Jeff and I were doing that thing where you say, “Where do you want to go?,” “I don’t know, where do you want to go?,” and the thing is, no one likes that game, which is why when he finally suggested we meet at Patois, I said, “Oh, okay, and I haven’t been there in a while, so good.” I remember now why I hadn’t gone to Patois in a while—because it is just so not good. The light was nice in there, and the fireplace was warm and crackly and smelled of coziness, but other than that, well. The waitress was a more neurotic version of a Parker Posey character who came to our table and said, “And how are we today?” I didn’t know how to respond, because I didn’t know how she was today. And I guess a normal person would have said, “Good,” or maybe even not said anything at all, but somehow the thing that came out of my mouth was, “Uhhh.” Later, when Jeff, all politeness, asked if I liked the squash soup, I said, “It’s horrible.” And I didn’t just say it was horrible, I said it was haahh-rible. I mean, really, sometimes the things that come out of my mouth surprise even me.

(Oh, but that reminds me of the other day when I tried on some shoes at J. Crew. They were these gorgeous pink fabric pointy-toed things, and I really was trying them on just to see, even though I know my friend Yumei says there is no such thing as trying on “for fun.” But really, I was trying them on because, I dunno, I was there and they were there and I had some time on my hands. Feet. Whatever. Anyway, so I put them on and the salesgirl said, “How’re those?” and I said, “Actually they’re horrifically uncomfortable,” because they were. And she said, “Oh,” and then she tittered, unsurely, and then she said, “Oh,” and then she said, “I’m sorry.”)



We went to see “Closer” after. I didn’t know anything about the movie except that Jude Law is in it, which is often alls a girl needs to know. So I wasn’t aware of what I was in for, and, my god, that show was sharply uncomfortable to watch, the slow implosions of people and relationships.

And the thing is, I don’t get it. It just seems like it could be so easy, this whole love thing. Girl likes boy, boy likes girl, that’s really all you need, no? And yet, no. Maud reckons if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be, and that’s when it’s easy. And Jeff figures the whole shebang’s too difficult altogether, and he’s giving up. I don’t know. But there’s got to be a way it all comes together in a way that works, this big l-o-v-e, because otherwise, well, otherwise what’s the point?

I caught the 12:37 bus home from Court Street, ’cause a midnight bus rides on velvet streets under a velvet sky.

Some nights after you turn out the light, you lie there in the dark with your eyes wide open, till you start to be able to make out the shapes from the shadows, and you trace the familiar charcoal sketches of your room. You lie there, thinking.