Heartbreak Soup

You know what, I actually really suck at being flirtatious.  I either end up negging dudes out of autopilot wisecracking-modeness, or I give them the impression that they could totally take me home and do it to me right then and there, because I have no middle settings.  This is a real problem, especially right now when I don’t want anyone to do it to me ever again because, you know, that ends in tears.  Also because gah, so time-consuming and complicated and so much to think about!  I hope I get over feeling like this soon; it’s a weird feeling and not one that I’ve ever, uh, felt before.

Anyway this is an example of how bad I am at flirting.

I walked into my corner coffeeshop today, where every staff member already knows me by name because I work from home and go there at least twice a day.  The counter boy, who is Basque and who I guess I could imagine being cute if I, you know, was still capable of finding boys cute at all, was listening to Kate Bush, “Running Up That Hill.”

“You’re listening to Kate Bush!” I exclaimed.  We talked about Kate for a while.  “I think she’s better than Tori Amos,” he said.  Uh, duh, that’s like saying that Kiss is better than MiniKiss.  But whatever, he … likes Kate Bush!  We talked about getting really high and listening to “The Dreaming” and trying to figure out what is up with that. Then I was like,

“You know, I feel like my exboyfriend is the only straight man alive who likes Kate Bush.”

The counter boy nodded.

“Oh, so you’re gay then, ” I said.

“No!  No, I am not gay!” said the counter boy, looking wounded.

You know, if I only could’ve, I’d have made a deal with God and gotten him to swap our places.  Heh.

So now we have R.E.C. on E.D.G. and vice versa. I promise there will be a recipe in the next post! But I just moved into a new apartment, uh, one and a half weeks ago and I’ve yet to unpack my dishes. And R.E.C. is now a couchsurfing Californian, and probably not in a position to cook much either.

1. What word or couple of words or phrase comes to mind when you think of me?
Do you remember that part in Lolita where HH talks about thinking of a loved one, closing your eyes, and seeing their features imprinted in your mind in perfect detail like a photograph? It’s a very lyrical and poetic passage and of course extremely sexualized and skeevy, but minus those overly pervy/artyfarty aspects, that’s how I think of you. It’s not like a list of qualities or words, it’s just like, E.D.G., you know? And my mental picture of you is always smiling, for some reason. But I see what this is getting at, so:
honest to a perilous degree, neurotic, intelligent, perceptive

2. If you had to describe me to a friend of yours who had never met me, what would you say?
Probably something like, “She’s really funny and smart, she works for [mystery workplace], and has some awesome tattoos.”

3. What was your first impression of me? How has your opinion of me evolved over the years?

I came in to shadow Z for a day at [our former shared workplace] before I started for real the following week, and all of us went out for lunch — you, me, Z, Nicole, Laura Lee. We ate in the park and I remember you picking and picking at your food and then barely eating half of it. You had a lot of nervous energy and I definitely noticed that. I remember thinking at different moments that you were both very nice (you complimented my hair, oddly) and kind of in-your-face honest and competitive, like, you asked me right away what kinds of books I wanted to work on, and if I wanted to write or not, in this way that made it clear you were defending your turf. After that you went on sort of a monologue about your career so far — how you felt about everything, and I remember thinking that it was kind of a lot of info to give to a stranger.

Even though you were a bit prickly, I did pretty much like you right away. I think I sensed that we had a lot in common.

Re: Evolving opinions, ha! Obviously you are divulge-y and in-your-face honest and those two qualities inform a lot of what I like about you. You are competitive too but I don’t really think of that much now, probs because we are now friends in a way we weren’t on that park bench and we don’t work together anymore. So that’s probably not in the top 5 Things about E or even 10 really. I think you are a really good person but I no longer think the word “nice” accurately describes your goodness. . . I think nice has a superficial element that you are sort of fundamentally unable to sustain.
I think working at [that place! Where E works!] has made you more judgmental and impatient (sorry!)and New York-y but it’s also made me realize the sort of terrifying extent of your intelligence and talent. Obviously I have always admired your smarts but now I REALLY admire them.

