Miss Manhattan & Zara Amnesia

Dailyish Dispatch #008

Thursday January 30
The cast announcement for Generation Women NJ goes up. Normally I’d promote it and tell people to buy tickets, but the show was sold out within a couple days of tickets going on sale — almost a month ago. I am reading a different kind of piece at that show, one that is finally not about my dating life or misadventures. The theme is “End of an Era: New Beginnings Await.” I know when I see the theme what story I need to tell: it is the story of gathering the courage to leave teaching and take a chance on a new kind of life, a life that prioritizes writing. I need to tell this story, because I need to hear it. Need the reminder — over and over — to bet on myself.

After work I go to the mall nearby to wander and see if anything to wear at either of my upcoming readings catches my eye. It is a sad mall with its plushie stores and cup of corn kiosks and half empty “east meets west” emporium slash head shop slash art gallery filled with crystals and garish tapestries of eagles and buddhas. There is an H&M and a Zara, and I lose the run of myself, strolling into Zara with optimism I have no business having.

I have been uncomfortable in my body for some time now, my Grief&StressDiet™ conspiring with my 40-something metabolism to do my head in. I am working on my stress and my fitness but there is just no amount of sizing-up that will enable a single zipper to complete its path. Like eating eggs or smoking pot, I finally accept that Zara simply isn’t EMG-coded.

Friday January 31
I leave work early for a mammogram. If you need to know anything about my relationship with my current job, it’s that I am relieved to be leaving early to schlep to Queens to go have my boobs tortured and smooshed under 25-30 pounds of pressure.

Sunday February 2
I have a tough day. Blame it on hormones, blame it on years of stress forcing its way out of my bones and through my tear ducts, ready to be shed. Regardless, it is a weepy morning with me being unable to truly pinpoint what on earth has me so inconsolable.

When I leave my shoes all over the apartment or use my teacher voice, I’m pretty sure my husband wants to murder me. But as a steward of my emotions, he is unceasingly gentle and kind and understanding. He holds space for me all day. That evening I am able to word vomit articulate what set me off. It is nothing new, but I am, perhaps, more honest than I have ever been, and it is as though saying words out loud flips a switch, releasing me from the clutches of that which has clawed at me these past few years. Healing is not instantaneous, but hope is.

Monday February 3
I spend most of the day ignoring work while I listen to The Strokes and practice for that night’s Miss Manhattan reading. It feels very special to be a part of the annual emerging writers reading.

My husband, mom, and I head to the East Village, grabbing a snack and a beverage at Cafe Mogador. We share small plates of hummus and pita and baba ganoush and falafel and fries, always fries. It is a Monday night and there is not a seat to be had. A woman sits next to us with a steak and a whiskey, two friends at the end of the bar catch up over orange wine, rotating couplets of first daters order drinks and are soon after whisked away to small two-tops to share polite stories and wonder if. These are the moments when I cannot imagine living anywhere else.

Reading at Niagara is another full circle moment that feels a little bit surreal. I spent most of my 20s running around the East Village like a maniac, drinking and dancing my face off, making out with boys, pining over The Hipster — generally making terrible but outrageously fun decisions.

The back room at Niagara is full. The crowd is one of the best crowds I have experienced: attentive, engaged, friendly, and asking follow-up questions after. The host

Elyssa Maxx Goodman

is a delight. 14/10 kind of night.

After the reading, my best friend and I reminisce about all the time we spent at Niagara, and of course, “the night with the pizza.” From the OG Ugh. Anyway. blog:

Then there was the time that I’d summarize as: We all got pizza. All Hell Broke Loose. After dancing our faces off at Niagara one night, The Hipster, my best friend, and some college friends of ours and I went next door to eat some pizza, as you do. I was amidst hostile negotiations with one lactose intolerant friend who was adamantly insisting we had not allowed her to eat pizza. While I was frantically assuring her she had already eaten her slice (seriously, she scarfed it, record time), I noticed a disturbance in the force over toward the curb — and The Hipster stalking off up Avenue A. Pulling my lactose/memory-challenged friend away from the pizzeria and toward the other two, I felt panicky. This was not an unfamiliar feeling. During the entirety of my relationship with The Hipster, I was always convinced the bubble would burst and that it would all end.

Surrounded by throngs of drunken revelers, my friends told me how a girl had walked up to them, she and The Hipster had had an awkward conversation, and upon her leaving, he turned to them, threw his pizza on the sidewalk (fucking blasphemy) and stormed off. One guess who it was. Ding, ding. Ex-Roommate. The drunken, emotional back and forth, (his apology, my martyrdom, his guilt, my reassurance, his baggage, blah blah) that followed is unnecessary to recount in granular detail. All I know is that at my heart tugged that small whisper of Knowing; that he wasn’t ready and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Still, as The Hipster and I hailed a cab (and my lactose intolerant friend threw my best friend into a bodega flower stand right before she took off running up the street), we committed ourselves to the bourbon-soaked fiasco that was our relationship.

Back in Jersey City we convince our local to stay open for just one drink. The high after reading is real. I will not be ready for bed for hours yet, so I stay awake after everyone else is asleep, reveling in the energy, in doing the damn thing.

14/10 would do it again.