Getting the Shaft

We come down the escalator after the movie to the mezzanine, where we pause in our conversation while Katie peers through the clear elevator doors on the far wall.

The light makes the thick plastic glow purplish-pink. We can see up the elevator shaft three stories to the top floor, and down another two stories to the ground.

"Ooooh," Katie says, and I feel a little thrill of vertigo as stare down the long emptiness to the ground.
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One year ago: Moving Day
Two years ago: Pagans
Three years ago: That Turned Dark Rather Quickly
Four years ago: Extremes
Five years ago: Hypochondria

Mnemonic Key

I do the cycle of pockets one last time before I really start to panic: right, then left jacket pocket, then right and left jeans pocket, then back pockets. No key.

After checking under the truck, then retracing my steps, I head downstairs to the storage space, my mind racing with paranoid imaginings where someone has picked up the key to our rented truck and is just waiting for me to walk away so they can steal it.

My anxiety must show on my face, because when I ask Katie if she has the key, she pulls it out slowly with a slightly pitying look, and I simultaneously remember that I gave it to her not more than fifteen minutes ago.
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One year ago: Vindicated
Two years ago: Objection: Leading The Witness
Three years ago: Fail Better
Four years ago: Maternal Wisdom
Five years ago: You Spend a Third of Your Life In Bed

The Fog Makes Everything Creepy

The fog halos the streetlights as the dog jigs sideways down the sidewalk for her last walk of the night. The streets are empty, except for this guy who crosses the street in the middle of the road to walk past me and doge.

My limbic system immediately goes on high alert, and I grab my keys and put on my mean face. The doge sniffs a tree unconcernedly as the man passes within a few feet of me on the otherwise uninhabited street, and we walk to the front door, unmolested.

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One year ago: Floating

Two years ago: First Impressions

Three years ago: Looks at Books

Four years ago: The Homestead Inside

Five years ago: Don't Look Now, But I Think We're Being Followed

Kudzu

"This biologist came into the booth today," I tell Katie as we're sitting on the stools at the kitchen table. "He deals with, like, invasive species, and I did not," I say raising a finger pointedly, "talk about kudzu, and talked about invasive Argentinian red ants instead." 

"Good job," she says, "but kudzu isn't an invasive species."

I just figured everyone talked about kudzu, and he probably was tired of hearing about the one invasive species everybody thought they knew about.

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One year ago: Remora

Two years ago: Alone Together

Three years ago: Where Are You Going? Where Are You From?

Four years ago: Dinner And A Show

Five years ago: Not That Different

Not Leaving

March, Katie and I have agreed, is gonna be us hanging out, watching movies, and deep-cleaning the house of the devastation we have wrought upon it for the last several months as we've gotten her business off the ground. 

Trudging up the stairs after the doge's last walk of the night (she clambering awkwardly up in front of me, one laborious step at a time), I imagine, for instance, taking up all the rugs in the apartment and scrubbing the wooden floors that lie concealed beneath to a warm golden glow.

This satisfying image gives way to a further image of the rugs, gone, and all the furniture too, and everything out of the apartment to the bare white walls, the way it would look if we were moving out. The very idea of leaving this place (something we have no intention of doing) fills my heart with a heavy, wet sadness, and I have to pause at the door to let it settle before going inside to get ready for bed.

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One year ago: Encouragement

Two years ago: The New Technique

Three years ago: Drunk and Cold

Four years ago: Worst Cabbie Yet

Five years ago: Is That a Good Enough Answer For You?

Morning Argument

She's furiously texting, walls of blue scrolling up the screen, interrupted only by small, pleading gray replies. "I deff don't need compliments but I can't handle when you" too far and fast for me to follow over her shoulder.

I adjust my grip on the subway pole. She stabs "send," turns the screen off, and clutches it to her chest, knuckles whitening.
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One year ago: Self Talk
Two years ago: She Learned It From Me?
Three years ago: I'm No Cary Grant
Five years ago: I Don't Actually Wear Cologne
Seven years ago: Barbaric Meo-awp
Ten years ago: Wii Would Like to Play (With Your Balls)

Beats An Office

"I'm losing track of days," I tell Katie at the end of my twenty-fourth straight day at the booth. The cop on TV discusses how to tell if a prostitute in Vegas is dealing drugs.

"Well, a lot of office workers thought yesterday was Monday too, because of the long weekend," Katie says, peering out at me from where she's laying underneath a flannel blanket.

"Same, but without the despair," I say, nodding.
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One year ago: General vs. Specific
Two years ago: Becoming Something Beautiful
Three years ago: Another Long Walk Through Winter
Four years ago: Spite
Five years ago: She Said It Would Be Cold
Ten years ago: This Old, Cold World