For posterity:
I’m putting up the curtains I had as a small child.
They are made entirely of layers of pink lace.
I want him to feel like a pedophile while I am on
top of him. Those curtains looming above him
like some pale distant first grade crush. My figure
clinging to his body like a child to its mother in
a room full of strangers.
For posterity:
I’m putting up the curtains I had as a small child.
They are made entirely of layers of pink lace.
I want him to feel like a pedophile while I am on
top of him. Those curtains looming above him
like some pale distant first grade crush. My figure
clinging to his body like a child to its mother in
a room full of strangers.
By the way the short story in this week’s New Yorker, “Blue Roses” by Frances Hwang, is really good. (It is not online. Buy the magazine.) It is about friendship and family and being a foreigner with American children and getting old. And dreams. Here is a little bit of it:
My friendship with Wang Peisan is strange, I know. She makes everyone around her crazy. Ever since she was a child, she has been indulged, her life as delicate as a teacup. She had weak lungs, and her parents didn’t expect her to live. They bought her larger and larger coffins as she grew. In one of her dreams, Wang Peisan wanders lost in a museum, room after room filled with coffins no bigger than a tissue box. She opens one after another—like Goldilocks, she says—and it exasperates her that she won’t be able to fit into any of them. What can you do with a person who has dreams like this?
I was just about to post about this! The narrator is a terrific character, one of the most fully-realized I’ve read in a long time. I rarely laugh out loud at short stories.
The New Yorker has made the last three stories that I really liked subscriber-only…
The New Yorker is something I used to peruse at the dentist’s office when there were no National Geographic or travel magazines to ogle. I also knew it was chock full of dry cartoons because there was a Seinfeld episode about it. Most recently, I discovered the magazine features good fiction and good writing in general, which I occasionally catch up on when browsing the website.
A few days ago, at the bookstore, I decided to finally buy one. See what the fuss is about. I skipped straight to the fiction and it was “Blue Roses.” I stood in Periodicals and read some of the story while a guitarist strummed in the cafe. The story played, the guitar accompanied, and all I could think was: yea.
By the way the short story in this week’s New Yorker, “Blue Roses” by Frances Hwang, is really good. (It is not online. Buy the magazine.) It is about friendship and family and being a foreigner with American children and getting old. And dreams. Here is a little bit of it:
My friendship with Wang Peisan is strange, I know. She makes everyone around her crazy. Ever since she was a child, she has been indulged, her life as delicate as a teacup. She had weak lungs, and her parents didn’t expect her to live. They bought her larger and larger coffins as she grew. In one of her dreams, Wang Peisan wanders lost in a museum, room after room filled with coffins no bigger than a tissue box. She opens one after another—like Goldilocks, she says—and it exasperates her that she won’t be able to fit into any of them. What can you do with a person who has dreams like this?
I was just about to post about this! The narrator is a terrific character, one of the most fully-realized I’ve read in a long time. I rarely laugh out loud at short stories.
The New Yorker has made the last three stories that I really liked subscriber-only…
The New Yorker is something I used to peruse at the dentist’s office when there were no National Geographic or travel magazines to ogle. I also knew it was chock full of dry cartoons because there was a Seinfeld episode about it. Most recently, I discovered the magazine features good fiction and good writing in general, which I occasionally catch up on when browsing the website.
A few days ago, at the bookstore, I decided to finally buy one. See what the fuss is about. I skipped straight to the fiction and it was “Blue Roses.” I stood in Periodicals and read some of the story while a guitarist strummed in the cafe. The story played, the guitar accompanied, and all I could think was: yea.
I can’t sit here and write with you looking over my shoulder.
I turned to look at her, just to drive the point home. I usually end things by looking people in the eyes. Meghan stared right back into my eyes, unlike most people, but I tried anyway. Hers were far bluer than my dusty irides, which I believe gave her a sort of leverage.
Well, shit. You can’t write when you’re alone, you can’t write when you’re at the café, you can’t write when there’s music playing, you can’t even write when the sun’s out! Now you tell me you can’t write when I’m standing next to you. What kind of fucking writer works like this?
