Tire? Fire!
That time I had all four tires slashed.
My friend Jim and I hit the New York International Auto Show this past Friday. We went last year and had a good time walking around gaping at the latest and greatest. This year? Meh. School was out in New York and every time I opened a car door to check out an interior I’d find a 9 year-old in the driver’s seat, twisting the steering wheel left and right and going BRRMMM-BRRMM! The show also seemed downgraded from 2025, with several large manufacturers (looking at you, Honda) skipping it entirely. But I’ve known Jim over 50 years, so even a bad time can be fun. As we wandered the Javits Center talking cars we soon got on to the subject of tires. I told Jim I just bought a set for Sweet T.’s car. Then I said I wanted to replace the horrible run-flat tires on my Mini. Jim asked when I last had a flat. And somehow I found myself asking if I ever told him about the time I was dating the Poetess in the West Village and got all four tires on my shitty Buick Century slashed. When I got home I found the piece I wrote about it, just to check the details. Here it is.
August 15, 2002 – 11:43 PM
Listening to the Boss. Badlands.
I wanna find one face that ain’t looking through me…
Same here. Everyone’s looking through me these days. Except the saleslady at the Mini dealer, down in Princeton. I think I bought a car today. Or maybe I just leased one. Also heard from the Poetess today. I’m to meet her tomorrow in Grand Central Station, 1:30 pm at the Oyster Bar. It’s sure to be one hot fucking day. The heatwave is back. Per Brother Theodore, I spent the day sweating like a piece of rancid pork. Should be interesting tomorrow, with the Poetess giving me feedback on my poetry as she eats oysters. I lied when she asked “Do you like oysters?” Not lied, exactly. I like smoked oysters. Not raw oysters. But maybe I’ll try one with her.
September 17, 2002 – 12:13 AM
Haven’t written in weeks now. Weeks that have changed my life. I looked back in this journal and found an installment mentioning the Poetess. Wow. Who knew? I met her at NPR when she came in to record something from her book of poems. I struck up a conversation, asked if she’d look at my poems and give me feedback. I wasn’t thinking romantically at all. But I guess she was. We got together August 16th at the Oyster Bar and we’ve been seeing each other ever since. She’s beyond a shadow of a doubt the coolest woman I’ve known. I am totally attracted to her. I love being with her. I love kissing her. I’ve had the best sex in my life with her. No kidding. She is so incredibly sexy.
I prayed to my Grandmother at the beginning of August, to send me a woman. I met the Poetess August 2nd. Now we’re a couple. She’s coming over tomorrow and we’ll climb under the cover again. How cool is that? As my friend Jeff always says, “Things can change at any time…”
Ab-so-fucking-lootly.
Now I have to sign off and finish my love letter.
October 23, 2002 – 3:17 AM
Jesus Christ. I just read the last line in this journal. Holy shit. Who knew? Who knew a fucking love letter would cause such a pain in the ass. Ha! I made a joke. I’m going to see a rectal surgeon tomorrow at 2:30. But first I’ll be taking a Fleet enema at 11:30 and a second one an hour later. Why two? Why two Fleet enemas? Why Fleet enemas? Why do they specifically say Fleet enemas? Does Fleet have a proprietary enema technology? Have I ever had an enema? I vaguely recall giving myself one years ago. When I was incredibly constipated, unable to shit for three days. I was worried enough, on the third day, to go get an enema kit. But did I ever take it? I can’t remember. Maybe it’s the kind of thing you try to forget. You think you’d remember. I’ll have one tomorrow, anyway. I’ll have two. Out will come the grilled cheese with bacon I ate two hours ago while watching The Sopranos. I stopped at the Hudson Diner after stepping off the bus on Washington Street. There was a Perfect Couple™ behind me on the bus. I couldn’t wait to be off that fucking thing. They were both so beautiful. Blonde hair, nice tits on her. Chiseled chin, JFK Jr. hair on him. She wore a white cable knit sweater, his was red. They talked too loud. Even with my headphones and Power 105 blasting I heard them laughing and joking. I was so tempted to turn around and say something. Why must people talk like that on the bus? Like no one else is around, like no one else can hear? And if they can hear, who gives a shit? That’s what they think. That their lives are so fascinating, so interesting that we ALL want to hear. They think they’re in a movie. Or, worse, a sitcom. It’s an episode of Friends and they’re engaging in snappy patter for the entertainment of those of us uncoupled. He lays across her lap, they joke about her glasses.
