slightly shy

You’re so sure that I’m saving my night for you. Aren’t you?

You’re right.

It’s silly.

Despite everything, despite knowing that it’s not the right thing to say or think, and maybe it’s not even true— oh it seems true right now— Why is it that the only thing a young girl is good at is being in love? Maybe I’m just talking about myself, and I’m hardly even a young girl any more. Young woman. I can write, I can play piano, I can do this and that as I take time off of being in love to do other things. Or maybe it’s that I take time off from the other things to be in love. Which is underlying which? Which is the plaster and which is the paint? Which is the music and which is the pause?

How Was Your Weekend

(journal excerpt)

Please believe me, I know this is stupid.

More of the old story. No place to come home to. That’s what makes you crazy, you know. The basic grounding of meaning in a few things, the meaning of which isn’t inherent in them: that’s what makes you a human being. I don’t have it. My web is tangled, has nothing to attach to. In a door frame, and the door opens and closes and breaks the web as the people come and go.

I feel so young and gauche. Or maybe not young enough to justify being this dumb.

…

I went to that Des Ark show on Saturday with Craig. Craig is a DJ, Craig is 31, Craig is a Very Cool Guy. One of those people.  I hate going to Durham. I lose all of my personality phenotype and stand outside downing strings of cigarettes in the cold because it’s an excuse to not speak, and I’ll take it. (Where is the real work done?) I keep standing outside and looking at the fucking camel on the box and wishing I could be that chill in my camelhood, or the equivalent (as if I know) and then Philip and Skye and Jessie show up, and I am so happy to see them, because before that it had just been Craig eating and me drinking and him not laughing very much at my jokes, and alternately Craig doing set-up bullshit and me standing outside smoking and texting as if the rate of my texts were powering my grandmother’s dialysis.

So Philly and I go to get cigarettes and it’s cold, and he’s cold, and we joke and we can’t touch and we can’t talk. And I stand with the three of them when Philly and I get back and Craig keeps texting me “Where are you?” but I don’t want to be there with anyone but those three. Then they want to leave, and I want to go with them, but I don’t, and I don’t know why.

1. That would be rude to Craig (rude to do what I actually want to do? See how that’s problematic?)

2. It feels too familiar, like a retreat, or slightly off. Like your sister getting a nose job or your favorite pants shrinking in the wash.

So I stay, and I’m standing there with fucking Craig watching the band. The girl from Des Ark is amazing. She is completely her own, completely talented, completely free. And I’m what? A 21 year old moron who is probably going to sleep with this guy who is 10 years older than her because it would be rude not to, and oh PS SHE HAS NO TALENTS. These are  my feelings.

So the show ends, and everyone I know is gone, and Craig is dismantling the show. I stand there silently, waiting like a fucking Victorian until I finally tell him “Hey I think I’m going to go.” And he says “Are you okay to drive?” and I am so clearly not okay to drive, and I say “Yes. I had fun. See you.” and walk out. As I get in my car, Craig comes out and says “Hey, Danielle” and I say “hey” too loudly and too soon, as if I’d been waiting for him.  He puts his arms around me and says “My house is just around the corner. You’re totally welcome to crash there. I mean, I understand if you just want to sleep in your own bed, but I’m almost done here.” And I say “I don’t know anyone here and they said there was going to be a big afterparty, and I can’t deal with that. I’m sorry” (always apologizing) “I’m no good with people I don’t know.” And his arms are around me and I lean into him, and he’s saying “There is no party. Chris might come over and smoke a bowl if that’s okay, but there is no party.” And so I go home with him.

His house is incredible. Built in the 20’s, remodeled, beautiful, filled with beautiful things. It’s bizzare. Is this how people live when they are 30? I am so quiet. More and more silence; I’m not even saying nothings any more. We’re all high, and Craig and I sit on the couch while Chris, who is clearly brilliant, talks about god knows what. I fall asleep on Craig, and he’s trying to get rid of Chris, who won’t leave, until I am really asleep. Chris leaves, and Craig asks if I want to go to bed, so we go to bed and I am mostly asleep, but I can feel him taking off my pants, and then his hands are in my panties and I”m too high and shy to tell him “not tonight” so I just lie there in the dark. Finally he stops and holds me and we fall asleep holding each other.

In the morning, we have sex and fall back asleep, have sex and fall back asleep. He won’t look at me during sex, and I don’t know why. Maybe he’s shy. He says “You’re fun.” He says “I could stay in bed all day.” He kisses my cheek and my neck while I sleep. His body is older than mine.

At noon, I ask if he wants to get up, and he says that he doesn’t. I’m okay with that. We have sex again. His fingers do things to me that I don’t even know how to do to myself. he laughs gently, and I say “Why are you laughing?” and he says “Nothing” and I say “Are you laughing at me?”, expecting him to say no, but he says “Maybe a little.” I say “Fuck you.”

I take a shower in his incredible bathroom with its miraculous water pressure. I don’t know what I am doing. My water pressure sucks but I don’t have a saggy belly, I think. Maybe that’s what this is.  When I get out, I put on all of my clothes, but now I smell like him.

He has to leave for work. We watch the news for a few minutes, and he seems to know more than me. I can’t even care.  I read a book silently. “You can borrow that if you want,” he says. He drops me off at my car, asks if I want to come to the shop. “I should go home” I say.

I feel dirty all day but can’t cry. I feel like young, dirty meat.

Unless you deal with kids on a regular basis, you cannot grasp the degree to which Talia was being a motherfucker. She is seven. She likes to tell me that her mother allows her to do things which we both know her mother does not allow her to do. She is not a good kid or a bad kid. She is a child.  You can tell that there is a show going on in her head and she won’t show you all of it. She looks at you from the sides of her eyes. She will turn out fine, because she has great parents. She will turn out fine, because she has texture and she will have guidance.

We have to leave for school, and she won’t go. “I know you won’t leave me,” she says. “Don’t make that bet because that is a bet you will lose,” I say. Thomas and I do our usual morning race to my car. He is four and so I let him win. I will stop letting him win when he turns six, maybe. Talia waits by the window inside the house, looking out evenly at me. I feel like Winston Churchill, giving her one last eyebrow and a sharp finger pull toward me. She blinks slowly and calmly. “And we’re off,” I say to Thomas.

We drive away. Of course we only circle the block once, but I am filled with the silent almost-glee of justice. This is the juice that keeps you young. Maybe the things that we think keep us young are really just thematic notes we first feel vibrate throughout us in childhood. We are gone for maybe three minutes.

When I come back, Talia is crying on the porch. Suddenly, I am deflated. “I’m sorry,” I say. I am the nanny. I’m not supposed to make the children cry. But I also say “Next time don’t make a bet you can’t follow through on.”

Was that right or was that wrong?

Teaching a Smartphone to Swear, by Annie Dillard

You’re welcome for this joke of funny comedy, no one.