The kind that doesn’t get any writing done. Have you heard of breathing down someone’s neck?
I was sitting at my desk, as I do frequently, when I sit to check e-mail or hit the message forums, the laptop screen glowing back at me. I’d gotten the panicked urge to write but when I finally sat down to start, nothing definite developed. The morning of the day before she’d sent me an IM to tell me that she had an unexpected day off from work, and wanted to know what I was up to.
I don’t know. I need to write something.
Not tonight. Come out with me.
We went out last week.
She remained silent and I could not even hear her breathe.
I need to see you, she finally said.
Last night I saw her. Her hair was up in a formation and she was dressed casually, jeans and a t-shirt, which was appropriate attire for bowling. She picked me up and when we arrived I rented our shoes, and then ordered a cheeseburger, fries, and the first of two white russians. Meghan called me a fucking cliché, as well as a fat ass, and only ordered a beer. The neon lights shone above us and I was always the one keeping score. The paper was sometimes green, sometimes pink, and sometimes blue. She was better than me at bowling because I never tried, but I made it look good. I waggled my jeans when appropriate and hurled with gusto, and she smiled at that. I drank from my second white russian and placed my arm around her shoulder as we sat for a moment, then she kissed me on the cheek.
You need to shave.
Not until I write something.
To which she responded by rolling her eyes and standing to resume the game.
Sometimes I had a strike, but not as many as her. The second game ended with XYZ having a score of 190 and MEG having a score of 223. I kissed her to congratulate her and because I wanted to and we walked out with my arm around her waist, which she was fond of, and told me so when we went on our first date about two months prior to last night. She remarked that her car smelled nicer than mine and she said that I should consider getting the interior detailed.
It smells like me, I said.
She only laughed and we continued driving. We were passing a wonderland of liquor stores with many wondrous glowing signs. There seemed to be many people interested in loitering last night. Many simply stood and talked silently amongst each other, and none appeared to be homeless. They were all nicely dressed, the men and the women. Jeans, sweaters, shoes that appeared to have been recently purchased or shined. They were not drinking, or even consuming an evening snack. They simply talked.
Do you ever search for clarity, I asked.
What do you mean?
I mean, you know, clarity. A way to define and sharpen your thoughts.
Sometimes. When I need to figure out a problem, especially at work.
No, I mean clarity in general. Clarity about the purpose of things. Life thoughts.
She looked at me and breathed loudly through her nose.
Not really. I try not to think about that stuff. It just makes things even more difficult to understand.
I mumbled, I see.
We arrived at my apartment and I asked her what she wanted to do. She said a movie would be nice, and I agreed. My DVD collection is not one which I am necessarily proud of but I do keep a variety of films on disc format for such evenings as last night. When I returned from the bathroom I found she had chosen a movie starring James Stewart called Rear Window. In this movie, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, James Stewart is a photographer named Jeff who suffers from a broken leg and is forced to endlessly sit in a wheelchair due to the cast required for it to mend. He spends time sitting at a window and looking into the courtyard between the apartment buildings on his block. As the plot unfolds, Jeff; his girlfriend, Lisa; and nurse, Stella; become embroiled in a mystery surrounding a murder. There are several suspenseful scenes late in the film in which Lisa and Stella investigate the murder, because of course Jeff is forced to remain in his wheelchair and do nothing but look out the window. I’d seen it before but I don’t think Meghan had, so I asked, and she said she had heard of it but never watched it. We sat down on the couch with a blanket over us and watched the entire movie in silence.
What did you think, I asked.
I liked it, but Jeff is a dick.
What?
He treated that girl like shit. Who does that?
I shrugged. Some people just don’t know how to communicate appropriately.
Those poor people.
She leaned into my chest and I kissed her on the forehead, then lips, then neck, and she told me she was glad I took a break from writing to see her last night, and I was feeling light and amorous, so I agreed. We embraced and kissed on the couch for several minutes and she told me she would meet me in the bedroom. Meghan stopped at the restroom and I immediately went to the bedroom to prepare the condom and disrobe, and afterwards we made love.
