You are currently browsing stories tagged with “Relationships.”
Was I a fool to think this relationship could be saved by an upholstered storage bench? I spent weeks in deep contemplation on my go-to furniture websites, activating coupons and letting them expire, looking at measurements, colors, prices, patterns. Jonathan and I had already discussed it in couples’ therapy. The plan, sanctioned by our therapist, was to get rid of [...]
Lola is whining. I open the door to the dark hallway so she'll stop, so she'll know I'm here. The sunlight reveals a brown present she's left already, its odor mixing in with the faint smell of cigarettes. It’s hardening. I'm not going to clean it up. She's not my puppy. The open bedroom door illuminates the Husky’s crystal- blue [...]
1. I went into college with virtually no experience, so virginal I believed myself to smell of baby powder. Touching a boy daringly was grazing his shoulder. That was till I met him, a studio art student from England (a would-be dream for high school me). He pursued me in the somehow typical NYU way of asking me to act [...]
The red-smocked amNY guy smiled wide and with a proud, “Good morning, big bro!” extended a copy of the subway newspaper my way. I stood there grinning sheepishly, neither taking the paper nor brushing him off. This was a breach of the rules of our relationship, not unlike showing up unannounced at a new fling’s apartment, flowers in hand, just [...]
The day before hurricane Sandy hits New York I go to the beach. The subways are shut down. The mayor has recommended evacuation of coastal areas. The news warns of widespread blackouts and flooding. The wind pulls garbage from gutters and tosses it against the legs coming out of the grocery store, shuffling under the weight of too many provisions. [...]
In 1974 I was twenty-five. I’d just left my secure job as a kindergarten teacher. The job: compliments of my, Bubbie, who was always yelling, “Get security. Be a teacher!” Deciding to leave the job? That was compliments of my Women's Consciousness Raising Group. Every woman in the group encouraged me to leave my job and follow my passion to [...]
Thomas and I are sitting in my empty dorm. We’re attacking two slices of french toast smothered in honey with our forks like cavemen with spears. Every now and then I make sure to lick my honey-covered fingers seductively. They taste as sweet as this moment feels. Thomas and I are taking turns staring at each other and racing our [...]
It had always been an in-joke between us. I was the one who hailed the cab. “Let them see that big yellow head of yours,” Tiffany would say. We broke tradition only once, separating at a corner during a light summer rain in Greenwich Village. The ugly truth left me stunned and incensed. The cab, a canary yellow mini-van with [...]
We suspected it was illegal, but we had no choice. At the vet’s office in Park Slope, they told us cat cremation cost $125, and neither my boyfriend nor I had the money. Besides, cremation seemed too formal, too clinical, for Jed. He was always escaping out the window, taking self-guided tours of the neighborhood after nightfall. He was an [...]
My Uncle Carmine had a theory that the reason for the longevity of women was due to the fact that their sex makes men wait for them and every minute and hour of a man’s waiting is stored within the genetic code of a woman’s body. In America that advantage of life over death is more than five years and [...]
I wanted Yes To Carrots lotion. I’d seen it in a magazine – something like Self, or InStyle. I liked how the packaging looked, and I am not normally a sucker for packaging. The bright orange capital letters and font were pleasing on my eyes. And I love carrots. I love lotion. I love saying yes. I liked the concept. [...]
Mossy stayed with me for a week in New York and never saw any of the sights. He left the apartment every day and found a breakfast for himself someplace and walked around the east village a little and eventually found his way to the Blue and Gold and started drinking. I’d meet him there later on and ask him [...]
If you find yourself awakened by an eccentric, foul-tempered neighbor called el Jefe in the hallway of an apartment building known for its vermin while fully installed with a vodka hangover and reeking of pizza-flavored snack treats, be as pleasant as possible. Especially if you are seeking assistance in the forcible entry of your own apartment. Especially if it is [...]
I came to Washington Park because I did not know where to go. Riding in a cab with my friend John, on his way to study at the NYU library, provided me with a sure and fast way out of his apartment. This morning, a fight had been close to breaking out between the two of us, and the sound [...]
