All too often, she found herself editing in her sleep, redacting words and adding new clauses to whatever stories spun through her dreams. She knew she needed to make changes, but didn’t know why they had to happen at such inconvenient times, when she would much rather be swimming through worlds that lacked language as her hair spread across the pillow. Instead, she tinkered. Instead, she played with puzzling sentences.
From bad to naughty
October 26, 2011This group has been having dinner together for 20 years, he said. We used to meet for cocktails at 8, then have dinner at 9.
He looked down at his drink, then up at the clock on the wall of the bar.
These days, we meet for cocktails at 7, he said. We used to be bad. Now, we’re just naughty.
Lifted fog
October 24, 2011The city pushed back the mist the next morning, the sun emerging like a starlet through a fog-filled stage. She watched it all happen from the window high above the street, her breath clouding the window when she leaned too close.
Come back to bed, he said from the shadowed corner of the room.
Soon, she said, though she knew she wouldn’t. She didn’t know how to tell him she’d reached clarity. She couldn’t explain the view—she only knew she was the only one of the two of them who could see it at all.
Rye cocktail
October 22, 2011You want to go with something dry? asked the bartender. With mezcal? Weird? Great?
I would like something weird AND great, I said. Just tell me what it is when you’re done.
Bagel
September 24, 2011It was a relief to ignore other breakfast options, to decide on a bagel with lox, tomato, capers, no onion.
What kind of bagel do you want? asked the clerk.
The question paralyzed her. Plain seemed too harmless, Everything too much. What kinds do you have?
Plain, Onion, Wheat, Cinnamon Raisin, Poppy Seed, Everything, said the clerk. Her hand hovered over the cash register keys. Customers shuffled back and forth in line.
Plain seemed too harmless, Everything too much. But Cinnamon Raisin was the only obvious discard.
Poppyseed, she said. It didn’t feel right, but neither did anything else.
The game
September 22, 2011You get one question, he said. Don’t fuck it up.
I looked back toward the city, and watched the lights twinkling in the distance. Over there, it was so loud, but there on the blanket, all I could hear was my own heart beating.
How do I create balance in the places where I need it? I finally asked.
He waited a long time before answering.
You have to give up on the idea that there’s a right and a wrong way to do things, he said. Now repeat it back to me so I know you’ll remember.
Revision
September 20, 2011Sometime before lunch, she took his hand in hers. You’ve bitten your nails to the quick, she said. Such a bad habit.
After lunch, when the paramedics tried to revive him, she again took his hand in hers. This time, it was so much colder than before. This time, she said what she wished she had earlier, what she had really meant.
I’m worried about how stressed you’ve been, she should have said. I love you.
100 Proof 