Tuesday, January 16, 2007

The Joy of Much Too Much...

Two single girls on the town, dear Lord, has it come to this? She getting texted by a man who found a newfound and ultimately inappropriate use for his camera phone, me by the latest affirmation of my new status. Perhaps I will write a book someday, “My life as a Cougar”, or at least a blog post or two…this can’t be good, this can’t be right, this is the stuff of movies, not of real life for seemingly well-bred and well-read girls…

She sipped Sauvignon and we waited for an hour to dine on nouveau clam chowder and a Rocquefort-laden burger, a decadent ginger cake under the gaze of a hipster host, a bratastic waitress who declined, nay, flat out refused to accommodate my friend’s request for tomato accoutrements. I fell home to buy orchids and watch Stossel with my roommate.

The next morning I went west for another single girl, this time in a careening cab that sloshed my gifts of soy lattes all over his pleather seats and my weekend jeans. I carried it all upstairs for her because of many reasons, the least of not is that I mentioned once when I was thirteen and my father said I could get any cake I wanted for my birthday and I insisted on an ice cream cake. When he asked which flavor I said coffee, because it was my favorite, and he warned that no one else would eat it unless I chose something more palatable to tween tastes. I remember, I think, I had not been a selfish child in many ways, like that time my mother got the last doll in town, the one that you wiped with a wet cloth and suddenly she was wearing makeup, blue eye shadow and the like, and she told me that she had secured it for Christmas…and she had secured it for someone else in our family. In our extended family, and she was a year older than I was and I knew she did not want it as badly, but my mother said she’d be giving it to her because she knew that I was mature enough to handle it…and I would be rewarded for my maturity in the future…though she never played with it, she lost it I think, I do remember that…

So I said coffee, I wanted coffee, and I got it and true, no one else ate it. And for my birthday this year under Cuban sounds and the sway of strong cocktails what did the staff bring out but coffee ice cream cake, and let me tell you, everyone at the table ate it, especially me and it was fantastic…that’s why I brought the flowers and the coffee and watched her clean her apartment and perused her impressive playlist for hours.

The rest of the weekend was spent under blankets by the crackling fire, there were never-ending burgundy glasses and slices of Gruyere, movies and cats playfully attacking my feet when I slept, the comfort of being and not leaving a den for chores or anything else.

This is the life I’ve been missing, frenetic, self-indulgent and satisfying. Is it time to go back to being selfish for a little while? I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like to do things just for me, because they’re good for me or they feel good for me…so few times do we feel like we can, but really, who will do what’s good for us if not us?

I want to live in the moment, do things because they seem good and they feel good, no precautions because there is no preparation, true preparation for the bad stuff in life. There is too much good to go around without grabbing some for yourself, there is too much suffering to partake in it willingly, there is much too much life to live to do it with tentative steps, whispers and regret…

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's a great post. Beautifully written but more importantly seems to speak directly to me. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

gorgeous.