5. When they write my obituary, what would you predict I’ll end up being known for?

writing, sophistication, being a heartbreaker
6. Why do you think people don’t like me immediately? What is it about me that rubs people the wrong way, and ultimately, what is it that ends up winning them over (cough cough, hopefully)?

I think you can come off as overly self-involved but you generally win people over with the funny. That and your good heart. Now do me!

Okay!
1. What word or couple of words or phrase comes to mind when you think of me?

Serious, industrious, sad, brilliant, maddeningly insecure for no good reason, self-sacrificing, Good, writer, empathetic, endlessly patient and giving, much hotter than you realize

2. If you had to describe me to a friend of yours who had never met me, what would you say?

I’m so happy you’re going to meet my friend R. She’s my best friend in the world and I have no idea what I did to deserve her. You’ll like her (and then they always do, people always like you)

3. What was your first impression of me? How has your opinion of me evolved over the years?
I told you this earlier, but you were acting so fake on the day we met. I was really determined to find out what was under the super-buttoned-up facade. You were determined to be so professional at that lunch, and my agendas were twofold: establishing myself as, like, the chief Heather of the office (gross! and not how I thought of it/myself at the time, but just sadly true) and trying to let you know what you were in for, vis a vis the job you had just taken! I wanted to see if I could get you to be real so that I’d feel more comfortable being like “Dude, your new boss is a psycho cunt,” basically. I’m sure I said that anyway.

Uh, I keep saying I, and this is supposed to be about you. Anyway, I thought you were a boring blah gradgrind who didn’t care about anything besides Making It In Publishing. And now I think you’re one of the smartest, funniest, most perceptive people alive. So, you know, I was wrong.

5. When they write my obituary, what would you predict I’ll end up being known for?
Something you’ve written.
6. Why do you think people don’t like me immediately? What is it about me that rubs people the wrong way, and ultimately, what is it that ends up winning them over (cough cough, hopefully)?

People do like you immediately, so this isn’t relevant. I think what ends up really sealing the deal, though, is that you maybe look like you couldn’t be capable of thinking/saying some incredibly hardcore nasty searingly honest shit and of course you can. Because you have such all-American clean-scrubbed Midwestern good looks, even when you say “fuck” it’s kind of inherently funny and shocking. This I find endlessly endearing.

Jake today, via IM:

“yes i would like to have sex with you more BUT am still not ready to get involved in any sort of relationship and I think to have sex with you, no matter how much i enjoy it, is not a very nice thing to do to you.”

Later, therapy with Susan:

Susan: You have to remember that you’re in process right now, and that the kind of person you want to be with right now probably isn’t indicative of the kind of person you’ll want want to be with in a few months.

Me: I just wanted … I mean, all I wanted was for Jake to, like, go live in an alternate dimension for like a few months or however long it took for me to get over William and become a whole person again and then he could come back to this dimension and, like, be my boyfriend.

Susan: Well even if that was possible he would have to be a whole person by then too.

Me: Maybe … like … scientists could do that to him while he’s in the alternate dimension?

Susan: (waits patiently for me to say something vaguely rational, which I think is a trick they teach you in therapist school)

Me: The other thing is that he did stuff for me that no one has ever done before. Like, emotional stuff but also physical stuff. And that is a BUMMER. I mean, there was this thing he did to my nipples … I’m sorry, is this TMI?

Susan: You’re paying me to talk to me so that’s not really a relevant concept here.

Me: Well. Anyway. IT IS A BUMMER. Will I ever meet another guy who will be able to do that stuff?

Susan: When you’re ready, you will meet that guy.

Me: I will? Um, how do you know? Are you psychic?

Susan: I’m not psychic. I’m just … confident.

Me: Huh. Well, I guess I will choose to believe that. I mean, why not, right?

(Stares at crumpled tissues in lap)

Is the hour up?

Susan: You have another six minutes.

Me: I think I’m going to quit while I’m ahead.