She awoke alone in the morning because when I first awoke I had an urge to check my account balance. I had one thousand two hundred twenty six dollars and seventy three cents in my checking account, most of which would be paid to the landlord within three weeks. I became panicked and sat alone on the balcony, watching people wake up and drive out early to go to work. My temples pulsed rhythmically and I tried to write words for a song that would match the same rhythm.
Bal co nee boy, look at you now. Wry teeng is muh nee, so don’t have uh cow.
I could only attain clarity when I am on the balcony. On the mornings or nights of clarity I sit on the balcony and consider the future. I think back to the many people in this world who I do not nor will ever know, who die alone, in poverty and obscurity, remembered only by distant family, if that, and acquaintances who might claim to have known them but in truth were only vaguely familiar with a sense of the people. In such moments I feel as though there is no purpose to anything, and my heart is lifted ever higher. Then I sit down and write. It is the only reason I have a balcony and it has presented me with many ideas that would have otherwise not come to fruition.
I returned to my desk and tried to write something compelling that would sell. I thought that perhaps an article on the glut of liquor stores and the plights of those who inhabit their vicinity would go at one of those urban living blogs, the ones that focus on keeping it real, but I could not think of anything to write about besides the fact that there were many liquor stores and people in front of them, and I was certain that everyone already knew that. Photographs would help, of course, but that would mean paying one of the shutterbug friends to provide photographs, and I did not have the funds for it. My next idea was a short story about a German man, originally from Rio De Janeiro, who discovers that his daughter is having an affair with a handsome taxi driver, and that they are planning to run away together to Argentina, which sickens the father because he believes Argentina to be an inferior country to Brazil. I could not develop it any further than six hundred words or so, and when I began to consider working on one of the many archived works on my hard drive I became more lost and unable to focus.
Meghan appeared, then, and said good morning. She poured herself orange juice and stood behind me in the old robe that I never wore.
Are you hungry?
No, thanks, I said.
Sure? I can cook some eggs before I head out.
I’m okay, but thank you.
She remained silent, seemingly waiting for me to produce something, until I finally told her.
She got dressed and left in an irritated mood, but still kissed me on top of the head. I got the idea to write about a young man with photographic memory who recalls every single kiss that he had ever received, and that he never discussed or wrote down any details about the kisses because he feared losing each instance from his mind. Eventually, the young man would realize that although he remembered every kiss, he only recalled them as notations in a ledger, and not as the experiences of kissing and being kissed, and only then would he realize the importance of a true kiss. The idea seemed too genuine and hokey to function as anything more than fluff but if I could make it satirical or direly modern in some way it could work. I made notes but did not begin the outline, at least not until I had a better sense of the types of people whom the young man would find himself involved with. Perhaps waitresses in cafés and bars, or fellow students at a local college, or even older women whom he met through his work as a tutor of their daughters, who required assistance in one subject or another. I thought of killing the young man at the beginning of the story in some violent manner, but that seemed too modern, and not likely to rouse the reader’s interest.
I can’t sit here and write with you looking over my shoulder.
I turned to look at her, just to drive the point home. I usually end things by looking people in the eyes. Meghan stared right back into my eyes, unlike most people, but I tried anyway. Hers were far bluer than my dusty irides, which I believe gave her a sort of leverage.
Well, shit. You can’t write when you’re alone, you can’t write when you’re at the café, you can’t write when there’s music playing, you can’t even write when the sun’s out! Now you tell me you can’t write when I’m standing next to you. What kind of fucking writer works like this?
The kind that doesn’t get any writing done. Have you heard of breathing down someone’s neck?
I was sitting at my desk, as I do frequently, when I sit to check e-mail or hit the message forums, the laptop screen glowing back at me. I’d gotten the panicked urge to write but when I finally sat down to start, nothing definite developed. The morning of the day before she’d sent me an IM to tell me that she had an unexpected day off from work, and wanted to know what I was up to.
I don’t know. I need to write something.
Not tonight. Come out with me.
We went out last week.