“These glasses make me look SO much smarter though…”
He puts his head on her chest, nuzzles her. Like the rest of us can’t see. Or maybe they think that they’re just so young and full of love that we should feel lucky to be near them? The sense of entitlement is stifling. They talk about Hoboken like they moved in two weeks ago. And they did. They’re still amazed by the New York skyline when the bus exits the Lincoln Tunnel. Fucking Midwesterners. I can bet neither one of them is going to the Ass Doctor tomorrow to see why they can’t shit without unbearable pain. Like some hook-handed fuck lurks in the bowl, pulling your anus out as you try to evacuate. Like some shit-covered demon lit a box of matches and stuffed them up your hole.
And then the blood.
I mentioned the blood today, on the phone, with the Poetess. I yelled at her.
“My ass has been bleeding for five days! I can’t sleep without pain! I’m sorry I’m contradicting myself! I do want to see you tonight. But I know I’ll just sit there in pain, worrying about whether or not I have fucking COLON CANCER or a polyp or what…”
Then I hung up on her. I knew – immediately – that I’d gone too far. You can’t hang up on people, no matter how angry you are. People don’t like to be hung up on. Anyone hangs up on me and I usually don’t speak to them again. I was exaggerating anyway. My ass has not been bleeding for five days. I don’t know why I told her that. Because I worked myself into a corner? I said I wanted to see her tonight. Then I said I was just going to go home. She lost it on me.
“Which is it?” Why did you just say – A MINUTE AGO – that you wanted to come over AND THEN YOU SAY – just now – that you CAN’T? I told you to just CALL ME when you wanted to get together? DIDN’T I tell you that JUST A MINUTE AGO?”
I closed my eyes, leaned against the bathroom door. I’d just had a shit, thankfully less painful than Sunday. The pain was definitely declining. Sunday was the last time I’d seen the Poetess.
“Who do you want to shit on?”
Now I’m on Sheila the Shrink’s couch, complaining about my new girlfriend, how she’s driving me crazy with her neurotic behavior. Sheila has just asked one of her goddamn shrink questions. I have to think about it, of course. Then, it all comes out, no enema needed.
“I want to shit on my new girlfriend, that’s who. She’s giving me a pain in the ass, literally.”
“Is that what’s happening?” asks Sheila.
“I definitely think there’s a psychological component. I didn’t have this pain a month ago. IT WAS THAT FUCKING LETTER. Ever since I wrote THAT FUCKING LETTER she’s been TESTING me. She thinks it’s a contract or something, like it’s written in STONE. Jesus. She’ll be fourty-eight in February and dresses like she’s twenty. I thought she we twenty-five when I met her. But she whines like a teenager. ‘Why did I drink an ENTIRE bottle of wine last night? I have such a fucking hangover now…’ What am I supposed to say to this?”
“You know AA does some wonderful work in this area.” points out Sheila.
“I told her about my mother. She knows what I went through with her, with the goddamned vodka. I can’t do this. I can’t do this with her. I don’t think I can see her anymore. Shit, I wish you’d tell me what to do. I really wish you would. I know you can’t. But I don’t know what to do. The honeymoon was over so quickly. What the fuck was it, all of three weeks before our first argument?”
“Well, you know that being in a relationship means managing the other person’s unconscious.” adds Sheila, unhelpfully.
“Yeah, we were talking about that last time. But I don’t know how much managing I’m able to do. I feel like I haven’t paid any attention to my life. I have piles of shit at home that I haven’t gotten to in weeks. Bills. Other shit. I’m spending so much time dealing with her. She wants to be together all the time. The other day she says ‘I couldn’t be in one of those relationships where people see each other only on weekends.’ Jesus Christ! I wanted to tell her THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I WANT. I’d be very happy with that kind of arrangement! During the week I could tend to my own life and we could see each other on the weekends. That would be fucking PERFECT.”
Sheila digs down, asks “What keeps you from telling her that?”
“I don’t know. Fear? She frightens me. Like my mother frightened me. Especially when she got drunk, said shitty things. The Poetess can be like that. She’s very smart and she can make cutting remarks when she’s drunk. I keep telling her ‘Keep it friendly!’ but she just… she doesn’t want to. She goes seeking confrontation, then gets upset with me when I take the bait. I guess I can’t learn to not take the bait. It’s weird. I know what she’s doing. But I plug into it anyway.”
Sheila is quiet a moment, then asks “What do you think she’ll do if you tell her you want to see her on the weekends and not during the week. Or if you were to dump her?”