I went back to my old apartment to pack my things and William was there, and he stood in the kitchen with me, not helping, as I bubble-wrapped the grey and blue Otagiri Horizon dishes I’d eaten off as a child. They were the only thing I was taking from the kitchen. Well, those and my cookbooks and my collection of back issues of Cook’s Illustrated and my Cuisinart and my microplane grater. I didn’t even take my one really good knife and my mandoline slicer. Everything that we’d accumulated — read: everything I bought for us— during the three years we’d lived together seemed tainted. Or cheap. Or broken. Or just too much of a bitch to pack. Fuck, anything was a bitch to pack with William hovering over me, chainsmoking and making almost-jokes that I might have laughed at if we’d still been together. Like: after the Israeli movers came and put all the boxes of my books and dishes and my new couch in their truck, and we were pulling away, I got this text from William:

“I hope they gave you the Yid discount.”

WTF, William.

Speaking of offensive stereotypes, I find that Israelis tend to like the shittiest robot-voice late-90s dance music. The first song the Israeli movers and I heard on as we pulled away from my ex-apartment was the WKTU robot-voice standard ‘Do You Think You’re Better Off Alone?’

Sorry, Susan. But that is what happened.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the last time during the move that I had to see William. He was also there when my friend Lori and I came by the next day to pick up my cat. We fought about the money he owes me for bills, and it was sad to watch him goodbye to the cat. And as I was leaving he asked me for a hug and I felt obligated and so I hugged him and as I did he said, very softly “I hate this” and for just that one second every moment we’d spent that close together came rushing back at me.

And I dreamed about him that night, too. Ugh.

The problem is how comfortable I feel around him, in spite of the fact that at this point I basically feel that he’s a crazy person who I sort of hate. And I know it’ll be forever until I feel that comfortable around anyone again. Or maybe I’ll never feel that comfortable around anyone ever again. Maybe we were too comfortable, and that was the problem.

So now I live alone. Living alone is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I can’t even tell you how satisfying it is to, for example, look down at the toothbrush cup and only see one toothbrush. It’s kind of like that Jewel song ‘You Were Meant For Me,’ only not wistful. Like “I brush my teeth and put the cap back on/and I know for a fact that it’s going to remain on/thank fucking God.” I really cannot recommend living alone highly enough. How wonderful it is to not have to think about or care about anyone but yourself and your diabetic cat, at all, ever! In fact, I was just now singing the praises of living alone to my friend Bennett on IM at like 10:00 at night. “Lol. I always need to live with someone so that I won’t degenerate into complete filth,” he told me. “Oh, gotta go, my boo is home!” “I want a boyfriend,” I caught myself thinking. And then that song came on my iTunes.

Music is so fucking psychic for me lately, right?

A wave (oh, just bear with me) of manic energy propelled me through the month after my breakup with William and then it, uh, crested and broke right on top of me, leaving me feeling pretty much like how you feel when you’re bodysurfing and that happens. Like, I have sand in my ears and water in my nose I’m not quite sure where the shore is and I’m still a little bit exhilarated but mostly I’m just impressed that I didn’t drown. (“Enough with the metaphors” is something my therapist Susan says pretty often).

I’m almost nostalgic for the manic month. I loved everyone! I was going to accomplish EVERYTHING! I was going to relearn French! How could I possibly avoid doing yoga and swimming every day? I could spend however much money I needed to and it wouldn’t matter because the Universe was going to send me some big lump sum soon (this actually worked out, but I highly don’t recommend it as a financial strategy), I could just feel it! Good things just kept happening and happening to me and the only real problems in my life were that sometimes people on the street in front of me walked so slowly that I wanted to kill them, sleep was almost impossible, and I was occasionally filled with the nagging feeling you get when you’re boarding a plane and you know you’ve forgetten to pack something for your trip but you can’t quite remember what it was.

It turns out, of course, that the stuff I forgot to toss into my carryon ( Susan: “Seriously. Stop.”) was anxiety and depression. I think I’m plagiarizing the one chapter of that motherfucking Elizabeth Gilbert book that I actually read with this terrible metaphor, but you know what? Fuck it. It’s apt. It’s about how she went off Wellbutrin in Italy because she was like “Who could be depressed in Italy!!!” as soon as she got there and then once the honeymoon period was over she was like “Oh. me!” I can relate, unfortunately. I can relate to fucking Elizabeth Gilbert. This alone is enough to make me feel depressed.

And anxious. Fuck! I really had myself convinced that if I never smoked pot again and if I established a real daily yoga practice, it would be, like, chemically impossible for me to ever have another panic attack. This theory was disproved today when I found myself lying on Jake’s bed, short of breath and with a pounding heart for all the wrong reasons.

