i can't remember the details. i know it was easy. immediately.but i can remember nothing but the feeling of his eyes on me as i turned to speak to a woman next to me. the razor edge of my body abutted against his. a hairline cut of all one has ever dared to dream and lust after.

i have been sick with stomach flu.

since late, late sunday night.

and am just now beginning to come back to myself.

my joints are creaking in new and impossible ways.

and my skin tone has taken on a lovely yellowing pallor.

but the promise of having someone else do my laundry in scalding, boiling water makes me feel oh-so-much-better. (thank goodness for nyc launderers--and don't worry i'll give them specific instructions so as to avoid my germs!)

dearest self,

it's snowing today. and world is turning white. becoming new again. and you're okay.

you know that, right? that you're okay.

i know. i know this is so hard. that it has been for some time now. and it's okay to cry. and to be lonely. but i want you to know that you have so much to look forward to. that so much good is just around the corner. and everything, all of it, will have been worth it.

i smile as i write this, because i am so excited for you. for all that you have yet to experience.

life is funny. isn't it. it doesn't turn out at all like you expect. it's better. you can't see that yet, but trust me.

there are a few things i need you to know. first, you don't hate new york. i know that you think you're beginning to. you're just lonely and the city isn't terribly forgiving when it comes to this. second {and this will the most important thing i'm going to tell you} you have to reach into your resources and pull out some courage. you need to find a new job. you don't have to go back to acting right now. you don't have to ever go back if you don't want to (and i'm not going to spoil the surprise by telling you if you do). but it's time to move on. you need to find a job that you can take pride in. you are capable of so much more than cleaning tables and managing lists. and okay, so maybe your next job will be answering phones and that's okay (just make sure that the answering phones is a means to an end--choose a job with the potential for upward movement).

i got out of the city before the snow.

about two years ago i found a picture of my parents. they could't have been much older than i am now, sitting there, opposite ends of the couch. i recognized the couch immediately. even though the photo is in black and white, i knew it to be an ugly, near-lime green. i don't remember the couch itself, but its cushions defined my childhood. they were the fort walls, the rocks amidst molten-lava, the movable, down-the-stair slides that my brother and i used again and again. my parents did a lot of things right. they encouraged us to read. anything. backs of cereal boxes, billboards--it didn't matter. and instead of investing in expensive furniture, they bought pieces that could double as indoor jungle gyms. hence the ugly, near-lime cushions. in fact, sitting in our living room now is a low, flat wooden table. it is stained a deep brown. and while the stain (instant-update-in-a-can) is a only a few years old, that was the table that as a child i would lie on my stomach, feet reaching to God, and spin in circles until i was sick.

that's what i see as i look at the picture. the couch. and my gorgeous parents. at a time long before they had my brother or myself. my father with his long, curly hair--a man i've never known. and my mother. leg's crossed, one hand sandwiched between, and the other just under her nose. and i know that position. it is mine (or so i thought). index-finger extended. thumb under chin. middle finger resting on the upper lip. and i am reminded of all those behaviors we learn--absorb--without even realizing it.

people that meet my parents can't decide who i look more like. everyone has an opinion, they just can't agree. in all honesty, my brother and i are pretty good mixes of both. but while i sit like my mother, and have her facial expressions, i am (in more ways than i'd care to admit) my father's child. i have my father's nervous stomach, his artistic bent.

and i, like my father, do not travel well. though to be fair, i feel like that's more learned behavior than innate construct. as a child, travel was a two day adventure. the first, an experiment in cleaning, the second an experiment in getting to the airport on time. and it was always a toss-up whether the inevitable family-fight fell on day one or day two.

the final ten minutes, before we were out the door, were the most intense (and often stretched themselves into an hour). in that period we'd unplug every outlet and rid the fridge of anything possible food spoilers (black beans, anyone?). and then we'd leave. halfway down the drive my father would turn back. i just have to check one thing, he'd say. ten minutes later, he'd hustle back into the driver's seat. and there on the consul would he find the sunglasses he'd gone in search of. at the entrance of the neighborhood we'd turn back again. this time to make sure the gas was off. over the years, these countless false-starts caused my mother and i to conspire about the the actual flight time--we'd fudge it by thirty minutes.

it was in observing this behavior for all those years that i (without even realizing) had my first thought of my future life-partner. he will not travel like my father. my father, who when traveling for business would wait for the car to arrive to take him to the airport before even beginning to pack. note: the car arrives at the time you should leave. not before. not after. and certainly not before you've tossed some underwear in a suitcase.

now it is i who become a bit of a mad woman. any venture from home, be it a day, a week, a month calls forth an inner terror. everything must be cleaned. and suddenly i cannot tolerate the full basket of laundry sitting at the end of my bed. or fathom why my sock drawer has yet to be organized (it's been months now, but only this morning did it cause angst). and i have three unwashed potatoes sitting on my desk. one sweet, the other two regular. why are they there? and have i still not taken care of that ziploc of unsorted receipts on my bookshelf?