She remained silent and I could not even hear her breathe.
I need to see you, she finally said.
Last night I saw her. Her hair was up in a formation and she was dressed casually, jeans and a t-shirt, which was appropriate attire for bowling. She picked me up and when we arrived I rented our shoes, and then ordered a cheeseburger, fries, and the first of two white russians. Meghan called me a fucking cliché, as well as a fat ass, and only ordered a beer. The neon lights shone above us and I was always the one keeping score. The paper was sometimes green, sometimes pink, and sometimes blue. She was better than me at bowling because I never tried, but I made it look good. I waggled my jeans when appropriate and hurled with gusto, and she smiled at that. I drank from my second white russian and placed my arm around her shoulder as we sat for a moment, then she kissed me on the cheek.
You need to shave.
Not until I write something.
To which she responded by rolling her eyes and standing to resume the game.
Sometimes I had a strike, but not as many as her. The second game ended with XYZ having a score of 190 and MEG having a score of 223. I kissed her to congratulate her and because I wanted to and we walked out with my arm around her waist, which she was fond of, and told me so when we went on our first date about two months prior to last night. She remarked that her car smelled nicer than mine and she said that I should consider getting the interior detailed.
It smells like me, I said.
She only laughed and we continued driving. We were passing a wonderland of liquor stores with many wondrous glowing signs. There seemed to be many people interested in loitering last night. Many simply stood and talked silently amongst each other, and none appeared to be homeless. They were all nicely dressed, the men and the women. Jeans, sweaters, shoes that appeared to have been recently purchased or shined. They were not drinking, or even consuming an evening snack. They simply talked.
Do you ever search for clarity, I asked.
What do you mean?
I mean, you know, clarity. A way to define and sharpen your thoughts.
Sometimes. When I need to figure out a problem, especially at work.
No, I mean clarity in general. Clarity about the purpose of things. Life thoughts.
She looked at me and breathed loudly through her nose.
Not really. I try not to think about that stuff. It just makes things even more difficult to understand.
I mumbled, I see.
We arrived at my apartment and I asked her what she wanted to do. She said a movie would be nice, and I agreed. My DVD collection is not one which I am necessarily proud of but I do keep a variety of films on disc format for such evenings as last night. When I returned from the bathroom I found she had chosen a movie starring James Stewart called Rear Window. In this movie, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, James Stewart is a photographer named Jeff who suffers from a broken leg and is forced to endlessly sit in a wheelchair due to the cast required for it to mend. He spends time sitting at a window and looking into the courtyard between the apartment buildings on his block. As the plot unfolds, Jeff; his girlfriend, Lisa; and nurse, Stella; become embroiled in a mystery surrounding a murder. There are several suspenseful scenes late in the film in which Lisa and Stella investigate the murder, because of course Jeff is forced to remain in his wheelchair and do nothing but look out the window. I’d seen it before but I don’t think Meghan had, so I asked, and she said she had heard of it but never watched it. We sat down on the couch with a blanket over us and watched the entire movie in silence.
What did you think, I asked.
I liked it, but Jeff is a dick.
What?
He treated that girl like shit. Who does that?
I shrugged. Some people just don’t know how to communicate appropriately.
Those poor people.
She leaned into my chest and I kissed her on the forehead, then lips, then neck, and she told me she was glad I took a break from writing to see her last night, and I was feeling light and amorous, so I agreed. We embraced and kissed on the couch for several minutes and she told me she would meet me in the bedroom. Meghan stopped at the restroom and I immediately went to the bedroom to prepare the condom and disrobe, and afterwards we made love.
She awoke alone in the morning because when I first awoke I had an urge to check my account balance. I had one thousand two hundred twenty six dollars and seventy three cents in my checking account, most of which would be paid to the landlord within three weeks. I became panicked and sat alone on the balcony, watching people wake up and drive out early to go to work. My temples pulsed rhythmically and I tried to write words for a song that would match the same rhythm.
Bal co nee boy, look at you now. Wry teeng is muh nee, so don’t have uh cow.
