Formerly Known As
September 21, 2004
I used to see her quite often when I'd stop by the local Health Food store to pick up some groceries. It's the only grocery store in the industrial park that passes for my neighborhood, so that's where I run into many of my neighbors. She and I would always smile and say hi to each other, and struggle to remember each other's names. "David?" she guessed.
"No, Jamie," I said, then tried to guess her name. "Victoria?"
Her guess was much closer than mine. "Victoria?" she said. "How did you come up with that?"
She was working there last week, and it caught me off guard. "Hey," I said. "I haven't seen you here in a long time."
"Yeah, I know. I don't work here anymore. I'm just filling in for the night."
It was around 10 PM. The store was quiet, and so I stood around chatting with her for a bit. "Do you live in the neighborhood?" I asked. "Yeah, a few blocks down that way," she said, pointing in the opposite direction from my building. We discussed the limited resources in our small Brooklyn neighborhood, and she asked if I ever go to the bar around the corner.
"Sure."
She invited me to meet her there one night.
"That'd be nice," I said. "I'd like that."
"Me too."
We met on Saturday night and stayed at the bar for a few hours talking about life and the struggles of a young sculptor, which is what she was. She told me about her time in Ecuador and her visit to the Galápagos, where she saw tortoises, Blue-Footed Boobies, and so on. There's not much to do after a few drinks in our neighborhood, so when we grew tired of the bar, I suggested we go to the roof of my building. It offers a great view of Manhattan, and it's a cool place to hang out. "Okay," she said.
As we headed toward my loft, she asked which building I lived in, what the address was. When I told her, she laughed and said she had lived in the same building for several months. "I just moved out about two months ago."
"You're kidding," I said. "Which floor?"
It turns out she lived two doors down from me, and I had never seen her. She lived with two sisters, whom I see nearly every other day. I couldn't believe it. I run into people all the time, in the strangest places. But a pretty girl down the hall, and I never saw her until she moved away? It seems to illustrate some law of nature, but I can't figure out what it is.
In any case, she’s not “the girl next door,” but she used to be.
October 4, 2004
I met up with the sculptress from my neighborhood last night. I'd given her the web address for this site, and she'd read the post I'd written about her.
"It kind of freaked me out," she said.
How to lose friends and alienate people.
Brian says that if I keep up my tell-all style that I'll eventually "self-destruct, like Truman Capote.”
The thing is, there's so much I choose not to write about, or am pointedly asked not to write about—"Dude, I'm gonna tell you something, but you have to promise not to put it in your blog." — that I tend to view the things I do write as rather tame.
"Write about what you know," they say.
“What you know, you numbskull, not who you know!”
My next post will be about space aliens.
“Help the aged,
One time they were just like you,
drinking, smoking cigs and sniffing glue.
Help the aged,
don’t just put them in a home,
Can’t have much fun in there all on their own.
Give a hand, if you can,
try and help them to unwind.
Give them hope & give them comfort
’cos they’re running out of time.”
October 8, 2004
I was expecting my birthday to send me wading into the shallow end of a midlife crisis, but the thing is, the past three or four years have been so uncertain that I'm pretty sure I've already held my breath through the deepest part of the "What am I doing with my life" gobbledygook. Although if I know anything, it's that when it comes to knowing anything, nobody knows nothing.
Ali called my cell phone. It was in the breast pocket of my jacket, which I was still wearing despite being in bed and fast asleep. I'd passed out, fully clothed, at about eight PM. Her call woke me up just after midnight. "Happy Birthday," she said. "Am I the first one to wish you a happy birthday on the actual day?
"Yup."
"I can't stay on the phone. I just came home from a Morrissey concert, and I'm beat. I just wanted to be the first to call."
I thanked her, and after we hung up, I thought about getting undressed and going to bed properly. But you know how it is when someone wakes you up from a sound sleep: a few cups of adrenaline get dumped in your gut, and your heart starts going all blippity-bloop. So instead, I took Ali's suggestion and headed to Kings County, my local bar, to buy myself a birthday drink.
When I got there, I ran into the sculptress. The bar was crowded, and it turned out that more than half of the people there were friends of hers, in town for some kind of sculpture thingamajig. "Hey," she said, "What time is it? Is it your birthday yet?"
I was surprised she’d remembered. She offered to buy me a birthday shot, but I declined. "No thanks. I'm just gonna finish this beer and go back to sleep."