So after a week of not seeing Jake, and feeling really ambivalent about seeing Jake, I’d finally felt comfortable enough with the rules I’d established in my head about him to make plans with him. The rules were: I am not allowed to expect anything of him and that’s the only way for this to stay fun. I am not allowed to treat him like a boyfriend by being so to-a-fault open and honest with him because it just makes me feel like a big emotional open wound, and I know now that he is right there with a salt-shaker, just haphazardly flinging salt around, not even realizing that some of it is landing in the wound (Susan: *rolls eyes*). I’m going to keep his flaws at the forefront of my mind. I am not even going to think about “love.” Or the other girls.

And then on Wednesday morning, when I was supposed to go on date with Jake Wednesday evening, I had a random question about the cats for William and instead of emailing him I decided, since our accidental meeting had gone so well, to just call him. He’s so easy to talk to (well, of course he is, I’ve been talking to him more than anyone else for six years). We were affectionate in a totally new way, this friendly way that felt good and not overly-intimate. We just chatted about nothing mostly. Really this is the moment of our conversation I do remember: we were talking about how for the first month I was eating insane amounts, like oatmeal and eggs for breakfast tacos for lunch and ribs for dinner, and how he’d gone in an opposite direction, mostly because while I’d thrown myself into my workouts he’d buried himself in American Spirits. “You’ve lost easily 20 lbs, ” I told him. “Fuck, is it really 20 lbs? Well, no one is cooking me pork chops,” he said, chuckling. “Are you worried about me?” “I am and I’m not, because I believe in you that you can take care of yourself,” I told him honestly. I heard him smiling on the other end of the line. “Yeah, I’m worried and not worried about you, too,” he said.

It turns out that it’s way too early for us to be chatting on the phone like friends. I know this because I canceled my plans with Jake that night in order to cry, talk on the phone with my girlfriends, and walk the dog I’m dogsitting a million miles. In fact, it was when I was doing these things simultaneously (bad idea!) when I walked into an iron gate and stubbed my toe so badly that right now it’s barely walkable and actually might need medical attention. Gah.

Still, today, I managed to hobble into Manhattan to see Jake. I had been feeling okay about seeing him, even looking forward to it. It’s hard to pinpoint when ‘happy anticipation’ morphed into ‘full-on panic,’ but as soon as I set foot in his apartment I realized I wasn’t going to be able to fake my way through it. “Jake, I’m having a panic attack from seeing you. This is not a good sign, ” I said, clutching my knees and staring at his bookshelves as my conscious brain tried vainly to convince my autonomic nervous system that there was no sabretoothed tiger that it needed to be running away from anywhere in the room. What Jake did: tried to distract me with talking, strumming his guitar, and getting really into trying to learn how to whistle the intro to ‘The Stranger.’ His bedside manner was perfect, now that I think about it. Except the part where he said “Yeah, I’m used to this, my sister’s kind of bipolar” and I was like “HEY I AM NOT BIPOLAR” (of course, my secret fear is that I am bipolar. But I really don’t think I am.) “No one in the actual psychiatric community has ever told me that I’m bipolar, Jake,” I informed him, and he smiled. Later we talked about what’s wrong with him (I called his workouts compulsive and he was like “not compulsive! It’s fun to work out!” and then I was like “for four hours a day?” and he was like “ballet is expressing yourself with movement!” And then I did something that I thought was brave (or stupid): brought up how he’s like his dad in re: wanting to have a girl in every port. “I’m not like that,” he said quickly. “‘I want to be with you when I’m in New York,’” I quoted him. “Did I say that?” he asked. “Yeah, you said that.” “I mean, did I say that or did I say my Dad said that?” “You said that.” He didn’t tense up or pull away. He laughed. “I think it’s funny that I had to ask that.” So at least he knows.

And then after a while he took his shirt off, with just a glance in my direction like “Is it okay to take my shirt off?” I am bad at describing sex, or maybe everyone is, so I won’t. But just thinking about it now makes me almost too distracted to keep typing. I mostly remember his hands pressing down on my wrists and his being surprised that he was going to come so soon. “It’s been a week,” I reminded him, feeling powerful and powerless at the same time.

