She uses the rear-view mirror to apply the glaucoma eye drops that promote eyelash growth, that simulate eyelash extensions, that stimulate eyelash extension, though she is sitting in the back seat and she does not have glaucoma in either eye.
We were sitting on your bed, and you were annoyed with me, and you had a black Sharpie marker in your hand, and you said, “Hey, can I write something on your shirt?”
And I said, “Sure,” because it was actually your shirt.
And you wrote “PAY ATTENTION TO ME,” across the front, below the v-neck, but also on my chest, since the t-shirt was worn, thin, and the ink bled through.
And it was a fitting phrase, because I was, obviously, clamoring for your attention while you quietly labeled whatever it was that you were labeling with your permanent marker before you labeled me.
(Video tapes of TV shows you recorded faithfully, on your VCR, for your “library,” for posterity.)
I only realized, just now, though, that you probably meant that I should pay attention to you too.
Tomorrow morning I am going to be on Good Morning America.
Tonight I arrived home and realized that I left my bag (keys, wallet, eyeglasses, various pills, makeup, 10 pounds of other assorted important things) in my office.
Sometimes I manage to surprise myself.
#themosthumblebrag
ADDENDUM:
My mom just sent a text message that says, “WHAT?! THAT DOESN’T SURPRISE ME ABOUT YOU AT ALL.”
The reason I was not totally paying attention to you while we were talking and I was crossing and uncrossing my legs.
They say to cross your legs “in the direction of” someone, in order to indicate that you like them.
I never know which leg goes on top, and whether your crossed knees are supposed to be the part of this equation that ends up pointing toward the other person, or your feet.
I try not to think about it too much when I am sitting and talking and crossing and uncrossing my legs next to, toward, and/or near other people. But then I do think about it too much and I get caught up in the action, and in thinking about the action, at the same time.
It seems like terrible advice from people (and magazines) more coordinated than me.
If you run into Zach Galifianakis on the street — and by “run,” I mean “walk,” and by “walk” I mean “stumble,” and by “stumble” I mean, of course you stumble because you are clumsy, and you are wearing high heels designed by an architect and you are on your way to the shoe store where you bought them, and that shoe store, with the shoes that are so weirdly constructed and yet so comfortable, is on Bond Street, which is a street made of cobblestone and constant construction, and you are not sure why you are going there for a party sponsored by an architecture website and a shoe store and there is a line outside, and a velvet rope, and you see it and think, “Oh, this kind of party isn’t for me,” so you stop and stand there for a second, and then you see a guy with kind eyes next to you on the sidewalk and you think, “That man is so much shorter than me,” but then you remember that you are wearing the crazy high heels, and though his eyes are kind, you don’t want to marry him, and you don’t want to go into this party or into the corral bordered by the black velvet rope set up in front of the store, and you think about how today has already been such a strange day because you slept until 1:47 p.m. and then you called your office to apologize and then showered and then went to work but felt odd all day because you are not sure you know what it means to feel tired and you think, instead, that this is how it feels when something is wrong, so you work and are thankful that your bosses understand this unusual tardiness and they even seem to be happy to hear that you got such an uncharacteristsic amount of sleep and then you remember that you’d rsvpd to this party at a shoe store on Bond Street so after work you change your shoes and then you walk over to the party and that is when the stopping and the stumbling happen and you wonder if maybe you are just tired and/or if you will ever feel tired again, and he, in passing, will be a gentleman — he will nod, and you will nod, and you will walk home.