I could only attain clarity when I am on the balcony. On the mornings or nights of clarity I sit on the balcony and consider the future. I think back to the many people in this world who I do not nor will ever know, who die alone, in poverty and obscurity, remembered only by distant family, if that, and acquaintances who might claim to have known them but in truth were only vaguely familiar with a sense of the people. In such moments I feel as though there is no purpose to anything, and my heart is lifted ever higher. Then I sit down and write. It is the only reason I have a balcony and it has presented me with many ideas that would have otherwise not come to fruition.
I returned to my desk and tried to write something compelling that would sell. I thought that perhaps an article on the glut of liquor stores and the plights of those who inhabit their vicinity would go at one of those urban living blogs, the ones that focus on keeping it real, but I could not think of anything to write about besides the fact that there were many liquor stores and people in front of them, and I was certain that everyone already knew that. Photographs would help, of course, but that would mean paying one of the shutterbug friends to provide photographs, and I did not have the funds for it. My next idea was a short story about a German man, originally from Rio De Janeiro, who discovers that his daughter is having an affair with a handsome taxi driver, and that they are planning to run away together to Argentina, which sickens the father because he believes Argentina to be an inferior country to Brazil. I could not develop it any further than six hundred words or so, and when I began to consider working on one of the many archived works on my hard drive I became more lost and unable to focus.
Meghan appeared, then, and said good morning. She poured herself orange juice and stood behind me in the old robe that I never wore.
Are you hungry?
No, thanks, I said.
Sure? I can cook some eggs before I head out.
I’m okay, but thank you.
She remained silent, seemingly waiting for me to produce something, until I finally told her.
She got dressed and left in an irritated mood, but still kissed me on top of the head. I got the idea to write about a young man with photographic memory who recalls every single kiss that he had ever received, and that he never discussed or wrote down any details about the kisses because he feared losing each instance from his mind. Eventually, the young man would realize that although he remembered every kiss, he only recalled them as notations in a ledger, and not as the experiences of kissing and being kissed, and only then would he realize the importance of a true kiss. The idea seemed too genuine and hokey to function as anything more than fluff but if I could make it satirical or direly modern in some way it could work. I made notes but did not begin the outline, at least not until I had a better sense of the types of people whom the young man would find himself involved with. Perhaps waitresses in cafés and bars, or fellow students at a local college, or even older women whom he met through his work as a tutor of their daughters, who required assistance in one subject or another. I thought of killing the young man at the beginning of the story in some violent manner, but that seemed too modern, and not likely to rouse the reader’s interest.
You remarked on the inefficiency of living on the side of a mountain and I stared into the yard. I passed you my cigarette. When you asked if I would consider living in the city I could only scoff. The city. You looked at the old house further up the mountain and noted that a middle-aged blonde woman standing on her balcony could look into my yard and see anything at all, and that it was too open there beneath my wild plum tree. I wasn’t worried about the blonde woman. I mentioned the breeze and you scoffed. The breeze. I wouldn’t look at you and you finally asked why I was staring into the weeds. I asked if you were serious but didn’t care for the answer. I tossed the remaining cigarettes the following weekend and stared into the yard with only the jays and crows to keep me company. There had to be something out there.
You remarked on the inefficiency of living on the side of a mountain and I stared into the yard. I passed you my cigarette. When you asked if I would consider living in the city I could only scoff. The city. You looked at the old house further up the mountain and noted that a middle-aged blonde woman standing on her balcony could look into my yard and see anything at all, and that it was too open there beneath my wild plum tree. I wasn’t worried about the blonde woman. I mentioned the breeze and you scoffed. The breeze. I wouldn’t look at you and you finally asked why I was staring into the weeds. I asked if you were serious but didn’t care for the answer. I tossed the remaining cigarettes the following weekend and stared into the yard with only the jays and crows to keep me company. There had to be something out there.
Bill said, “Hey! Another beer over here!”
The bartender, June, walked to the center and leaned toward Bill.
“What?”
“Beer! Anchor Steam!”
The incessant thumping resonated in their heads as Bill looked on eagerly and then around at the bar patrons. June poured the beer.
