I Am Known

"I knew you weren't going to call Houston to check lost and found for your Kindle," Katie says with a loving smile as she hands me my Valentine's Day gift: a new Kindle!

"I called them!" I protest, laughing.

"No you didn't," she says. "You would have made it your Four Each Day."
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One year ago today: Contrast
Two years ago today: The Scientist Considers His Divorce
Four years ago today: Drink the Undrinkable Drink
Six years ago today: 2/14/11 no good reason
Nine years ago today: 2-14-08 There is Nowhere That Does Not See You

Expectation of Privacy

He's scrolling through his phone while I stand above. The train is packed in tight, so everybody's all up in each other's business.

I'm not sure if he's on Instagram or Tumblr or something, but every few pictures at first, and then every other picture on his phone, is of a scantily-clad women, her hair demurely hanging over her breasts, or a well placed heart-shaped pastie over one nipple.

He keeps flipping through the photos until, out of the corner of his eye, he notices me watching him and his feed of naked ladies with great interest, but when he looks up, I've looked elsewhere, and he turns off his phone and hastily shoves it in his jacket pocket, turning red in the face as he does so.
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One year ago today: Prescient
Three years ago today: Time Travel
Four years ago today: Revolving Door
Nine years ago today: 2-13-08 February in a Nutshell

Morning Session

My feet are relaxing, my feet are relaxing, my feet are relaxed, and so on, working my way up my body through my legs, my hips, my guts, my chest, all the way to the top of my head as I lay on my yoga mat. My body, whether as a result of too much sleep, or the two margaritas I had last night that kicked like a pair of mules, appears in my mind's eye like a poorly drawn cartoon: all thick, wavy, unstable lines, parts phasing in and out of existence.

I breathe, I stretch, pushing and pulling each part, each muscle group, smoothing out the chunky, awkward lines of flesh and thought until the flickering boundaries of me come back in sync, and I am whole again. By the end of an hour-and-a-half, the cartoon has been replaced by an oil painting, the brush strokes disguised, the edges of me sanded down to soft lines and a clear, unwavering gaze (for now).
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One year ago today: Do You Like Piña Coladas?
Two years ago today: After a Fashion
Three years ago today: We Are Conspicuous at the Comedy Show
Four years ago today: The solution
Nine years ago today: 2-12-08 My Lungs are a Swamp

Not Interested

We're standing outside the restaurant on the sidewalk, watching through the window, as it all goes down. The server approaches the table with her head down, no eye contact, to talk to the guy and his date who are taking up a six-top all by themselves. We're five, they just sat down, and there's a perfectly good table waiting for them if they let us have their spot, and she's simply asking if they'd be willing to move.

The guy clearly refuses, and Dan, whose birthday we're celebrating, says, "Did he just do this," making a cutting motion across his throat, "to tell her no way?"
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One year ago today: Overexplaining
Two years ago today: The REAL 50 Shades
Three years ago today: Meeting, The Other
Four years ago today In New York City, We Are Not Overly Solicitous of One Another's Pain
Nine years ago today: 2-11-08 Never Complain, Never Explain

Not Complaining

"Hey, uh, Scott?" our houseguest Jeff says to me in the kitchen. "Did you know that the back of your fridge freezes things?"

"Oh, yeah, totally." I say, continuing to chop onions and tomatoes for dinner.

"Yeah, I pulled out something, I think it was a beer, and it was like drinking a beer slushie," he says with obvious pleasure.
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One year ago today: Bored
Two year ago today: Bass-awkwards
Three years ago today: I've Got the Look (How Do I Get Rid of It?)

The Price of Inattention

I watch half of a TV show I don't like before I get bored and turn it off. My phone is in the kitchen, so I miss the text from my neighbors inviting me to join them in the park for night sledding.

I can see it: the moon, almost full, in a sky scoured clean by the day's snowstorm, the bite of cold wind, turning my eyeballs to crystal.

I lay in bed, a little uncomfortably warm, exhausted from a day of work, and read some poetry, dreaming of moonlight glittering on snow.
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One year ago today: Whatcha Thinking?
Two years ago today: Too Many Teeth
Three years ago today: The Longest Joke Ends When You Die

She Didn't Even Know He Was Gone

The roister of teenagers rolls down the sidewalk, shoving out arms and legs gesticulating in wild enthusiasm and barking sharp stabs of laughter in a cloud of hormones and objectless sexuality. Two of the kids look like athletes - long shorts and high tops, hoodies and unconscious grace - and both of them carry identical black gym bags covered in red glitter on the tops and handles, which confuses me a little (dancers, maybe? or a really flamboyant basketball team?).

After their chaotic little parade passes us by, sweeping along the sidewalk and across the street, in their wake I find a little boy standing beside a tree, looking at me with one hand raised slightly, and a wide eyed, mischievous grin that also reads as a little scared. He and I lock eyes for a few suspended, awkward moments, until he slowly backs away and then breaks into a run, catching up to his mother halfway down the block.
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One year ago today: You've Been Warned
Two years ago today: FaceTime Isn't For the Weak
Three years ago today: You Kiss Your Toddler With That Mouth?