What's Mine Is Yours

Something Big, Something Important (fiction-ish)

2005-10-09T19:19:00.000-07:00

Between yesterday and today, it rained seven inches. It started as a trickle on Friday; I darted into Christopher Street station after my shift at the restaurant, I darted from bar to bar slippery in borrowed heels that night, I fell asleep to the sound of drops slapping against the window.

On Friday night, we'd promised to turn the rain into a contest -- actually, the contest was Violet's idea -- how long could we last without going outside? My bank account was near zero, the fridge was stocked, the DVDs I'd rented last week were still on the coffee table (four days overdue now). I'd make it, easy, through the forecast weekend of rain. Violet was confident, too.

I started off by sleeping in, then lingered over the newspaper during breakfast (retrieving it did not count as going outside, as I rented a studio apartment on the twenty-third floor of a rickety old high rise). At one o'clock I began cleaning, as I did every Saturday; this week, though, I felt none of the rush to finish it and move on to other things. I organized the pantry, rearranged the bookshelf, cleaned invisible cobwebs from the corners of the ceiling.

It was after four o'clock by the time I'd finished the final step -- cleaning myself -- when the phone rang.

It was Violet.

"How's it going?" she inquired casually, which made me immediately suspicious that it wasn't going well on her end, a spacious two-bedroom she'd purchased uptown a few months ago.

"Great," I said. "Just finished cleaning."

"Again?" she asked, a hint of annoyance flickering in her voice.

"You know me," I said, trying to make my voice sound light and not wounded. "How's it going on your end?"

"OK," Violet said. "I just finished reading the new Vogue."

"You sound bored."

"I am. I'm already tired of being inside. I want to go shopping."

A little silence hung between us; the contest she'd proposed now seemed one-sided. I could tell I was still in it to win, but that my opponent was on the verge of leaving the stadium in search of a sample sale.

"I can't really afford a shopping excursion right now," I confessed.

"Right, right," she answered, acknowledging that my confession wasn't a confession so much as something she should have realized, something that she's known all along, our whole lives.

I felt annoyed then, and looking back, maybe it showed when I said, "Well, I'm going to watch a movie now, I think."

We hung up and I shuffled through the rented DVDs with every intention of watching one, yet looking at the miniature movie poster art on the covers made me feel lonely. I moved to the window, where I stood watching the droplets of rain run like a disgruntled subway down the pane.

Once, when I was younger, in middle school, I'd fallen in love with a movie. It was tripe, some action adventure where the main character is in trouble and in the process of escaping trouble also has to rescue a beautiful girl over and over again.

My father asked the rental store's employees if he could have the full-size movie poster they'd hung in the window, when they were finished with it, of course, for his daughter. They gave it to him on the spot -- and when he brought it home I immediately hung it above my bed.

A few days later when Violet came over after school to study and whisper about boys, she stood, stunned, when she saw it.

"What," she demanded, "is that?"

I explained, and she shook her head sadly, as if I'd disappointed her.

"You're too old for that kind of thing," she said finally.

Something rose up in my chest then; it was the first time in my life I'd felt it but it would become an old friend as I aged, a cross between shame and rage and something else, a desire to protect and defend something dear to me, at any cost.

"I think you should go home now," I told her.

If she was surprised by my command or the insistence with which I spoke it, she didn't show it.

She gathered up her books and walked out of my bedroom.

Hot-faced, I'd sat at the foot of my bed and done my homework until an hour later, when my father knocked on the door and entered before I could answer it.

He looked concerned.

"I just saw Violet off; her father sent a car. She was sitting outside all by herself," he explained.

I shrugged, though I felt some pleasure at the thought of Violet sitting outside my family's rundown home for the past hour, waiting for her ride.

"Did you girls have a fight?"

I shrugged again.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

I shook my head, then stuttered, then my eyes filled with tears. "She made fun of my poster," I said finally.

He looked up at it, then back at me, and then in an instant, he seemed to understand.

"Oh, bud," he said, sitting down beside me, "I'm sure she didn't mean to hurt your feelings. You need to remember that things are very different for Violet."

