I know no better

Here’s a confidence exercise I thought of the other day: when walking on the street, wave through the café window at a stranger. Smile like you’ve just recognized an old friend. Then, keep walking. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’ll let you know about the results if I do, or you can try it and tell me.

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I’m not really interested in art or life advice from men at the moment. This includes the ones that are living, dead, educated, provincial, highly recommended, underrecognized, whatever. I realized at a certain point that I was coming up short looking for mentorship in these men on the page. I don’t think this needs to be any major polemic, though it is not unlike how men have conceived of the thoughts and ideas of women throughout history; it’s just not for me, it doesn’t appeal.

Once, in college, I performed an experiment where I refused to move out of the way for men when walking. I’m pretty sure they did this experiment on Buzzfeed also, which is probably where I got the idea. Anyway, I got pushed into the street a lot. It occurred to me that the men I was reading may not think to register me as a subject on the street, or were otherwise alone in their clock towers and wouldn’t happen to meet me at all. Vivian Gornick does a lot of her thinking while walking; such perspectives agree with me

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The dance club on my birthday was horrible for the first half hour when Kate was running behind and the vibes were off. I stood there, sipping my gin and tonic, trying to calculate the reason. I was coming off the back of a fantastic week, feeling sufficiently energized, loved, sexy, etc. I have no problem dancing alone. Then, I notice the stiffness — backward caps atop skinfades, circle of phones, gum chewing at the bar. I open an empty text thread, to no one: club with too many straight people feels like I Am Locked inside hell

Hours later, when Kate and I were re-entering the dancefloor, feeling magnetic and sparkly, they were swarmed by a gaggle of lesbians who, upon seeing them for the first time, screamed, YOU’RE SO PRETTY! We made it to the other side of the room, and I asked over the pulse of the bass if they wanted to go back to see the lesbians. “No,” they said, “they’ll come to me.” And did.

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I hung out with a child by accident this week. My friend invited me to accompany him to his job where he is a male nanny. Sometimes you will meet someone who says they are a male nanny and it makes you feel weird or concerned but this is not the case with my friend; it makes sense for him, and he is good at it. We spent all afternoon at a café, watching the child draw numbers and ranking our favorites. You should know that the numbers are not ordinary — most are anthropomorphic, and all are highly creative in their execution. A few hours in, as the brackets were narrowing, I realized that I wanted the child to feel happy about the results of our rankings, but also that I wanted to take the rankings seriously, because I took the child seriously. I knew that the child wanted to be both pleased and respected. These are sometimes conflicting aims.

I have a friend who looks only at his wife when he tells a joke, no matter the number of people in the conversation. He seems pleased when the joke lands, but also when it doesn’t; her approval is her love, but so is her annoyance. It’s different with children. The child in the café is asking me what I think of the number, but he is looking at my friend — my friend who bought the notebook and brings the nice pens, who is a transient yet solid element of his reality. What an enormous responsibility, I think, to be so observed by a child who will then convert his observations into understandings of his own value, his relationships to others, the entire world. But then, as I’m walking home, I think of all the ways in which I do the same. All the ways I bounce myself off of people, hoping to find a legible image in the reflection. All the ways I want to be both pleased and respected, flattered and known, exalted and humbled. All the ways I know no better.

If all this is true, I think it’s important to find people who react well to you. This just might be the key to friendship: finding the person who raises an eyebrow, who asks another question. I spent a lot of time around people who ran me over. These days, I just walk down the street, trying to keep my head up.

yes…25!