house hunting: definitely, maybe

symbolic character sketch through conversation of the week:

because sunday is my only day off, when hannah asked what i'd be doing that day, i yelled first WHATEVER I WANT!!!! then, definitely, maybe! definitely, maybe! the latest romantic comedy. only, i'm in starbucks and people are staring at me. she says, chilly and with eerie composure, "yes, if i didn't have the kids, i'd be seeing there will be blood."

i've been house hunting these last few weeks and, in doing so, have run into some of the strangest property owners ever.
house I:

found a cute, two bedroom bungalow with an all new kitchen: granite countertops, stainless steel appliances. the owner steps out of his green mazda miada, says almost immediately: "i know the deposit is high. i just don't want you walking off with my stove."

i laugh.

he blinks.

"it's not funny. last tenant did just that. wouldn't be laughin' had it happened to you."


apartment I:

i know immediately i don't want to live here. kitchen appliances are in a closet (i'm not kidding). everything is old. and not in a charming way. more like a place where sylvia plath would live, were she much poorer and more breathing.
which is why, i'm convinced, the landlord keeps talking. she explains to me every other tenant: age, sex, occupation, status. "ryan in 12C works for the zoo." inexplicably, they're all men. she saves the one she's most ashamed of for last. "steven on the bottom floor is, well," whispers "a waiter. but he's young, you know. and doesn't bother anyone."
as if food and beverage people are, across the board, out robbing people between keg stands.

**the part in a reading where i'd say section break while cutting my hand through the air.**

1. while at work last night, i thought up a plan so amazing, so utterly unheard of, i snuck my cell phone into ze apron and ran into the bathroom to call hannah.

"hey," i whispered. "listen. for our trip this summer, i was thinking...a beach house!"

silence.

"we could have friends down. maybe pawley's island."

silence.

i'd forgotten, of course, that hannah lives at the beach, that this would be no trip at all.

we hang up, realizing i'm an idiot.

later:

her: it's that you keep bringing me closer to home. i say nepal/iceland. you say portland. then vancouver. then...the beach.

we're both convinced i'm just trying to recreate grad school holidays at the mountain house where i, on more than one occasion, fell asleep face down with my shoes on. where sally ate butter with a fork because we dared her to. where we all but wrestled ulysses out of bill's hands. where we ran out of alcohol only to discover a cabinet filled with knob creek...like a grad student's alice in wonderland. where we recorded "the weight," "jet plane," and others.

"you realize those days are over," hannah says.

which i don't realize. not at all. only, it reminds me of that scene in when harry met sally, when meg ryan says, "i'm going to be forty."

"in eight years," billy crystal says.

"yeah, but it's out there."

2. val kilmer: the voice of kitt on nightrider. it's weird. no one listened to me when i hated his portrayal of jim morrison in the doors. in other news, tomorrow is the premiere of the new reality show (which looks a lot like double dare) called my dad is better than your dad. yeah, that NBC is doing swimmingly.

3. and yet again i've been had by another great new hip hop song on the radio that turns out to be a sprite jingle. as in, i turn it up. it's catchy. it could very well be the new timbaland beat. and then, inevitably, so drink sprite! followed by a new kids on the block-ish huh.

4. my student uncovered a NYT article last week that "proves" the american people are, and i quote, "hostile to knowledge."

5. marlee matlin, who plays jody on the L word, is going to be on this season's dancing with the stars. i question the integrity of what used to be my favorite series.

6. marie howe, beth ann fennelly, and jorie graham all have books coming out this spring. think of it as a gift registry for the unengaged, unpreggers. my address is...