and at what time must i leave in order to get to the airport at a reasonable hour? suddenly i feel like i'm stuck in a mathematical word problem. if it takes you 45 minutes on the A train to get from 181st to Port Authority and then another 45 to get from the bus stop to Newark airport, what time must you wake up in order to pack your bags, clean your room and get to the airport with enough time to not panic?

i fear i am doomed to repeat my father's behavior.

or that i have so rebelled against his ways that i will be the mother forcing her children to wait in the airport lounge three hours before departure (domestic, included). more likely that.

however, it was as i was standing in the bag-check-line ( because i now always check-in-online (why wouldn't you, it's so easy?)) that a woman just before me threw a hissy fit. a passive-aggressive hissy fit (the worst kind). the line was not long. and for whatever reason the man in charge of the line called the family just behind hers first. i don't know why. they had several bags and several children? who knows. as a person whose job consists almost entirely of getting people from a line (in the form of a list) to a table i know that their are countless reasons i might go out of order. if the table i have only accommodates two, i have to take my party of two, before the party of three in front of them. or i'm going to get the woman with the cast on her foot a table near the entrance and that might mean seating her before i should. the point is, at the end of the day i try to accommodate the most people at the fastest possible rate. so exceptions are made. and i know how to do my job better than joe schmo off the street. and i'm guessing this man who pulled the family out of line, does as well. unfortunately, this woman at the front of the line (the very short line, who i can't imagine was waiting there very long) did not agree. and she let the man have it. he calmly tried to explain, at which point she turned to the others in the line (all three of us) hoping to enlist our sympathy and cries of outrage. and i, as always, opened my big, fat mouth and told her to let it go, he was just doing his job. she ignored me. and continued spewing bile all the way to the next agent's booth, no more than a minute after the renegade family was whisked from the line. i stood there and watched as her two children learned their own "travel" behavior. i can't say my father never made a stink in a line. he did. i know he did. but because of that, i arrive with enough time, that if someone cuts in front of me, i don't have to sweat it.

so maybe there is hope for me. and hope for my future family. because i sure as hell don't want to be that woman. i'll probably still get crazed about swiffering and unorganized drawers. and i'll head to an nonexistent gate C-79, when i'm supposed to be at gate C-73. and i'll have to check for my passport fifty different times. and i'll have my own countless false-starts. but i'll leave time to accommodate for those delays and cuts and mistakes. time, in this instance, allows me to say what will be, will be.

what began as an open letter to the boy who followed just behind me in the park yesterday.

{disclaimer: this whole thing only makes half-sense to me, so expect confusion.}

i knew immediately i wasn't attracted to you.

call it female intuition.

but i was impressed.

impressed that you asked for directions (a lie, no?) and then proceeded to follow two paces behind me as we crossed to the west side.

and then annoyed. annoyed that the guys who follow girls home in the parks are never the guys you'd like to interrupt your meditative walk.

you kept the conversation going (difficult since i gave you one to two word answers), you in your floppy hat and me in my black, below-the-knee boots.

and still i wasn't interested.

and you asked what i did, and i said writer. and you asked if i self-published and i said no (known lie #2) and you wondered why not, after all, you had a blog (discernible turn-off #2 {ironic, no?} the first being the hat). you went on to talk about grad school and working in a restaurant (turn off, again).

and i felt bad judging you harshly for those things that i myself did. but then you did it. you said you were off to the Met with a friend where you'd smoke pot and wander around the galleries marveling at all the artwork.

and there it was.

i have passed the point of finding such cliche's attractive (though i'm quite sure that was never a line that impressed me).

but bottom line is this: you're a boy. you're still a boy.

it's funny how taste changes over time.

but it does.

quickly, sometimes.

and you wake to find you want something else entirely. because the things that used to draw you in now serve as warning signs. index-finger-ring? keep walking. silver pocket chain? not for me. the brain has evolved into a multi-layered thinking device. step one: tatoos, heavy scruff, no nine-to-five job? immediate interest (and this is where it used to end), but now, the mind continues on to step two: that interest muted by other more pressing matters. like the knowledge that in the past, men with those things never provided any kind of meaningful relationship.

and believe it or not i do learn from mistakes.

yes, i want adventure. and yes, the bad-boy will always hold a certain lure, but i want so much more than that.

i had a conversation with a male-friend a few months back where i spoke of a changing set of attractions--one where stability ranked much higher than a proclivity for the grunge-band look.

and said friend said i was settling.

and instinctively (female intuition once more) i knew he was wrong.

this biological clock thing isn't just about wanting children. it's about needing to provide for those children. about choosing the right partner to bear children with. and as a woman you start preparing for the final step (children) years before you've ever even met the man.

(i think.)

because it's biology. evolution, even. it comes down to a working science that we don't even realize is in operation until long after the plates have shifted.

my friends used to joke about what high standards i have. and i would balk and say no. take me to a ballgame, feed me a hot dog and call it a day. i'm easy in that sense. but you know what? maybe they were right. take me to a ballgame, yes. but the guy sure as hell has to be worth it.

no floppy hats here, please.