“I don’t see her doing any harm to me. I know I would feel bad. She’s built this thing up. It was that FUCKING LETTER. What a STUPID thing to do. I should’ve NEVER sent it. But I did.”
“So if you don’t see her doing harm to you…”
“I guess I could see her doing harm to herself.”
“Killing herself?”
“I could see her doing that. She talked so much about all these recent men, how they dumped her.”
“She sets them up to dump her.”
“It seems that way.”
October 27, 2002 – 10:13 PM
Holy fucking Jesus. There’s so much I like about where the Poetess lives – the West Village, not far from the Stonewall Inn – but the parking can go fuck itself. I know, I know. Why am I driving in when the Christopher Street PATH station is right there? I had to drive in last night because we planned to head to Asbury Park Saturday morning for a day on the boardwalk. The weather is still nice and she’s never been. When I got to her neighborhood I drove around in my shitty Buick Century for thirty minutes, finding nothing. I keep passing one spot that’s just a tiny bit too small. So I decide to use the technique I perfected with my Jeep Wagoneer years ago in Hoboken: use the bumpers to push the vehicles on either side a bit. If done carefully there’s no damage and no one’s the wiser.
I back the Buick in and make contact with the Ford behind me. I give it some gas and move the Ford a few inches until I can almost get into the spot. Then I make gentle contact up front with a Dodge and push that, too. Another push on the Ford, one more on the Dodge and I’m in. I exit the Buick to find an old woman staring holes through me from her open ground floor window. We lock eyes for a moment and the palpable disgust on her face sends a shiver through me.
The Poetess and I have a good night. Her 10 year-old daughter is staying with the dad, so we have privacy and can fuck. Early Saturday we have a nice breakfast at the cute French cafe downstairs, then she goes back into the apartment to grab whatever we’re taking to Asbury. I tell her to wait for me, I’ll pull around so we don’t have to tote everything to the car. When I get to the Buick it has not one, not two, not three but FOUR flat tires. Four fairly-new flat tires, all slashed. Motherfuck me. I call the NYPD, and two officers arrive in minutes. They get out of their squad car and can barely stifle their laughter as I point at my tires. Then, on cue, the old woman reappears at her window to cackle “Serves you right!”
The biggest cop, with a very cop mustache, asks “Ma’am, do you know anything about this?”
The old woman points a crooked finger at the Buick. Then at me.
“He was pushing the cars to get into that parking space.”
The biggest cop turns to me, says “You were doing what?”
Flummoxed, sheepish, I say “It was a tight spot. I didn’t damage anything. Look!”
I walk around to the Dodge, then to the Ford, both still there.
“See? No damage.”
The cops give me a “we-have-better-things-to-do-with-our-time” look. Then, like the end of The Marathon Man, more neighbors show up to point at me and give me shit.
“Can’t you do anything?” I plead to the cops.
“Like what?” says the biggest one.
“It’s obvious she knows something.” I desperately indicate the old woman in the window.
The cops hand back my license, registration and insurance card with a less-than-sincere “Good luck.”
“Great. Just great.”
I search the faces of the half-dozen West Village denizens standing around glorying in their triumph over the asshole with the Jersey plates. When I finally get back to the apartment and tell the Poetess the shore trip is off she’s disappointed and can’t fathom how I ended up with four flats. I don’t tell her about the pushing.
I call AAA and arrange for a flatbed to take my car to the Jersey City Sears Auto Center. I don’t have $400 for four new tires and installation but my Sears credit card covers it. Thank Jesus. I tell the Poetess we’ll try again next weekend but this time I’ll pick her up Saturday morning or she can take the PATH train to Hoboken and we’ll leave from there. I also say I’ll never again drive to her fucking neighborhood.
November 3, 2002 – 2:54 AM
Can’t sleep. Too depressed. Keep thinking about the Poetess, about breaking up with her Friday morning. Was it the right thing to do? It felt right. I thought about it all week, I pondered carefully. That shit she pulled Monday night – I just can’t go through that over and over. I think she has a real drinking problem. I think she has a repetition compulsion when it comes to men. So why did I feel so bad when I saw her today outside the WFMU Record Fair? Was it because she looked so good, with the lipstick and the pigtails? Was it because she didn’t seem at all upset, like she was off to her next thing already? Like the next man was waiting in the wings?
