does anyone remember the ill-fated honesty box on facebook?
it was one of those silly and absurd applications that sounds oh-so-intriguing at the time.
people could "deposit" little notes in your box about what they really thought of you.
tickled by the premise, i posted it to my profile: fantastic, bring it on!
oh, dear. i should have known.
and that's when it happened. someone left a little note saying something along the lines of: just because you're prettier than everyone else doesn't make you better.
awesome.
and because the honesty box was really classy, you could actually respond.
so i accessed my inner-snark and wrote back: if you knew me at all, you'd know that i don't think i'm better than people because of what i look like, but because i'm smarter than everyone else.
yes, the high-road. obvs.
(i know, i know. not. my finest hour. and yet...not a response i regret).
my honesty box stayed around just long enough for someone to say something cruel enough that i left facebook all together for a time.
i don't know if the honesty box still even exists. or if its been relegated to the same place that all those facebook-stalker-revealer-applications eventually end up. because let's be honest--no one wants a facebook application that will let us see who's been viewing our page--(aka: lets others know we've been viewing their page. a lot. too much. way too. much, even).
it started to snow saturday afternoon. for just a moment. and for the first time since that first fateful snowfall following christmas i found myself willing the sky to really open up. i figured a blanketing of the city would be a perfectly valid excuse to postpone the next day's book club meeting.
i was scared.
utterly terrified.
i knew no one. but nor did anyone else.
and then a little gift of the universe: an ice-breaker in the form of a room change. our pre-assigned room--room 401 had been re-assigned for none other than...wait for it...stripperexpertease (yes, please do note how that word is spelled).
i figured if that didn't scare people away, well then, by golly, we were gonna be okay.
the whole thing was lovely. truly, lovely (there was a really good energy in the room {does that sound new age-y and weird?}). and i felt so incredibly lucky to be surrounded by smart, out-spoken women (and one man!).
discussion of the book led to discussion of writing and blogging and our own lives and what brought us to new york and on and on. the two hours flew by but we followed it up with a late lunch at a corner diner and more discussion.
i feel so very lucky to have met such good, brave people and i can't wait until next month. the book has yet to be decided but our tentative date is sunday, march 20 (probably around 3 pm this time) and newcomers are of course welcome and encouraged.
a tremendous thank you to those who came and anyone who read along (please do tell what you thought of the book!)...and until next time.
she sat in the cool, dark theatre. surrounded by strangers. a book on her lap, waiting for the play to begin.
she had come to see him. in the play, on the stage. come to see him, tell a story.
but she was sitting so close. and wanted so desperately to move, just a little. wanted to be further away--wanted to make it harder for his eyes to light upon her during some great scene or important moment. didn't want to be privy to a moment in which the fourth wall broke.
perhaps it was that she knew they were breaking. maybe that was the real impulse to move, to run, to escape to the light beyond the theatre.
but she stayed, marveled as the words of the playwright tumbled around in the actors' mouths, and then sat across from him at dinner.
and when things were good, there was nothing she liked more than sitting across from him, sharing his space, being close enough that his laughter could land on her--she had forgotten that all these many months later--she had thought she had nothing nice to say. and that that was the real tragedy. that she had fallen for the markers of a man and not the man himself. but she had forgotten that without him ever even looking her way she could feel his awareness, his enrapture. total and complete. and it felt good.
life and its many shades of grey.
because for all the warmth he aroused, he also stirred something deep and sad within her. and he didn't want to know that. to touch that. to taste that. so he'd flirt with the bartender as she sat quietly on the adjacent stool. or so it seemed.
in fact, it all seemed a bit ridiculous now. the few extra blocks she'd walk out of her way in those first few months after it unraveled--charged both by the dread and hope that she might see him. or the now untouched bottle of perfume in bottom drawer of her dresser. she couldn't stomach the scent; he had so liked it.
she ran into a friend recently. a friend who had sat in the same cool, dark theatre on the same winter-swept night. and watched the play with the same tumbling words. said friend asked about the guy, remarked that her own attendance at the play had sparked a series of messages between the two, culminating in their own ill-fated date.
and there it was.
she had sat in the theatre, worried that his eyes would find her too easily. what a needless worry. for in fact his eyes had found someone else that night.
yes, yes. it all seemed a bit ridiculous now.
