Her Success Story

 I was never sure what to do with the twinge of self-hate I used to get when I heard about her plans. I have never been able to unwrap myself from the feeling that I was the limp twin, the stupider twin, the one that could have been eaten, unnecessarily born. (But we hadn’t even shared a womb.)

When the feeling became especially bothersome I would try to be bad. When I was a teenager I just smoked out my window, or I skipped class, or took an attempt at self-harm.

I was never good at any of it though. I could never truly commit. I always got caught smoking and I never cut that deep. I was an amateur, never crazy obsessed with anything, always giving up before reaching proficiency, and even after college, I wonder, what did I even try to learn? 

At my adult age I don’t know how to be bad without destroying my life for good. I have these junkie-like traits without the drug to really take me out. It’s like living in a frozen state, like when you were younger and the hairdresser would always put the cape on you too tight and you never could muster up the courage to say, “Mam you’re choking me out.” You would just smile and sit uncomfortably still watching your precious hair float to the ground. Mustering up the courage to sit there, teeth clenched, gritting through life. 

In attempted maturity, after her newest success story, I shut my computer and remember a high school mantra, “move a muscle, change a thought.” In bitterness, I rise to my feet, you are learning how to stop yourself before saying something friendship-ruining. 

I looked around the apartment, taking in the things that were now very me. I listed them in my head, “ the bookshelves we had mounted, the red kettle, the burn-to-the- touch exposed pipes, the very very long hallway.” People had come and gone, but I had stayed much longer than I had intended to, and it seemed the oddities of the apartment became the oddities of me as well. 

When I was more of a slut I was in many rooms and would always judge my own against them. 

I wondered why I always thought my designs were always so much worse, when I’d literally seen rooms with no walls, no ceilings, and barely a door. I had walked pigstys, laid out a tablecloth and called it “our home.” 

I leave in two days up North to visit Dad for the holidays. The house is a mess, and I can’t put one foot in front of the other before wanting to collapse, everyone’s is having successes  

Why Am I So Goddamn Irresponsible? What Gives Me The Right To Want Goodness?

I quickly come up with a list to get my mind off itself. Clean the house, Neighbors mail, and Brush hair, and come up with some explanation on what I do most days, who I’m dating, and what my opinions are.

I’ll draft some opinions today, and clean the house tomorrow.

 and also driving back from your night shift and passing your brother on his bike while getting off the BQE 

 daylight savings is cool sometimes & so is a certain kind of determination 

if you write all the time about how miserable you are and leave it in a box somewhere for your kids to find you'll probably regret it, burn it before you die of self pity

getting your car towed is a certain kind of robbery but having a friend to bring you to breakfast while you wait for the tow man is friendship to the highest degree, a ceremony over burritos, knowing that only you two know the fundamental functions of one another 

everything is automized but i'm not letting it get to me 

 new socks mine are all bloody !!

Good Thing, Bad Thing, Who Knows?

shiva story

On October the fourteenth two thousand and twenty four I went to my first shiva. 

I brought bagels and spreads, walking in with my mother who had already called me twice while waiting for me outside. We hugged the family and were encouraged to sit around the already made fire, the first day of winter finally upon us. 

I was offered red wine and cream filled desserts, told to bring some food with me on my journey  back to Brooklyn. It was the pinnacle of Jewish weekends. And I was ready, to be swaddled by the familiar smells and voices, engulfed in the Judaism of my childhood. I wanted to gossip with all the women, I was ready to witness prayer and to hear the cantor sing.

We prayed in the kitchen and faced East, towards the refrigerator. We prayed out loud and then silently to ourselves. It made me realize how much I lacked in prayer practice. I didn’t even have an image that came to mind when it came to the “act of speaking to God.” What would I say to Him? I contemplated my next steps on establishing some contact. Find a synagogue. Fast one day each month. Host a Shabbat dinner. 

As I made my list and read the mourner’s prayer I couldn’t help but get increasingly distracted and irritated by the boy in the center of the room. He seemed to have no respect, and no idea what was going on.

Even in the midst of death and grief, it seems boys' antics are still stunningly predictable. 

Throughout my life my mother has warned me about men. “Boys will try it on anywhere,” she would remind me, like she was letting me in on an ancient secret. But I didn’t really truly believe her until that night. This boy wanted to fuck me at the shiva. 

To be honest, this being my first shiva, the thought had crossed my mind that maybe these events were inherently infused with inappropriate sexual hunger. But for other people, not for me.

I knew of this guy in high school. Almost completely irrelevant to me, but because I pride myself on knowing two facts about basically everyone, I knew he played football and went to C’s school in California. 

Tall-ish, semi handsome, wearing the same sweater my gorgeous ex-boyfriend had worn when we were dating. The moment I walked in he latched on. Asking me over and over again how it was that I knew S, and did I go to the high school? All of his questions, random, rabbling, and starting from what seemed to me as the middle of a half baked thought.

He talked like was stoned out of his mind. At first I thought it was funny. He isn’t making sense, he’s offering me drinks. But he flirted aggressively and he could not get a hint.

“Do you want more wine? No, I have to drive home. Yes, we did go to high school together. No, I don’t like baseball. No, no, no…” 

I got so bored and so enraged I thought about screaming.

GET THIS MAN AWAY FROM ME! LEAVE ME ALONE! STOP ASKING ME THESE STUPID QUESTIONS! HAVE WE FORGOTTEN WHY WE ARE HERE?

I couldn’t get a break. 

He even waited for me outside the bathroom when I tried to escape for a moment. 

At some point he cornered my mother and I. The heat rose to my ears. This was it, I was going to explode. He hadn’t left me alone for a second and now he wanted to flirt in front of my mother! I was completely appalled. 

But of course, as what happens to most women, I was struck by a force of compassion. (maybe that’s my contact with higher power.)

I think he might be too stupid to understand. I think…I think HE thinks this is working. I think he may be too stupid to comprehend that I am having an absolutely horrible time.

“Are you in town a lot or…”

“No, I’m mostly in New York.” 

“Well sometimes I like to come to the city and eat a square slice of pizza. Maybe I’ll have somewhere to stay?”

“Hahaha…what?” 

“Can I get your instagram?” 

Jesus Christ has this guy been hit in the head too many times. I gave him my instagram because I could no longer protest his advances. 

“Maybe we can catch up over some tea.” 

I was exhausted. All I wanted was to get away from this meat head and get into bed. 

We hugged the mourning family and I ran out the door. Do I need to give up on the male race entirely?

I can’t believe my luck that someone wanted to fuck me at my first shiva. 

It feels like a literary win. 

The truth is no matter how mad I got I knew who would have been laughing the hardest, who would love this story to bits. The man we were all there for. And maybe he’s laughing now.

 remember this script: 

back in february you gave me your number 

i lost it