She was at the Record Fair so we could do an extremely awkward exchange of items left in one another’s apartments. She had a small shopping bag with a grooming kit, a dress shirt, a pair of underwear and – strangest of all – an almost-depleted tube of toothpaste in a Zip-Lok bag. Like it was evidence from a crime scene. That depressed the living shit out of me. I gave her a plastic shopping bag with her skirt and blouse but forgot to ask for the spare keys to my place. We made entirely uncomfortable small talk, me about my coming trip to St. Louis, her about her daughter’s cough and just how bad it may or may not be. She fears the kid has some kind of asthma. I think it’s psychological, like maybe the kid wants to choke me. I know the kid is angry with me. When I called to set up the record fair rendezvous I felt a strange subtext between the Poetess and her daughter. The kid wanted to get on the phone and say something mean to me. I could tell. I wonder what she was told about the breakup. Does it matter?
I keep thinking I should be relieved, like I dodged a bullet. That’s not how it feels. It feels like I gave up on the Poetess. Like I didn’t try hard enough. I miss the affection, touching her body, kissing her, fucking her. I suppose I will go without the human touch for awhile. I suppose that’s inevitable. Part of me keeps wanting to pick up the phone and call it all off, stop the breakup. As if you could do that. As if it’s done. But didn’t Jeff get back together with his girlfriend? (Doesn’t he also talk about breaking up with her again?)
Christ, I feel so sorry for the Poetess and her kid. I feel like this fraud that entered their lives for a few months and turned them upside down. I keep wanting to blame myself entirely. It’s somehow all my fault for not being able to handle the road when it got tough. But all I saw ahead were more bumps. I think these awful scenes with her would’ve repeated ad nauseam.
When I called her Friday morning I said “I can’t do this anymore.”
“I have to stop drinking. Even if you and I breakup.” she replied.
We had just broken up but she was talking about it like it might happen. And if she knows she has a drinking problem why couldn’t she do something about while she was with me? Then I find out her daughter is listening on the extension when the Poetess does the whole thing about having to switch phones and rooms. I’m suddenly alone on the phone with the kid.
“Hi, Chris.” she says.
“Hello. How are you?”
“Oh, I’m okay I guess…”
Her mom comes back on and wants to analyze just what went wrong. I don’t want to do a whole post-mortem. We talk for a bit but I can’t remember what’s said. Not at all, just the sad-beyond-belief feeling, so sad I’m smoking again. No big deal, I’ll quit. Again. But I need something to lean on, I suppose. And what better way to hate yourself than to smoke? I hate myself right now, for what I did to the two of them. I feel so alone, so used up – like nothing good will ever come my way again. I know these are just feelings and I should try to understand what they’re telling me. But the pain is too close and I can’t dissect the feelings now. I just have to ride it out. Christ, I can’t wait to speak with Sheila.
Outside the record fair the Poetess had a final question.
“Did you mean it about wanting to remain friends?”
“I do.”
“I have to think about it…”
I would like to talk with her again. I do like her, maybe even love her. I just don’t know that I can be with her. Enough of this for tonight. I’m sleeping in late tomorrow (today). Good night.
November 10, 2002 – 2:41 AM
Just in from Bill’s. Went over there to blow the night away. Time spent with Bill is mostly time down the toilet. We don’t talk. We sit and make fun of shows on the TV. We drink beer. We smoke some pot. But we don’t talk. About anything going on in our lives. Why should we? Why would we? Why would I tell him about the Poetess? Why would he tell me about the Writer? We’ll never tell each other anything.
I’ve been thinking about the Poetess more and more. I went out to Brooklyn with Ted and family, to an art opening. We picked up hist sister along the way. Her hair is the same color as the Poetess, somewhere between strawberry and dark blonde. I found myself thinking about the Poetess, about how we had gotten past all the preliminaries, how we were dating – even though it was difficult to have a good time with her – and I missed her last night, out by myself, hitting on – OH GOD, WHAT WAS HER NAME?! Was it Melanie? No – it was Maria! Hitting on Maria at Niagara. I’ve seen her around before, was instantly attracted to her, made a bold pass right there at the table. She would not give up the digits. Made mealy-mouthed excuses about how she needs to get her life together, how she’s moving to Massachusetts, etc. I ended up giving her my number, saying “No pressure. Just call me if you’d like.”
She’ll never fucking call.
It’s amazing how quickly we fall back into the old ways. We go back to feeling like shit about ourselves, like no one will ever love us, could ever love us. This is why I miss the Poetess so much: I think she’s the last woman who’ll ever love me. She said she did. She didn’t act like she did. Did she? Was she doing the best she could? Was it just not good enough? There was so much wrong with the quote unquote relationship. Her drinking was the biggest hurdle. I could not overcome it. I think she wasn’t kidding when she said she was an alcoholic. A depressive alcoholic. Who wants to be with that?