Then we made craft projects and then we had sex again and then he went to boxing and I went home, stopping off on the way to buy myself dinner. I thought about going to a restaurant alone, which almost suited the mood I was in. I wanted to be taken care of, and to be alone with my thoughts. But then I realized that I wanted to be alone alone, so I went to Whole Foods. I poked heirloom tomatoes for like five minutes, trying to find ones that weren’t soft, and finally came up with two good ones. I got a little tub of buffalo mozzarella and basil and half a pound of peel’n’ eat shrimp and a bar of swiss milk chocolate with hazelnuts. Here is the recipe for eating this food: cut up the tomatoes and tear up the cheese and basil, sprinkle some good olive oil and salt and pepper on top and eat while watching an HBO show that must not be named. Then make cocktail sauce (lots of horseradish, a little ketchup, lemon juice) and eat it with the shrimp. Then with the chocolate drink a totally respectable Muscat (like R.E.C, I only just recently realized that not all dessert wine is inherently disgusting) and go to bed at 10, feeling better than you have any right to expect to.

Here is everything you need to know about my mom in a brief one-act play.

Cast: Me (E), my mom, well-meaning waitress

Setting: Brooklyn Label

As the scene opens, E is very hungry. Why is she so hungry? Well, moments ago she was sitting across from her exboyfriend at the Pencil Factory. It was the first time they’d seen each other since she left him a little over a month ago. Their meeting was not planned. But? She kind of knew she’d run into him when she began walking past the Pencil Factory, and he had been waiting for her for similarly inexplicable hippie-vibeish reasons. So: he’s really happy, he’s really moving on. He’s smoking again (blue American Spirits) and he’s lost easily 20 lbs. Re: this last detail, part of E is like “Oh shit” and part of her is like “HA! My cooking rules.”

Anyway, there was honesty, looking into each other’s eyes and realizing that the other person is simultaneously the person who knows the other person best in the world and a complete stranger, and crying. This took about 10 minutes. Then E went to meet her Mom, move some furniture into the hippie loft where she’s temporarily quasi-living, and race to the nearest restaurant, which is an ambitious coffeeshop/brunch place called Brooklyn Label that’s been open for dinner for three days. They’re keeping things simple for now: three kinds of mac and cheese, entree salads, half a chicken, steak frites, and fish specials. To reiterate: there are not very many options.

Waitress:Do you guys know what you’d like?

E: Yeah I’ll have the steak frites and a side salad and an iced tea.

Waitress: And for you?

E’s mom: Well, I was thinking about the salad Nicoise. But then I realized that maybe I’m not in the mood for tuna? So I think I’ll have the avocado salad. About how big is that?

Waitress: (gestures)

E’s mom: Oh that’s very big.

E: I’ll eat some if you can’t finish it (edge of desperation already entering voice.)

E’s mom: Well ….

(interminable pause)

Okay I’ll have the avocado salad. That’s what I’ll have.

(Waitress makes as if to escape)

E’s mom: But wait, maybe I need some protein! (Studies menu for fourteen years) This side of black beans? Does it have pork in it?

E: (beginning to lose it) Mom you eat pork.

E’s mom: Sometimes I’m not in the mood for pork.

Waitress: (tragically) I … can check? But I … really don’t think there’s pork in the black beans.

E’s mom: (as if a General conceding defeat in a Civil War battle) Well then I’ll have the avocado salad and a side of black beans.

Waitress: Thanks so much!! (takes menus and runs)

E: Thank you! (overcompensating with chipperness. Beginning to crumble inside as the knowledge that she will be spending the next 48 hours eating in restaurants and walking and driving [oh god no DRIVING] and caring for a diabetic cat at her exboyfriend’s apartment which just the thought of entering it and seeing all her books piled in a corner makes her want to cry and caring for a dog and fielding endless questions about what, exactly, her plans are DAWNS IN EARNEST).

Aaaand: scene.

****

The thing is that I love my mom more than I love probably anyone else in the world, really. Also, she is more like me than anyone else in the world. But I often want to kill her. The thing that keeps her alive is how incredibly sad I would be if she died.