Paul goes away for business a lot, and I try not to think about how OK I am with it. I’m OK, you’re OK. We’re OK, I tell people.
I neatly fold that thought up and put it in a drawer, along with the single hair on my chin and the TV show they just canceled that I was heavily relying on to get me through the next few years maybe. But I’m OK. If the place I order takeout from most nights ever closes, I’ll confront all these feelings in one drunken argument that will end with me telling Paul I like it better on my own anyway. But for now we’re OK. What we are is what that little word, OK, is for.
Friends think it must be exciting when he comes back from a trip. They mean the sex. They’re projecting their fantasies onto us, and we mostly let them. We’ve always been that couple: The writer and the computer guy. Living the dream, if the dream is having separate lives and being OK with it. In reality, when Paul comes back from a trip, I’m usually asleep on the couch with my laptop open to whatever I’m supposed to be writing, food spilled on my lap, a cat from the neighborhood that climbed in the window eating the food from my lap and making me have weird almost-sex dreams, which Paul interrupts. Maybe I left some kitchen appliance on, so there’s a burning smell. This is how we live, in this IKEA-induced fugue. But it’s OK.
Friends picture him coming home to New York like a soldier in uniform, even though his uniform is hoodies and obscure foreign sneakers he’s not cool enough to wear. He wishes he could ride a skateboard to work, because that’s the closest thing to his childhood hoverboard fantasy. I know the boy who lives inside him, you see. I chose that boy from all the boys. I chose this life. They picture him bursting in and carrying me off to bed, like he’s been away at war or at sea, when really he’s just been hanging out in Japan under the guise of business. Business, business, business — say it enough and it might mean something.
Paul was in high spirits when he left. He was going to Japan, motherfuckers, which is how I imagine his boss gave him the news. As he packed, he told me what he’d be doing while he was away, like not recognizing anything he ate and barely bathing, which pretty much described what I do all the time. I was busy trying to write an e-mail to a grumpy editor about some changes he had made that I did not think needed to be made, so I was only half listening, one foot in, one foot out of our life, always somewhere else but never sure quite where.
He tried to tickle me at one point, and I shouted, I’m trying to do important business! and he thought that was hilarious because he knew how I felt about business.
From what he can make out, my business is lying horizontally in different places around the apartment, not writing, mostly watching cooking shows or reading what other people have written and thinking, Well, I don’t need to write that now. To me his business is just standing vertically in different exotic locations, looking at the latest video games. The biggest misconception about his job is that he sits around and plays video games all day. It’s all virtual reality now, so he actually stands a lot, golfing, skiing, boxing, killing zombies, or whatever people do virtually that they could do quite as easily — or more easily, even — in the real world. He always tries to get me to go to those 3-D movies that are almost theme-park rides, the ones that have surround sound and smells and wind, and I just roll my eyes and say, Or we could go outside. I made him go to a park once, and a pigeon shat on him, and I said, See, you don’t get that at the movies. I told him it was a sign of good luck as he frantically dabbed at his shirt.
You write articles online, he said, to remind me I’m just as far gone from reality as he is. He doesn’t know all the secret ways I try to write off-line, keep one foot in the world still. Like at Whole Foods there’s a suggestion book where you can leave a comment, and some days I write things in it like Where’s the black garlic? or How do I make bread? or Thank you for existing. I always write in different handwriting so they don’t think I’m crazy. I’d love to just be crazy.
Paul doesn’t know who I am when he’s away, and I don’t know who he is when he’s away, but when we’re together, we’re Paul and Julia again. We are who we’re supposed to be, and the rest isn’t real. I assume it’s like that for everyone.
When he said he was going away this time, I immediately thought of it as an opportunity to sleep more and wash less, but after he left, I felt like I should get up and bathe, and I ended up making a bigger effort than usual, and then I felt obliged to go out and take advantage of not looking like a teenage boy for once. There are some impeccably groomed and dressed writers, but I avoid them at all costs. When Paul called to say he’d gotten there safely, I had to pretend I was on the couch in my pajamas and not in a bar day-drinking. It was confusing. He wanted me out there in the world, but I felt I was supposed to pretend I was a little sad he was gone — at least, for the first few days. I told him I missed him, because I did. I’m not a complete monster.
Once, when he was away, I told him I had sniffed his shirt, because I’d seen someone do that in a movie. I don’t think people really do that though, or I hope they don’t. But then, people are gross, so they might.
I was trying not to think about how much I liked having my own space, though it was technically our space, and day-drinking helped me forget. Paul was doing what he needed to do, and I was doing what I needed to do, which just happened to be day-drinking and then going home and eating family-size bags of chips and watching all the TV. I was listening to my body. That’s what we’re supposed to do now, right?
