knew I’d be in New York in a few days, so I figured I’d just come by.”

The redhead gave the bookstore owner a little shove and said, “See? NPR.” The owner nodded. Red continued, “You could have done a promotion around that.”

The bookstore owner shrugged. This was apparently an old battle between them. “Yes, yes. Go on, MT.”

How did he know my nickname? I continued, “I had the title clear in my head the whole time, then I walked in here and just totally forgot it."

Red looked me straight in the eyes, and I looked back. Two hearts that beat as one NPR receiver. We looked at the store owner. He smiled. “That happens, MT.”

“You called me Mary when I came in.”

“All women are daughters of Mary.”

“What about MT?”

“More Therms,” he said. “It’s an endearment. It’s short for More Thermal Units of Love.”

There's no mechanic in New York I trust

I'm listening to Car Talk. Geez this guy is a jerk. "There's no mechanic in New York I trust." How can I express my outrage? And my twinge of guilt because he must be a lonely son-of-a-bitch.
He lives in Yonkers, works in Queens. He wants so bad to make friends with Tom and Ray but he's entrenched in being a clumsy jerk. Jerk, that's too clumsy a word. But what do you call it when someone is so afraid to look like a fawning idiot that he just puts down his subject like a-- oh, is that what I'm doing? And why does it matter? The car talk guys can handle it. I mean, the guy says, "You guys are funny, huh? You're always laughin'. You gotta be stupid to be funny, right?" And somehow they get him to tell them his problem, and once he gets it out he falls over himself trying to insert invitations to them to come fix his car themselves. "I don't trust-- There's no mechanic in New York I trust. Can you come fix it? I'll give you a danish."
To all this the Car Talk guys glide over it. They don't even bother to reply. I mean, they're classy. So in the time it takes me to rant about this guy they've moved on and are helping someone else. So why am I even talking about this? Because of course it resounds in something in me that I hate. Namely, my mix of shame and pride that muddies a simple impulse like admiration. Note to self.

Yep...

Yep...

My Computer Cart and Me

I am hopeless. I realize that now. Dan was sitting in here and saw my computer cart and said, “After all that, you ended up with computer cart.”

I was printing out something he’d emailed me to print for him, so I didn’t catch on for a moment. Computer cart. Then I realized I was sitting at one. And I remembered that I’d had another, slightly larger computer cart, back when Dan and I lived together. That one, I got because the old pressed word one at our old place was too yucky to come along to the new condo we were buying together. I wanted all new and streamlined things.

We ended up buying two identical metal computer carts at Ikea. We had this vision of rolling them around in our new condo, working wherever we felt like it. Complete and total freedom. That was before we realized that the carts were too wide to fit through any doorways. And ultimately, that bright shiny new condo, with its freshly sanded floors and sparkling windows, became just another home that was too cluttered, too inconveniently laid out, too full of memories. When in doubt, just add a period and move on.

Dan had moved out one November morning, then moved back in “as friends” until he could find a new place. Meanwhile, I started dating Dave, and a year later Dave and I moved into a bright shiny condo about two blocks from the old one. On the fridge is a list of things we want to do to this place. Dan looked at the list when he came to visit today. “You want to retile the kitchen floor?” He looked at our floor. “Why?”

“We’ve had that list up for a while,” I said defensively. It’s a perfectly good floor, after all. “I want it to be warmer in here, not all white and antiseptic.”

Dan makes me feel like I have my priorities wrong, for caring about the feel of a floor when I could be living instead. But he makes me feel sad too, like he is a drifter looking for a place to call home. It’s hard to believe we were once a couple. We’ve hardened in different molds since then. He lives in Pilsen with a girl just out of college, and Dave and I are here, in a place with a to-do list, a place that is already nice enough as it is.

Dan called this morning at 9:30, to see if I wanted to meet at the dog park. He had to drive Qarly (her real spelling) to a workshop downtown and had a few hours to kill. He wouldn’t like that use of the word kill. I eventually always end up not being able to breathe around the man I love because I take it personally how they’d take offense at my use of the word kill in the wrong context, or how I’d disapprove of theirs, or how they’d take offense at my honesty, or how I’d be destroyed by theirs. Somehow Dave and I keep a respectful distance without being cold and insular.

So I met Dan at the park. His dog Franklin (once ours) ran up to me wearing his little red coat from the Land’s End thrift store, that has “Lama” embroidered on it. The Land’s End thrift store sells new Land’s End merchandise that’s been returned, so either someone had a dog named Lama but the coat didn’t fit, or the embroiderers at Land’s End spelled Lana wrong and had to eat the mistake. My dog Django (also once ours) liked Franklin’s coat because she could grab it and pull him around when they ran. She’s a cattle dog and likes to pull things around. The faster the better.