She introduced me to a few of her friends. They were all either sculptors or college art professors. One girl, from Georgia, was a grammar school Art teacher. "Tell Jamie the story about how you lost that kid," said the sculptress.
The Art teacher proceeded to tell a story about a special needs student of her’s who was extremely tall, and would get in her face and say things like, "I love Canada!" and "I love to dance, I'm gonna swim to Canada, and be a star!"
Swim to Canada? From Georgia? That sounded like a roundabout way to go, so the Art teacher told him, "You don't swim to Canada, you take the Appalachian Trail."
To me, that sounded like a roundabout way to go, too, but that's what she told him, and she proceeded to draw him a map. The next thing she knows, the kid goes missing.
"The cops found him on the interstate, headed north. With my map."
"At least he was headed in the right direction,” I said.
"I know my geography," she stated proudly.
Eventually, the discussion turned to my birthday. The sculptress told the Art teacher how old I was. "Wow," said the Art teacher. "You look really good for your age. I never would've guessed."
"Clean livin'," I said, by way of explanation. “But, you know, telling someone they look good for their age is a backhanded compliment. It automatically infers that the person is old.” She got flustered and tried to tell me that’s not what she meant. "I know, I know, I’m just giving you a hard time," I said. But it wasn't enough, and she continued to explain.
"I mean, you know, like, I'm twenty-four, and like, well, look at all my friends and, you know—I hope you understand. It's a compliment. "
"I know, I know. Thank you,"
"But do you? Seriously, I hope you do. I mean, like, if you told me you were ten years younger, I'd totally believe it. I mean, you're not old. But like—"
As she continued to stammer away, I leaned over to the sculptress. "What's up with your friend?” I said. “This one, over here, the one who told the mentally retarded kid to take a hike."
I was going to end the post right there, but I can't do that. Both the Art teacher and the sculptress were very sweet and made what would've otherwise been a pathetic solo trip to the bar into a nice mini-celebration. I'm getting soft in my old age.
October 22, 2004
I ran into the sculptress last night. As we shared a beer (and I mean, literally shared one beer between us), she said something about being the one who has to carry the conversation whenever we hang out. "The first time we met," she said, "I did all the talking."
"Really? You think so?"
"Well, yeah. Most of it, anyway."
Maybe so. Anyway, she filled me in on what's been going on in her life, then asked, "What's new with you?"
"Nothing much," I replied, no doubt proving her point.
"I don't really need to ask," she said, "since I get to read about it."
"I saw your comment the other day."
"So you knew that was me who was commenting?"
"You signed yourself 'Sculptor,' so I figured it was you.”
"You noticed that, then? That I wrote sculptor?
"You mean as opposed to sculptress?"
"Yeah. Why do you call me that?"
"I don't know. It's funny."
"Nobody uses that term."
"Nobody?"
"Occasionally we'll get a submission at the Sculpture Institute from someone who calls themselves a 'sculptress,' but it's a dead giveaway that their stuff won't be what we're looking for."
I laughed. "What's wrong with sculptress?" I asked.
She looked at me as if to say, "Are you fucking kidding? It's the 21st century, old man."
I don’t remember how I came to calling her the sculptress, but I get it. I think I was writing about meeting her at the bar with a bunch of her sculptor friends, and it was a way to differentiate her from the pack. I can’t go back now and change her name in all the previous posts, can I?
Onward and upward.
November 24, 2004
I was sitting in the local coffee shop when the artist formerly known as The Sculptress walked in quite unexpectedly.
"Hey!" she said with surprise. "You're back."
We hadn't seen each other in a month or more. We hugged hello, and she took a seat at the table, where we proceeded to catch up on things. She told me that she'd just finished reading my book the night before.
"It's really sad," she said.
"You think so? I mean, yeah, it starts sad, but there are some funny parts too, don't you think?"
"Funny?" She cocked her head.
"Sure," I insisted, but she just shook her head, no.
She told me that she had tried to look at my blog once or twice during my recent trip to Amsterdam, but had to stop herself. Since a huge chunk of the book takes place there, she felt that reading anything I posted might spoil the book somehow.
"I guess so," I said, a little confused.
Anyway, since she hadn't read about it on the blog, she asked how the trip went.
"It was great," I said, and started to tell her about having started the trip with Brian.