I neatly fold that thought up and put it in a drawer, along with the single hair on my chin and the TV show they just canceled that I was heavily relying on to get me through the next few years maybe. But I’m OK. If the place I order takeout from most nights ever closes, I’ll confront all these feelings in one drunken argument that will end with me telling Paul I like it better on my own anyway. But for now we’re OK. What we are is what that little word, OK, is for.
Friends think it must be exciting when he comes back from a trip. They mean the sex. They’re projecting their fantasies onto us, and we mostly let them. We’ve always been that couple: The writer and the computer guy. Living the dream, if the dream is having separate lives and being OK with it. In reality, when Paul comes back from a trip, I’m usually asleep on the couch with my laptop open to whatever I’m supposed to be writing, food spilled on my lap, a cat from the neighborhood that climbed in the window eating the food from my lap and making me have weird almost-sex dreams, which Paul interrupts. Maybe I left some kitchen appliance on, so there’s a burning smell. This is how we live, in this IKEA-induced fugue. But it’s OK.Friends picture him coming home to New York like a soldier in uniform, even though his uniform is hoodies and obscure foreign sneakers he’s not cool enough to wear. He wishes he could ride a skateboard to work, because that’s the closest thing to his childhood hoverboard fantasy. I know the boy who lives inside him, you see. I chose that boy from all the boys. I chose this life. They picture him bursting in and carrying me off to bed, like he’s been away at war or at sea, when really he’s just been hanging out in Japan under the guise of business. Business, business, business — say it enough and it might mean something.
Paul was in high spirits when he left. He was going to Japan, motherfuckers, which is how I imagine his boss gave him the news. As he packed, he told me what he’d be doing while he was away, like not recognizing anything he ate and barely bathing, which pretty much described what I do all the time. I was busy trying to write an e-mail to a grumpy editor about some changes he had made that I did not think needed to be made, so I was only half listening, one foot in, one foot out of our life, always somewhere else but never sure quite where.
He tried to tickle me at one point, and I shouted, I’m trying to do important business! and he thought that was hilarious because he knew how I felt about business.
From what he can make out, my business is lying horizontally in different places around the apartment, not writing, mostly watching cooking shows or reading what other people have written and thinking, Well, I don’t need to write that now. To me his business is just standing vertically in different exotic locations, looking at the latest video games. The biggest misconception about his job is that he sits around and plays video games all day. It’s all virtual reality now, so he actually stands a lot, golfing, skiing, boxing, killing zombies, or whatever people do virtually that they could do quite as easily — or more easily, even — in the real world. He always tries to get me to go to those 3-D movies that are almost theme-park rides, the ones that have surround sound and smells and wind, and I just roll my eyes and say, Or we could go outside. I made him go to a park once, and a pigeon shat on him, and I said, See, you don’t get that at the movies. I told him it was a sign of good luck as he frantically dabbed at his shirt.
You write articles online, he said, to remind me I’m just as far gone from reality as he is. He doesn’t know all the secret ways I try to write off-line, keep one foot in the world still. Like at Whole Foods there’s a suggestion book where you can leave a comment, and some days I write things in it like Where’s the black garlic? or How do I make bread? or Thank you for existing. I always write in different handwriting so they don’t think I’m crazy. I’d love to just be crazy.
Paul doesn’t know who I am when he’s away, and I don’t know who he is when he’s away, but when we’re together, we’re Paul and Julia again. We are who we’re supposed to be, and the rest isn’t real. I assume it’s like that for everyone.
When he said he was going away this time, I immediately thought of it as an opportunity to sleep more and wash less, but after he left, I felt like I should get up and bathe, and I ended up making a bigger effort than usual, and then I felt obliged to go out and take advantage of not looking like a teenage boy for once. There are some impeccably groomed and dressed writers, but I avoid them at all costs. When Paul called to say he’d gotten there safely, I had to pretend I was on the couch in my pajamas and not in a bar day-drinking. It was confusing. He wanted me out there in the world, but I felt I was supposed to pretend I was a little sad he was gone — at least, for the first few days. I told him I missed him, because I did. I’m not a complete monster.
Once, when he was away, I told him I had sniffed his shirt, because I’d seen someone do that in a movie. I don’t think people really do that though, or I hope they don’t. But then, people are gross, so they might.
I was trying not to think about how much I liked having my own space, though it was technically our space, and day-drinking helped me forget. Paul was doing what he needed to do, and I was doing what I needed to do, which just happened to be day-drinking and then going home and eating family-size bags of chips and watching all the TV. I was listening to my body. That’s what we’re supposed to do now, right?
by Lucie Britsch, The Sun | Read more:
Image: Jon Kral