I shrugged, not wanting to admit that I didn't understand.

"You girls will be fine," he said, then smiled. "Your mom's working tonight so I'm in charge of making dinner. I was thinking of making...I don't know, reservations at the pizza place. That sound OK?"

I smiled, finally, for his sake.

And I smiled again, there, in my tiny apartment, and when I caught sight of my rain-streaked face in the reflection from the window, and I felt silly and small.

I poured myself a glass of wine -- even though it wasn't even six -- and turned on a movie.

I'd watched two movies and sipped my way through a bottle of wine when my phone rang again. I glanced at my watch -- it was ten-thirty.

"Kate!" Violet shrieked on the other end, the sound of music, talking, laughter throbbing behind her like a hangover that arrived early.

"Violet? Hello?" I said, pretending to not be able to hear her, even though I could, perfectly. I wanted to delay what I knew was coming next.

"Kate, it's Violet, can you hear me? I'm in your neighborhood," she spoke quickly, as if she knew she didn't have long to plead her case. "I went shopping on Fifth Avenue and found the most adorable shoes, you'll love them. I'm at Bar Door now -- come meet me."

"Violet, what about the contest?" I asked, miserably.

"Oh, Kate, don't be so competitive! I just couldn't bear to be inside any longer," she explained airily, but I knew that by competitive she meant simple, and by simple she meant easily amused. "Please, come on out."

"I can't," I said. "I can't."

She pleaded further, but I didn't hear her. I hung up the phone, and then I turned it off.

I fell asleep on the couch that night, thinking about what my father had said that day, how things were different for Violet. I'd wanted to ask him then, "How? How are they different? And why?" but I hadn't, and in that moment, I realized now, I'd missed a chance to understand something big, something important, something that would have helped me avoid this very moment, and all the ones like it in between.

This Post Sponsored by a Paid Advertiser (Except Not Really): The Best TV Show You're Not Watching (Really)

2005-10-08T19:19:00.000-07:00

The fall TV season is officially in full swing. The Housewives are unabashedly refusing to apologize for their affairs, the Lost crew is counting down 4, 15, 16, 23, and 42 and and pushing a button every 108 minutes, Vaughn is dead or maybe not dead and everyone really, really does love Chris, but the honest-to-Deity fact of the matter is that you've already missed out on the best show on TV.

And that's Teachers, BBC America's top-notch show about a self-absorbed, sexually obsessed 23-year-old in his first "real" job, as, you may have guessed it, a teacher.

Andrew Lincoln -- who you probably recognize as Keira Knightley's reluctant worshipper in Love Actually (and, frankly, the best part of one of the worst movies I've ever seen) -- stutters and doubts and missteps through each episode, surrounded by a supporting casts of faculty members who continually provide him support and ridicule.

The show's main crutch: Lincoln's character, Simon, is just barely more mature than the students he's supposed to be guiding, which plays out to delightful (and ineffectual) effect, particularly when one of his students goes into labor.

I'm not doing this show justice; watch it for yourself.

The season finale aired in late September; if you have TiVo, set it to record every possible episode and just sit back and enjoy. Or, if that doesn't work, look for it on DVD.

/ end paid sponsorship (not really)

Mmmmmm, That's Good Tofu

2005-10-08T19:08:00.000-07:00

Something about this makes me indelibly happy.

Let the Pants Shitting Commence

2005-10-03T18:10:00.000-07:00

I have in my possession, right now, the phone number of the publicist of my No. 1 favorite celebrity. I spoke to publicist's assistant earlier today, who uttered an adjective along the lines of 'golden'.

I am waiting, currently, for said publicist to touch down from a flight to Australia and let me know if/when I can interview No. 1 favorite celebrity.

Face to face.

On Wednesday.

I will update this when I know more. But. Right now.

Holy.
Shit.

Update:: Said celebrity is not doing press right now. THANK GOD.

I'm Getting Older, Too.