Today will be the rare Sunday I have to myself. I have nothing to accomplish tomorrow. I want to prepare some writing for that agent. I have to get a package in the mail to her. I want to write something new. I’ll spend the day on myself, maybe do some financial shit. I have so much paperwork to get through, so much clearing out.
Thanksgiving is not far off. Where did I spend it last year? I don’t remember. Good thing for this journal. I can look it up. I should spend this year with my mother. I honestly don’t know how much longer she’s got. I keep promising I’ll go out and see her. I should.
Shit, I just remembered I’m supposed to do all this stuff with Jeff Monday night but I’m booked into a studio at Sirius Satellite Radio. Goddamnit. I can’t go changing my night again. I’ve done it the last three Mondays in a row. Fuck.
Almost 3 AM. Time for fake sex and bed. Boy, do I miss real sex. The Poetess was always good for that. I want to call her but I know it’d be a bad idea. What would we say to each other? Best to stay away, let her be mad at me. I wonder what she’s told her friends? Like I can do anything about it. Our lives intertwined completely for two months. Now it’s over.
It’s definitely over.
September 17, 2003 – 1:00 AM
So much to report. And I don’t feel like reporting it. I could talk about the visit to my father’s house in Florida. But what is there to say? We got along okay. It was fun to hang out with him a little. He seems like a nice guy. We had an amazing political discussion where he actually said, “What we need in this country is a revolution!” I wanted to stay another week, two weeks. Hang out with him until we knew each other. I might be headed back down there at Thanksgiving. It remains to be seen.
Boy, I just can’t sit here and write. I am a washout as a writer. I just don’t have what it takes to sit down day in and day out and pound it out. It’s not in me. And why should I force it? My talent is speaking on the radio. That’s what I’m good at. It’s what I should be paid for. I am so much better than many of these bums now on the air, earning good money. I want to earn good money, too. I want out of this goddamn railroad apartment. I want a house like my dad’s, with lots of room and a garage and carport, with a fenced in pool and a pond out front. I want nice leather sofas and a big-screen TV. I want some fucking comfort. I am getting old and why shouldn’t I have a decent life? What am I, a chump?
Imagine I lived some place where I could invite my father? I could host him the way he hosted me. Would he ever do it? Would he come visit? I don’t know. I don’t think he’s too happy down in Florida. But that house… and the cats: that must make him happy.
I told him I would give him my old computer, the one I’m working on right now. I plan on getting a new iMac shortly.
Christ, my back hurts. I never get backaches. But I’ve been carrying so much shit around in that bag… it feels like three bowling balls in there.
I’d love to be able to say how I am tonight. But I can’t get in touch with it. A numbness comes over me, it smacks of my mother when she’d get that glazed faraway look in her eyes after the third tumbler of vodka and orange juice. It always frightened me, that thousand-yard stare. It said Fuck everything. And I have gone away. She’d only be like that for a moment or two, then she’d snap back, startling herself. I feel like that these days. My tuning out means I don’t write anything down. I don’t want to put certain things on paper. Is that it or I am just the world’s laziest fuck? God, I hope not. I know I can get up and go to work day after day, that I can hold on to not one but TWO jobs. I know I’m responsible enough to have lived in the same apartment for ten years. And broke enough that rent control keeps me here. But I seem to have lost the knack for writing. Or the yen. Knack or yen. Sounds like an Asian Poker game.
I feel sorry for myself too often these days. I look at my life as something that’s essentially over. Not that I feel I’ll die soon. Just that I see it going on like this ad infinitum. This same state of affairs where I earn just enough to get by, never enough to do well, to prosper. This perpetual bachelorhood. Blowing off steam on the weekends. Etc. I see myself going on like this, if I can make it, if I can stay upright, until retirement rolls around 24 years from now. Maybe, if my father holds on to the Florida house, I can move the fuck down there when I’m 65. I’m sure my circulation will be so poor I’ll feel cold all the time anyway. By then, Florida’s average temperatures will be in the mid-100’s regularly, due to global warming.
Who am I kidding? My father will be living elsewhere, if he’s still alive. He’ll be further north, further west. I picture him in West Virginia somehow. Almost heaven, West Virginia – like the John Denver song I was forced to learn in junior high. I’m afraid my mother and father will be leaving nothing behind to me, their youngest. Maybe one or two things here and there. But nothing substantial, like a stack of money or a house. And who should expect such things anyway? What kind of child is waiting around to see what they can get when a parent dies? It’s too morbid. I’m no goddamned vulture.