“Four dollars.”
Bill bared his front teeth and removed a five dollar bill from his pocket. He handed the money to June and she in turn pulled a one dollar bill from her apron. She gave Bill the money and he smiled, then left it on the bar.
He bobbed his head, getting into the rhythm, feeling the beat, and turned back toward her.
“Haven’t seen you before.”
June paused and smiled.
“I’m always here.”
Bill closed one eye but did not open it until several seconds later.
“I would’ve noticed.”
June watched him stagger closer to the bar. Her smile faded away.
“Something else?” she asked.
“Yea,” he said. “Tell me something so I can remember you.”
She placed her hands on the counter and leaned in again, closer than before. Bill hesitated to look into her eyes and instead scratched the back of his head and sipped his beer.
She said, “I’ve got nothing interesting to say.”
“Make something up.”
June paused and thought for a moment.
“I find you very attractive, and want to fuck you in the bathroom as soon as my shift is up.”
Bill furrowed his brows and drank from his glass again, then tipped his glass toward her.
“I’ll remember you.”
June sighed and then walked to the couple waiting for her near the tap.
Bill slept on the carpet of his living room that night and dreamt of June swimming in a glass of beer, wearing the t-shirt, jeans, and apron she’d worn that night. Her eyes were glistening like two great green marbles floating in the clear and golden ocean. Bill knew he wanted to get to her but found the glass of beer impenetrable. He circled around the glass of beer, searching, pleading for a means to get to her, and as if blessed by God a ladder descended from the sky that was just tall enough to reach the top of the glass. He climbed hurriedly and hooked his forearms over the top of the glass where he could feel the froth of the cold beer wash over them. When he dunked his head and shoulders inside Bill felt an immediate sense of relief and his ache for June subsided. He plunged himself in and floated along the top of the beer, swallowing with every other breath, forgetting everything and not caring that he was dying, dying, dead.
Bill said, “Hey! Another beer over here!”
The bartender, June, walked to the center and leaned toward Bill.
“What?”
“Beer! Anchor Steam!”
The incessant thumping resonated in their heads as Bill looked on eagerly and then around at the bar patrons. June poured the beer.
“Four dollars.”
Bill bared his front teeth and removed a five dollar bill from his pocket. He handed the money to June and she in turn pulled a one dollar bill from her apron. She gave Bill the money and he smiled, then left it on the bar.
He bobbed his head, getting into the rhythm, feeling the beat, and turned back toward her.
“Haven’t seen you before.”
June paused and smiled.
“I’m always here.”
Bill closed one eye but did not open it until several seconds later.
“I would’ve noticed.”
June watched him stagger closer to the bar. Her smile faded away.
“Something else?” she asked.
“Yea,” he said. “Tell me something so I can remember you.”
She placed her hands on the counter and leaned in again, closer than before. Bill hesitated to look into her eyes and instead scratched the back of his head and sipped his beer.
She said, “I’ve got nothing interesting to say.”
“Make something up.”
June paused and thought for a moment.
“I find you very attractive, and want to fuck you in the bathroom as soon as my shift is up.”
Bill furrowed his brows and drank from his glass again, then tipped his glass toward her.
“I’ll remember you.”
June sighed and then walked to the couple waiting for her near the tap.
Bill slept on the carpet of his living room that night and dreamt of June swimming in a glass of beer, wearing the t-shirt, jeans, and apron she’d worn that night. Her eyes were glistening like two great green marbles floating in the clear and golden ocean. Bill knew he wanted to get to her but found the glass of beer impenetrable. He circled around the glass of beer, searching, pleading for a means to get to her, and as if blessed by God a ladder descended from the sky that was just tall enough to reach the top of the glass. He climbed hurriedly and hooked his forearms over the top of the glass where he could feel the froth of the cold beer wash over them. When he dunked his head and shoulders inside Bill felt an immediate sense of relief and his ache for June subsided. He plunged himself in and floated along the top of the beer, swallowing with every other breath, forgetting everything and not caring that he was dying, dying, dead.