2005-09-19T18:47:00.000-07:00

We went to visit our alma mater this weekend, for beer and football and tailgating and sportsmanship.

It was nice; my parents met us there and we introduced them to friends and ate their food and I tried, for no other reason than fun, to make my mother think (mistakenly) that I am pregnant (i.e., not drinking, taking it easy, frequently tired, crabby and, when she asked point-blank, not on birth control).

Post-tailgate, my mother grabbed my cell phone and announced, apropos nothing, that she was going to call my grandmother, just to check in.
She entered in the number, waited, and hilarity ensued as we realized that she had forgotten to hit send.

She waited.

My aunt, her twin sister, answered the phone.

My grandmother and my mom's sister live an hour apart.

My twin sister had been trying to get in touch with my mother all day; it turned out that I had a collection of voicemails on my phone from various family members.

My grandmother had had a heart attack.

She'd been airlifted from our podunk hometown to bigger town.

She was in an ICU unit.

Blah, blah, fucking blah.

My parents went home, telling me not to worry, to go back to the hotel, to hit up college bars. I curled up in the hotel room bed, phone under my pillow, in tears.

My phone was silent. No calls, no text messages, no IMs.

Nothing.

I wanted news; any news, good, bad, nothing, anything.

The next morning, we drove home, not knowing which direction we were best advised to go in.

We went south when I really wanted to go east. We went to sleep when I really wanted to stay awake. We did nothing when I really, really wanted to do something.

Anything.

I do nothing. That's my role as far away, daughter who grew up and moved on. It's moments like these when I wish that I hadn't. But I've always kept my family close in my heart and they've never been closer than they are right now.

I could go home.

I could be there in three and a half hours.

But somehow I think, by heeding my parents words -- she's out of ICU, she's doing better -- that I'm making it better.

I'm making it less important.

I'm making it a smaller bump.

I'm making it mean less. And I want it to mean nothing, I want it to be a blip, a tiny malfunction on the satellite screen of my grandmother's life. I don't want this to be the end.

And by staying here and acting normally, somehow, I feel like I'm making a difference.

But deep down inside, I know that I'm not.

Things I Acquired in the Month of August

2005-09-10T13:30:00.000-07:00

a new (male) roommate
a new address
two of every condiment
a cat tree
floor-to-ceiling windows
a lot of Ikea furniture
the right to honestly claim to have written one of the lists on McSweeney's
a pair of Uggs
approximately five pounds, three of which were quickly lost
an addiction to the show Teachers
a creeping, unshakeable sense of sadness (along with the rest of the country, i think)

There Ain't No One Gonna Listen If You Haven't Made a Sound

2005-07-19T19:14:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, it was recommended to me that I contact my local police department to request extra security patrols past my house and in my neighborhood (the reasons behind this recommendation will be conveniently left out).

I obtained the number. I left a message, stating my name, my reason, my address, and my phone number in case an officer needed to speak with me further.

Two weeks went by and I assumed my request went through. I slept 0.05% more soundly at night.

Meanwhile, over the past two weeks, the offending situation has -- mostly -- resolved itself, or at least gotten to a place where I feel extra police patrols are no longer necessary.

Which is, it turns out, a great coincidence. Because tonight, my local police department called to let me know that starting on Wednesday, they would begin extra patrols in my neighborhood. They left a voicemail so I didn't get a chance to ask the obvious question, which is, clearly, "WHAT THE FUCK TOOK SO LONG?" and instead I just called them back and told them not to even bother anymore.

It Turns Out..

2005-07-14T18:53:00.000-07:00

...that no matter how anonymous your blog, some things are too frightening, too threatening, too strange, too hurtful, too sad, too unexplainable and too shapeless to write about.

So you sit in silence.

And that really sucks.

You're Disgusting, And You're Nasty

2005-07-12T09:57:00.000-07:00

Brett and I bought a Dyson -- our first major split-down-the-middle purchase as a soon-to-be-living-in-sin couple. We went around to a bunch of different stores two weeks ago and couldn't find the one we wanted, so we bought it online.