"Wait," she interrupted, "Who is he?"
"An old friend of mine."
"But I mean, who is he in the book? There are so many characters."
"Never mind about the book. I'm telling you about my trip."
"I know, but it's confusing."
"He's my friend with the house in Ireland, with the ex-girlfriend in Paris."
"What's her name?"
"Nicole."
"In the book?"
"No, the character based on her has a different name, but never mind about the book. It’s not one-hundred percent factual, anyway."
The whole conversation was getting utterly discombobulated, so we finally changed the subject. I asked her if she was still working seven days a week. She said no, that she hadn't been, and that she'd been making and selling handbags. She pulled a few samples out of a large bag and showed them to me. They were sewn from thick pieces of vinyl.
“Hey!” I said, reaching behind my chair and grabbing my leather jacket. "Do you think you can fix this for me?" I showed her where the seams were split at the sleeves. "I'll pay you."
She examined the areas that needed repair.
"That shouldn’t be a problem,” she said. “But I don't know when I'll get to it."
"No rush. Let me know when you have time." I said, and reached out to take the jacket back.
"Why don't you leave it with me now?" she suggested. "I'll fix it in the next couple of days."
“I'm going to New Jersey for Thanksgiving. I want to have it."
She laughed and said, "Why? Is that the only jacket you own?"
"No," I replied. "But it's the only one that matters."
December 28, 2004
I braved the cold and walked to my friendly neighborhood coffee shop last night. The artist formerly known as The Scultress was there alternately reading a book and clicking around on her laptop. After I got a coffee, I sat across from her and had a little visit. She told me that she'd been there for a few hours. Her loft was so cold, she said, that she couldn't stand to stay home.
We sat silently for a moment, and then she said, "Why do you look at me like that?"
I didn't know what she meant, so I asked her to explain.
"A couple of years ago, I was getting into a hot tub with my brother,” she said. “He was about eight years old at the time. As I lowered myself into the water, I told him, 'You better not piss in the tub.' He looked at me with a funny little grin. I said, 'You already did, didn't you?' And he just kept looking at me with that look."
"You're telling me I look like a kid who pissed in the pool?"
"Exactly," she said. "Like you're in on some secret."
"I don't know what to tell you," I shrugged. "It's just my face."
And after that, I had a hard time looking at her at all.
“Can’t you complain to your landlord about your heat?” I asked.
She said that she and her roommates have control over their own heat, but they have to pay for it. It's so expensive, they're afraid to turn it up. In fact, they keep it turned down so low, she said, that a bottle of her nail polish froze. And it wasn't near a window; it was in her bathroom cabinet.
"Wow," I said. "I didn't even know nail polish could freeze."
"Me neither."
"That's really cold," I added, although I wasn't telling her anything she didn't already know.
February 11, 2005
The artist formerly known as The Scultress called last night and we arranged to meet at our neighborhood bar.
"I'm sorry,” she said, in the middle of a story I was telling. “I got distracted,"
”I get it.’ I said. “I got distracted while telling it, too."
What had distracted us was the bartender screaming across the bar. We weren’t sure who she was talking to. To us? To someone else? To everyone? She was screaming about having received a fancy Chinese massage somewhere. The masseuse walked on her back and kneaded her between the shoulder blades, and "Oh - My - God - It was a-ma-zing..."
Something else was distracting my friend, too, but I didn’t find out until after we’d left the bar.
"I don't know if you noticed or not, but I was weaving back and forth while you talked because I didn't want that guy to see me."
"Which guy?"
“My stalker,” she said.
She explained how she went out with the guy one time and how he’d become obsessed, calling a hundred times a day, and sending her text messages that read: "I'm watching you."
"I didn’t even notice him,” I said. “Is he still in there?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Where was he sitting?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"I'm curious. Wouldn't you be?"
"I don't know. I guess, maybe."
Just then, her roommate came walking up the street. The artist formerly known as The Sculptress hugged her hello before introducing me. "I think I met you once before," I told her. "At your loft."
"Maybe," the roommate said. "I might've seen you in the dark. A random tall guy in the dark. We get a lot of those at our place."
"I see. Good to know."
The roommate persuaded us to go back to the bar with her for a drink, which meant that I got to see the stalker. I could've told her he was a creep. I could tell just by looking at him. But no one asked me.
