Saturday, February 2, 2008

a REAL new yorker now

hi again! didja miss me? i missed you. really. i did. man, i am farting like crazy today. that's the great thing about being alone. you can fart all you want and it doesn't matter. or pick the gunk out of your toenails. or masturbate. whatever you want! that's why i love being alone. why do you love being alone?

i know i said a couple of posts ago that i was going to start doing a "question of the day." and then the universe stomped on my baby toe and broke it, thus derailing my line of thought for a few days, but i am back, people. i am back! right. so, in case you were wondering, the question up there, in that last paragraph, was NOT the question of the day. that was just a random question. though it may end up being the question of the day if i don't think of anything better by the end of this post. which i have entitled (as you may or may not have noticed) "a REAL new yorker now." (i just farted like 6 times writing that paragraph)

Like most women everywhere all over the planet who are pretty much any adult age do, i base whether or not i am having a great new york life on how directly it correlates to anything i've ever seen in "Sex and the City." And last night, i had a VERY NEW YORK moment. i don't know how many people live here. A lot, okay? Which means that when i lived in West Bumblefuck, I never ever believed it when Carrie or Miranda or Charlotte or Samantha just "happened" to run into someone they used to fuck on the street. I thought to myself, "There are a gajillion people in New York, and they run into that guy? Yeah, right!"

But then, I moved to New York. And what I found out was this: i know less than 1% of the population of this city, easily, probably less than one half of 1%. And yet, every few weeks, i run into someone i know on the street or in a store or in the subway. my theory (which i'm still working on), is something like a ven diagram (and if i knew how to put pictures in my posts, i would draw one for you and put it right here: BLOOP. Where that bloop was. but i don't know how. so you will have to imagine it with me. because i can't see one either. okay, so my theory is that everyone you know is in New York and everyone you know...hmmm, is this really like a ven diagram? nevermind. my point is that everyone you know is probably somewhat like you and runs in the same kind of circles as you and goes to the same kinds of places, so it makes sense if you run into people you know. also, this is a very tiny island. there aren't many places for people to go. i mean, there are. but there aren't. does that make sense?

ALL of that to say that last night, the boyfriend (who has informed me that "Bud" is not a proper moniker and would like to be called "something sexier") and I (and my crutches, and the torrential downpour) went to see a friend of mine perform in a monologue slam (which she won last month, btw). after the show (in which she was amazing but didn't win because the douchebag stage guy forgot to put up a chair for her), she, her husband, the boyfriend, me, and her "photographer" and his wife, traipsed off to look for a close bar because i was on crutches and 80% of my body weight is in my legs, making their use relatively uncomfortable. we found a suitably nondescript Irish bar in NYU territory that didn't seem to be full of too many underage college kids. Booths lined the wall opposite the bar. We found an empty booth, and as everyone was taking their coats off, i heard my name, in stereo, from the booth i was standing in front of.

I didn't hear it at first, then thought someone must be yelling at someone else, but eventually realized i must be the closest person with my name to them and looked over.

It was an ex-boyfriend and several of his female friends that we used to hang out with. My friends saw a bigger, better booth and beelined over, and i said i'd be there in a second. I smiled, asked how they were. They asked why i was on crutches. I told them. I looked at the ex. He was smiling, that light in his eyes. He apparently had forgotten that i had treated him like shit. Well, that's probably good, i thought to myself. At least he wasn't a jerk. After a minute, i politely excused myself to my friends. I hobbled to the booth where they sat, thinking how crazy it was that we just wandered into a random bar and happened to run into my ex. and then, i thought, Oh my God, I must be a real New Yorker. I've lived here long enough that I'm running into exes with my new boyfriend! I'm in! I made it! This totally happened in "Sex and the City"!

We get our drinks. We talk. We laugh. The ex-boyfriend awkwardly brings over a beer at some point "to help my foot get better." i thank him. then i notice that he has scootched to the edge of his booth so that he can watch me from across the bar. so i ignore him. then he gets up and goes to the bathroom, staring at me. i ignore him, the boyfriend's hand on my knee. i add in an extra head toss-back laugh so the the ex knows i'm having fun. because the reason i broke up with him was because he was needy and emotional and got way too attached way to quickly, and then tell him to never speak to me again. several times. he was a leech. a sweet, artistic, sensitive leech. that suffocated me.

we have our drinks. we discuss our next steps. we decide to go back to my place so i can take off my rain boots, which are crunching my toe. we walk outside and the boyfriend asks if i can walk to my house. i say no. he says "let us carry you." I say no. they say it again, as though i'm going to let myself be given a piggy back ride as a 25-year-old through the streets of Manhattan. I don't have much pride, friends, but i do have a little. finally, we decide to take the subway one stop to my apartment. as we begin to walk away, i hear my name again. I turn. The ex is smoking outside the bar.

"It was good to see you."

"You too," I say. I smile. I do try to be nice to people sometimes.

"So, I'll talk to you soon? If that's okay? Is that okay?"

I nod, beneficently, like a queen nodding to a peasant. "Sure. Bye."

"Take care of that foot!" He yells after me as I hobble away. I hate feeling pity for people. Maybe that's why i stopped talking to him. I just want to tell them, "I can't give you what you need. Please stop asking me to."

The boyfriend didn't say anything about it. We just walked through the warm moist air, away from my past. We went home. We made love. Everything was as it should be.

3 comments:

Ohmygoshko.com said...

You ARE a real New Yorker now! Congrats! And I agree...the piggy back would have been fun.

David said...

Yay for city Life!!
And like Okie, I say; fuck pride. You only live once. Glad to hear that you're feelin' better.

little miss gnomide said...

The only difference between between a farting single and a farting couple is that when you are part of a couple you must use cute little phrases when you fart, such as: "Oh, that was a love bubble" or "Oops, that was a sneeze toot" or "Ah-oh, that was a pizza toot." And then giggle.