It just came today. It's sitting in the box right behind me in my cubicle.

All I can think about is how hard I'm going to clean my apartment tonight.

"Apartment, I'm going to rock your world. You aren't even gonna know what hit you."

Which sounds much more dirty than I mean for it to sound, which ends up being ironic in and of itself.

Flame On!

2005-07-10T17:20:00.000-07:00

Brett and I went to see Fantastic Four yesterday. The trailers looked awful. Absolutely horrible. Yet, I was intrigued (oh, who am I trying to kid? I couldn't wait to see it). I kept thinking, maybe it could be another X-Men 2, which is by far my favorite of the comic-book-to-movie movies.

It wasn't.

It was dull and flat and shiny for the sake of being shiny. The superheroes had nothing to be super for, they had no overarching reason to be superheroes. And for all everyone says about Jessica Alba, I find her to be nothing special to look at -- in fact, she's bland. There. I said.

However. Johnny Storm? Me-owwwwwwwww.
(Or something.)

Overall, though, I have to say it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. But it was still bad. Really, really bad.

Bonus DVD feature -- my favorite part of the movie:
When Von Doom was proposing to Susan, I reached over and elbowed Brett as hard as I could, twice. The two frat guys behind us busted out laughing.

We All Live in the Space Age

2005-07-08T07:29:00.000-07:00

I have a daily 9 a.m. meeting. About three-fourths of the team gathers in a conference room, we open the room to a speakerphone conference call so the other fourth of our team (who either have shitty commutes or difficulty waking up on time), and we go over things that are missing, things that might change, things that are new in our editorial calendar.

This morning we were talking about an image for road rage that our photography department hadn't delivered yet, and we described the kind of feeling we wanted the photo to have.

The conversation paused for a second, and someone on the phone shouted, "Fuck you!!!"

And the conference room went completely silent. We all stared at each other, dumbstruck. Finally, after about thirty seconds, the team priss trilled, "Excuse me?"

There was another pause.

"Oh. My. God. I thought my cell phone was on mute. Someone just cut me off." Embarrassment dripped off her words -- her being the quietest, most reserved, most professionally unflappable member of our team.

I love accidentally finding out things about coworkers that you'd never suspect based on their work demeanor. Paulette has a potty mouth! JJ does coke! Courtney is bulemic! Stewart cheats on his wife!

As long as no one finds out about the bottle of Absolut Mandarin I have stashed in my desk drawer, everything will be fine.

I Ought to Just Phone It In.

2005-07-05T17:59:00.000-07:00

I use text messaging to a fault.

I would rather send you 14 text messages than have an actual telephone conversation with you.

I hate talking on the phone. It makes me feel like an awkward teenager all over again.

Thus, Brett and I use text messaging fairly frequently, though we've scaled back recently -- there was a stretch of time a few years ago when we'd get into drawn-out arguments. Now we just use it for little things.

Tonight, we had the following exchange.

Brett:

I can't wait until we live together -- I'll be the official cook of our relationship!

Anna:

Ooh! Will you make arab bakers on Thursday?

Brett:

What?

Anna:

Arab bakers!

It turns out, that when you do laundry and make a quesidilla and text message, that you may not pay explicit attention to the predictive text function of your telephone.

Turning crab cakes into arab bakers, particularly if you are prone to holding down the seven key for an extra split second.

Yum. I can't wait to have arab bakers on Thursday! Brett makes them so moist and delicious.

Go Fuck Yourself

2005-06-29T18:25:00.000-07:00

The company where I work uses instant messaging a lot for communication. At any given time, I have nine or ten or twenty IM windows open. We use abbreviations like 'yt' and 't' and 'otp' and 'iam' and my personal, secret favorite 'gfy,' which seemed like morse code to me when I started, but that I now use as shorthand because I HAVE SO MANY FUCKING IM WINDOWS OPEN I CAN'T KEEP TRACK OF THEM ALL. Which is probably why I don't always respond when you IM me; a lot of the time, I just lose them and when I come back and find them seven hours later, you've long given up on the conversation.

