It's too much; it isn't enough.
There are bright hard bits of glass on the sidewalk outside my apartment. I don't see them glittering till I am almost upon them & I have to dart away in my thin moccasins.
These days there are couples everywhere, always, on the subway platform, running towards home to get out of the rain, at the grocery store picking up steaks & dessert. There have always been couples, but lately there has been more
canoodling than usual. I despise canoodling. I even hate the word; its natural habitat is on the society pages, but it sometimes ventures out into oral conversation. Canoodling should only be done by wealthy celebrities in the corners of expensive restaurants, preferably over a plate of pasta, noodles actually, & a bottle of wine. Twenty year-old kids in Williamsburg are not allowed to canoodle at the Ale House. As a matter of fact, they can canoodle there if they really want, since I don't ever go there, but they ought to stay away from the places that are really worth going to. Canoodlers should stick to the Rain Lounge, that Indian place across the street (on Bedford; not the one down North 5th next to Sparky's -- that's mine), the video place next door, & Galapagos.
Here's what I wrote in my journal two years ago today. Pre-blog days.
jumping over the gap in the floor like its a pit of alligators snapping at my heels. waiting for the water to boil.
fuck nearly 4 am already? cant seem to get to bed at a decent hour in this town. if you can call new york city a town.
evil cramps this evening. curdling up inside me white and grey and stark. dark white pain, the color of dirty linens. played about fifteen games of pool tonite with jeff & two boys named mike & john; the former had corn-rows but was sleepy-eyed & kept complimenting me on my "finesse." i am outside myself, once again waiting for my food to cook & thank god i am not pregnant. altho i curse these cramps. food COOK! -- cos i cant write.
I was a canoodler then; I didn't know any better. That summer my co-canoodler & I took picnic lunches down to the river. We talked about heroes of literature -- which characters we felt most affinity with. He was Arturo Bandini and Iceberg Slim and someone I've forgotten. I said Franny Glass & Anna Karenina, so long as I wasn't going to end up under the train. We canoodled by the river & we ate our sandwiches & drank bottled Aranciata & he composed limericks for me & I tried to recite The Eagle by Tennyson but I couldn't remember one of the lines.
... the wrinkled sea beneath him crawls, something something mountain walls, and like a thunderbolt he falls.
We weren't bothering anybody with our canoodling in those days, we weren't walking along Bedford Avenue with our hands in each other's back pockets or tonguing each other on the train at rush hour. Then again, how do I know? Maybe the boys smoking weed on the cement blocks further down the river's edge were completely repulsed by our behavior, tho I doubt it.
I don't canoodle anymore. These days my heart is bristled & barbed. I'm still the same, I like having fun, I like playing pool with boys at bars & I like meeting people & getting to know them. I'm still
Tramp Bear for God's sake. But staring into someone's eyes over giant cups of tea at brunch (could that only have been three weeks ago?) is for pansies. I don't have the sentiment for it right now. Which is why I think it's perfect timing for me to pack off to Miami day after tomorrow. Goodbye, broken glass! Au revoir, Brooklyn! Ciao, Manhattan! I'm off to the land of shuffleboard & old ladies & pink flamingos & plastic surgery! Shall pick up my heart when I return.
