Reasons I Cried, November 12–23

Bus too full and too hot

 

Neck looked busted

 

Dogs, generally

 

Took a taxi home from a date’s house late at night, and the window was open and the city looked empty and beautiful, but I knew it was full of people, and I felt connected to them all, and also I was incredibly drunk

 

Tried five times to remember my password for the App Store, couldn’t do it, tried to reset it, couldn’t do that either, and eventually remembered it was my own name with an exclamation mark

 

Jiro saw me open a granola bar at work and witheringly asked if I was “treating myself,” and I was

 

Thought about how much effort my parents put into teaching me how to read

 

Had sex with Simon and it was lovely and caring, and the tears surprised us both

 

One of my students called me “tall” in a charged way

 

Saw pictures of an ancient mosaic floor, discovered four feet under an old Italian woman’s backyard, perfectly preserved, waiting

 

Had sex with Simon and cried again, and then he asked about it, and I cried more

 

Watched a documentary about how many kinds of animals are extinct now

 

Someone stood me up during the wrong bit of my cycle

 

R. Kelly came on the radio in Clive’s car, and I said the song reminded me of high school, and Amirah said it reminded her of “the prevalence of sexual assault in the music industry,” and I felt like the rest of the car was judging me, and also Jon and I used to dance around the apartment to “Ignition (Remix)” all the time before we knew a) that R. Kelly was a rapist and b) that we were no longer in love

 

Used one of those calculators to determine how soon you can retire if you make X amount and save Y amount each month; found I could reasonably begin retirement in 238 years

 

Steve from Sex and the City yelling, “There’s good stuff here!” at Miranda, who cannot yet accept his love

 

This description of tomato sauce, in a magazine: “The genius of Hazan’s sauce lies in the fact that, although it’s basically a convenience food, made of only inexpensive, shelf-stable ingredients, it can’t be improved upon. Add fancy olive oil or fresh Genovese basil if you’re moved to; they won’t make it any better. The sauce is already as good as can be.”

 

Thought about running into Janet in the street the way you might encounter an ex-lover and try to maintain a distinguished distance while telling them they “looked well”

 

Found a postcard Jon sent me from Florida with a big pair of tits on it that said fake boobs & real attitude

 

Read all my Facebook Messenger chats from July 2014, when Jon went to Florida

 

Sex with Simon

 

Sex with Simon

 

Remembered everyone I love will die someday, many of them before me; that I will either know their deaths or hurt them with mine, and no matter what I do, the end is coming for all of us at a time we cannot know; that in the meantime my body will rot around my bones, getting creased and mottled and less efficient each day, and that this moment, right now, is the youngest and healthiest and most beautiful I’ll ever be, and I don’t feel that young or healthy or beautiful—I feel, actually, like I am losing a war with my own posture, and is it worse if my sister dies before me, or if I die before her, and what will I say at my father’s funeral?

 

A Tim Hortons commercial where some gay dads bring doughnuts to their daughter’s hockey practice