Last night, I was working from home, and drinking wine. After about the third glass, I noticed our senior vp was online.

I opened an IM window to her and typed "FUCK YOU." After already logging almost forty hours IN TWO DAYS (and not being a lawyer, and not making six figures, not even close) and then having a director mention that my position wasn't as "critical" as others in our weekly staff meeting, I thought it was a perfectly reasonable statement.

But then I got really freaked out, and closed it quickly without sending it.

That whole night, I tossed and turned thinking about what would happen if I had actually sent that IM, but by accident, and how screwed I was.

I came to the following conclusions:

a. I need some balls

b. If I had accidentally hit sent it right then, I totally would've run up three grand in bills on Amazon and Gap and Ikea and then said that my identity had been stolen.

Reason #311 You Should Be Glad You're Not My Boyfriend

2005-06-27T18:26:00.000-07:00

Brett exits the bathroom.

"Hey baby," I say, "While you were in the bathroom, Wee-Man called, and he wanted me to tell you --"

And I slap him in the nuts.

"This isn't Jackass!" he howls.

I'm under a lot of stress these days.

Learning My Limits

2005-06-26T12:05:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, Brett and I had a busy day: a yard sale at 9 a.m., a backyard barbecue at 2 p.m., and tickets to see Sleater-Kinney at 9 p.m. (though they weren't scheduled to go on until 11:30).

The yard sale was a huge success; we piggybacked off of some of Brett's neighbors who were having sales. Theirs went until 2 p.m., we'd sold the best of our junk by 11 a.m. and put the rest out in a 'FREE' box. Most of the stuff we sold was mine -- clothes, shoes, an old clunky digital camera, a foot bath, a webcam, a powder-blue indestructable keyboard, dvds, vhs tapes. We made about $50, which we spent on grub for the barbecue.

I hadn't slept well the night before, so by the time people started showing up for the barbecue, I was pretty pooped and contemplating a nap. However, we'd planned to throw it to celebrate the fact that we've finally found an apartment to share -- starting the week of August 15, we'll be sharing a two-bedroom, two-bathroom love nest -- so I didn't think I could sneak inside to nap.

I played happy hostess until 7 p.m., which was when we'd told our friends we wanted to wrap up -- so we could clean up Brett's house, ourselves, and maybe catch a nap before the show.

But Brett has a friend who doesn't quit. We'd had a barbecue last summer and the same thing happened -- this guy and his friends wouldn't leave. XYZ and I had a minor disagreement that turned into a major disagreement and, pissed off, I went for a nap. Friend Who Doesn't Quit didn't leave until 9:45, at which point Brett woke me up to shower and head to the show.

We got to the club in perfect time -- the opening band, Dead Meadow, was just finishing up. We stood around for a bit, and then the Sleater-Kinney girls rocked my fucking socks off. I've never seen them live before, so I wasn't really sure what to expect; they blew me away. So fun, and so good.

On the drive back to Brett's place, I could barely move, and that's when I realized it. The day was too much for me.

"If all of the things we did today -- the yard sale, the barbecue, the show -- happened on their own individual days," I told him, "I would've been much better off."

A day later, I'm still exhausted.

Now, luckily, I know my limits. I'm a one-event-a-day kind of girl.

Work and Play, They're Never OK to Mix the Way We Do

2005-06-24T23:51:00.000-07:00

The majority of the time, my job really sucks; i.e., twelve-hour days, being on-call, being unstaffed for new beta launches.

Friday was a coworker's last day. She made a smart choice and decided to move to another team within the company.

At 6:30 p.m., Boss retrieved a Yankee Candle bag of PBR out of our area's fridge. Leaving Coworker and Boss proceeded to shotgun beers. Leaving Coworker chugged like a champ, Boss was a wimp -- his beer flew everywhere.

Boss had to wipe at least six ounces of PBR off the printer.

For five minutes, work was fun and cool. Then at 6:35 p.m., everyone went back to work and didn't leave for another two hours. Then we all went to a pub and got drunk.