relationships

1

In a cafe where I write, the staff are terrifically grumpy. One sometimes meets me with a finger propped under her chin, tipping her head: Is it almond milk? Soy? I say, It’s the honey that’s misleading you, by association, and she’ll say, mansplanatorily, “No, no… I don’t associate you with honey.” Today a large […]

I bought my bike second hand and we went all the way to Leipzig to get it. Leipzig is the new Berlin now that Berlin is the new Seattle. I took my new bike to the bicycle repairman on the corner. Oh no, he said: this bike has a rusted frame. You’d better throw it […]

2

On the one hand, consensual sex is nobody else’s business. On the other, I feel sad for this person (surely a woman). I feel suspicious of her dominant/exploiting partner (surely a man). Sexual play is one thing. But if she is dependent on it, I start to feel like there are healthier ways for people […]

4

Coming past the apartment below me I heard from the stairs the unmistakeable noises of grief. Fresh, recent, still shocking grief. It was new, and she was pleading with him. I stood hesitating on the steps. He had just delivered some devastating blow and her voice rose and I heard how clearly everyone must have […]

In the cafe he showed me the pictures he had taken on his walk here, of a dog skateboarding in the park. “You should animate those into a thumb-book!” I said. Amy Winehouse was singing. “Or maybe a – gif.” We watched a couple walking past in their somehow sweet and somehow matching outfits. He […]

Just found a line in a notebook which I wrote, on July 15 last year, and I’ve no idea what I might have meant by it. ‘In the mornings/we are proud of his everyday miracle together.’ Is it about sex? I guess it must be. My relationship was in the throes of some difficulties and […]

4

I found a bar lit solely by candles. To get there I had to pass twenty-five Christmas trees, laid out to die on the stones. A wax-stick notice scribbled in the window of a nearby cafe said, Be at least epic. I found a bar I liked and it took me two passes to work […]

22

I was seeing this guy once who got comfortable enough to start flossing in front of me, thus revealing his ingenious method: he’d extract the string of floss periodically and holding it still taut between his fingers, sniff at it. Possibly the most repulsive act I’ve ever seen in my life & I could never […]

2

My boyfriend and I had a huge fight and I went storming into a bar and ordered a dirty martini. I was wearing a big scarlet onesie with a Danish flag down the back, had jumped out of the car and wasn’t dressed for city life. This blonde girl came up to me, drunk on […]