So how do I feel? What was I getting at? That I see myself just drifting further through life, no real goals, no real ambition, no desire to do what it takes to be happy. Worse than that, I see sex going completely out of my life, unless you count fake sex. But sex with a nice lady – those days seem far behind me. It’ll soon be a year since I was last with the Poetess. We broke up sometime in October. I’m sure I could pinpoint the exact day but what would be the point? I’ve been missing her lately, missing the companionship, no matter how strange things were between us. I could talk with her. We could laugh. I even miss going over to her goddamned apartment and going through all that shit to convert the single bed into a double so we could sleep together. God, what a way to live! Her poor daughter, still sleeping in the same room as her mom and the kid’s gotta be thirteen. I think she turned twelve last year, that damn birthday party when Rick C.– acclaimed author! – came over. God, did she use his “fame” as a wedge between us. Talented, attractive Rick C., with his debut novel cribbing extensively from the Poetess’s life, incorporating the daughter as a character. I’ll never forget how we came back to the apartment, to her poor ex-husband shepherding all those giggly girls. They were watching some movie much too adult for them, with talk about blowjobs and so on. I wasn’t supposed to be embarrassed. I think I was to think it all too sophisticated, these pre-pubescent girls watching Cameron Diaz and friends discussing proper technique. It made me feel ill. And the Poetess, so drunk, excited that Rick C. was headed over, waving that damn novel at her kid, saying “Honey, you remember Rick, don’t you? He’s coming by. He put you in his novel, don’t you remember?”
“Sure, why don’t you just invite EVERYBODY to my party?”
The kid turned back to the TV. It gave me such a thrill as I sat there, acting as chaperone, taking over for the departing husband, while the Poetess went and changed. She came out in something tight and short and we poured ourselves some wine and talked until well after midnight, when Rick C. finally decided to put in an appearance. What kind of shady S.O.B. comes to a CHILD’S birthday party at quarter-to-one in the morning? I had to act friendly when introduced but don’t think I succeeded. I was mighty frosty and I’m sure he could tell. Fuck him, with all that hair and those cheekbones, skinny bastard. He gave a gift to the birthday girl and chatted with her for a minute or two. She didn’t seem all that interested. Then the Poetess and Rick go into the bedroom and sit opposite each other on the beds, talking about writing and books. I’d pop in from time to time but found it impossible to sit with both of them and talk about anything. It was obvious they just wanted to visit with each other. I would’ve gone home but no one was watching the kids.
I hear the Poetess and Rick C. talking about Catcher in the Rye and when he makes a pedestrian observation I find myself wincing, so I go into the bedroom again and make little effort to hide my displeasure with the lateness of the hour. The bastard finally gets up and leaves around two in the morning. I sleep over and before lights out the Poetess and I have a fight. Nothing big. She’s not happy with the amount of cordiality I displayed toward Rick. Like I could give a fuck. It boomerangs on me and I’ll never forget what she says to me in the Target, that time we take her kid shopping for clothes and we get into over what happened that morning. It was our first “sleep over” at my place, the Poetess and I in the bedroom, the kid sleeping on the couch in the front room. The Poetess showers and comes out naked, her kid ten feet away. I was not comfortable with this and quickly grab a robe and usher the Poetess into the kitchen. I make it clear, non-verbally, that this is beyond the pale and she needs to put the robe on. She pouts at me all morning, over pancakes, on the drive to Target, in the store. Finally, I have to “discuss it” with her. We leave the kid in the women’s clothing section and step next door, into the greeting card aisle, and have it out. She goes all in on me being a prude, how her kid has seen her naked plenty and it’s my problem and she did nothing wrong, etc. I put up a pretty good argument about how it’s too soon and makes me uncomfortable and then, apropos of nothing, the Poetess says “And Rick said ‘Your boyfriend is a real asshole, you know.’…”
“I don’t really give a fuck WHAT Rick said. And what does that have to do with anything?! Why are you going outside this argument for assistance?”
She’s pretty stunned and apologizes quickly. We make up and go back to women’s clothes to find her kid apoplectic. Poor kid, her alcoholic poetess Joni Mitchell-addled mom unwilling to set boundaries.
When she sees her daughter the Poetess takes on a sing-song concerned tone, cooing “Honey, what’s wrong?”
The kid, through tears, blurts out “I thought you left without me!”