Dan and I walked and talked, sometimes but not really much taking each other in. More trading information. He told me about his new show that opened last night, and how he drank afterwards for the first time in a long time and it made his head hurt today. And I told him how last week I had a fancy beer at a fancy restaurant and how that hurt my head the next day. It’s like small talk you’d have with anyone at the dog park but it’s not just anyone, it’s a previous part of yourself.

We ran into my friend Rokko and his dog Cinnamon. Rokko recently broke up with his girlfriend and they are now being “friends” and he and I have talked about the many-layered difficulties of this situation, and here I was with Dan. I saw Rokko eyeing him with his half-closed eyes and wondered if he knew who this was. Then Dan asked about some guy who used to come the park, “that big guy who used to come with the big dog who worked in the basement of Marshall Fields?”

“He doesn’t come around anymore,” I said. “His wife left him and he moved to Lincoln Park for a change of scene.” Rokko started backing away. I felt like he somehow thought I was making an analogy to him. Odder still, I felt like I was, but couldn’t think of exactly what the analogy would be. That we all get hurt? And move on?

Anyway, we moved on. Said goodbye to Rokko and kept going. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to get away from us or walk with us so we just headed for the trees. Dan said Rokko was eyeing him, and imitated him. We saw the guy whose wife died last year—though he doesn’t know I know this about him—and his dog Misty, whom Django used to go ballistic at but now just eyed warily as she begged treats from the guy. In fact, there was one horrible incident years ago, when Dan I were together, and the guy’s wife must have still been alive but probably ill, when Misty attacked Django and Dan threw down his coffee and got them apart. The guy didn't help, and it made Dan livid. Now here we were and they seemed like they’d never met before. Am I the only one who thinks this matters?

After the park, Dan and Franklin came over and we all went out for breakfast. We went to a diner in the neighborhood and bumped into neighbor Dave. (We call him neighbor Dave to distinguish him from my Dave.) He’d just sat in a booth and invited us to join him. Breakfast was excellent, and neighbor Dave was the perfect buffer to turn a potentially awkward breakfast with boyfriend and old boyfriend into a cozy breakfast of folks who care about each other in this city of strangers. Dan and neighbor Dave discovered a fascination with scientific theories of what’s going to destroy the world as we know it, and my Dave was informed and interested in all things as he usually is, and I sat back and felt safe and loved.

We left neighbor Dave there to play Sudoku before he left for his haircut. Dan came in to pick up Franklin and his printout. He said how cozy our house is, in a way that made me feel he either pitied me for wasting my time creating coziness when I could be making art, or pitied himself for his headache or his restless spirit that keeps him so much on the move. And I wondered when I’d started reading judgment into everything he says. Because it wasn’t always like there.

Once I was just a woman waking up in his bed one morning to fresh pastries he’d brought me from the Greek bakery down the street and a mug of coffee he’d made. Three or four baklava and other honey-drenched goodies in a little foil container. I was still asleep and he placed the container on the pillow next to me and woke me up. That’s right, it wasn’t coffee, it was a cold glass of water which I crave when I wake up.

His bedroom was in the sunroom of an apartment he shared with two other actors, and the light was beautiful. I feasted on those pastries and basked in the glow of being surprised with a treat. And a few years later, we were at the park, me telling him I made banana bread and him singing me the Farewell to 2005 song he’d written for his show, and neither of us exactly listening but in another way listening hard, to the people we’d become and the friendship we are possibly, or impossibly, trying to have.

Why did I say I am hopeless? If anything, I am too full of hope. I seem to believe that old lovers really can be friends, when everyone knows it’s not that simple.I started out wanting to write about this because I felt angry at myself for feeling defensive about my repeated purchases of a computer cart. But we all have our weird little obsessions. Dan’s recent decision never to cut his hair again no matter what. Neighbor Dave putting notes on the windshield of cars that don’t park in a way to make room for a second car. My Dave and his perfectionism with whatever his current project happens to be. These are not limiting factors. We are each of us too complex and also too self-involved to really take in the whole of anyone else, so we pick up on patterns and obsessions, and trade jokes and intimacies on them to show that we see each other, and remember.

It’s not even sad, except maybe in that time-passes sort of way in which everything lovely is sad. But if you buy into that time-is-cyclical and doesn’t actually pass, but rather each moment is laid out side by side, all right now, the storming of the Bastille and the first man on the moon and pastries in bed and the first time Dave kissed me and the moment Dan dropped the coffee, all moments happening now, all folded into time because that’s the only way we can experience it, then it’s really all quite nice. Maybe you haven’t loved and lost, maybe you’ve just been given a hell of a lot of nice moments for one person.

So what if I want to admit right now that this computer cart isn’t quite right either, because the tray keeps sliding back in while I type and it’s just a little high for my wrists? You’ll understand, won’t you, that I’m not obsessing for the wrong reasons. I’m not living a metaphor. I’m just kind of picky about my computer cart interaction. Period.