🫖 Well, well, well! We have stumbled across some milestones. Two weeks ago, I turned twenty-five. And, yesterday was Insecure Tea’s one-year anniversary. In my latest installment of doing whatever I want and giving the people what they didn’t ask for, this post is a journey through Simon and Garfunkel’s 1968 album, “Bookends.” I am allergic to anything topical! I hope you enjoy and holy smokes! I cannot express the depth of my gratitude for the lovely community of people that has grown here. Thank you for reading my words. 🫖
… musical interlude …
(Bookends Theme)
Two weights that are equal and opposite. Mirrored twins. A birthday is a bookend, ensuring that our days aren’t dominos. We label time to escape infinite collapse. We label time so our cups don’t overflow, leaving rings deep in the finish of our wooden coffee tables.
Life perpetually echoes. Has anything changed in a year? I choose a new roommate with the same name as my old one. I am, once again, shopping for a couch. An entire bar fishes for a woman’s phone, lost deep in a narrow crevice. When a black rectangle is displayed triumphantly in the air, everyone cheers. That’s not my phone, she says. Someone else, some other time, made the same mistake and simply gave up.
Partying with different configurations of the same spirits. Gin and soda with a splash of tonic. Making vermouth into a riddle. Martinis dirty, and oh, occasionally with a twist. Inside, outside, and in between.
After two years, I finally possess the perfect photo of Danielle. Sarah and I packed up boxes in Greenpoint in September. I assured her if she left her hair dryer in a box on the street, she could buy another one in LA. That was about a month after the first time Evana and I swallowed Aperol at St. Dymphnas. In 48 hours, Maletis’ bags will be packed. Josh has been sick of New York for more than a year: will he head west, too? Alex and I melted the ice in December, and now we are constantly in puddles. Keara is flying to Sweden for the summer. We missed a final farewell, but nothing compares to last weekend’s serendipitous picnic in the park. Kate and I traded names last week, six months after eating boozy orbs of lychee at a loud restaurant where we didn’t need to hear each other to understand that friendship was on the horizon. I daydream about Isaac’s winding sojourn in France before planting his life in orderly rows in Iowa. I am not the lynchpin, but a lucky witness to the wheel as it spins.
//
when darkness fell, excitement kissed the crowd
and made them wild
in an atmosphere of freaky holiday
(Save the Life of My Child)
The spirit moved me to be out and about. My impulse is usually to nest. Host a horde at my place, where I can expertly weave through my familiar creaking floorboards. Camp out at one single bar, and watch as the crowd loosens as the night unfurls.
But this birthday would be different. 6 bars. 3 boroughs. No silly themes. No scavenger hunts. Only real, hard-livin’ quarter-century adulthood. Slouching Towards the Village, I titled the bar crawl.
It was the ultimate night of striving. We left every bar while we were still having fun. Darkness fell in Bushwick upon our bouncing heads, strolling to the next spot, the next spot. Between locations, the group jostled around and reconfigured.
Finally, we arrived in Manhattan, too late for anything but debauchery. We landed at a bar that is often empty. On this night, it was nose-to-nose with students fogging up the windows with dance sweat and tequila breath. We danced like it was 2012, and did our best to dodge advances from people who can’t legally rent a car. We escaped to the fresh air, but I still had to claw my way through the crowd one last time to retrieve my sopping-wet jacket and the Zombies record that Jeff gifted me.
The final four decided on a nightcap across the street at Lovers of Today. It wasn’t on the list, but McSorleys had been closed for hours. A man asked our table if any of us could give him a lighter or our phone number. A friend valiantly sacrificed her lighter and I told him that we’re Amish and don’t have phones. On the street corner, we dodged the sinister specter of “afterparties” and verbally assaulted a man who said we looked like the characters from Girls. We all had enough freaky holiday for one night.
//
i’m empty and aching and i don’t know why
(America)
Some days, I feel as though I am bubbling over with possibilities. I’ll have hope and joy in abundance. I’ll suspect that something good will happen if I just go outside and look for it. I’ll tell people that I have a feeling that positive change is on the horizon. It’s an ebullient outlook.
Other days, I feel like the ground isn’t steady beneath me, and that I’ll fall into a pit filled with the bones of all the shitty little things I’ve ever done. I’ll notice how different my life looks from a year ago; this will fill me with loneliness. At my shakiest, I’ll believe that if I stopped reaching out to people, no one would give a fuck. Life would march on happily without me.
A few days ago, I had a nice evening with friends where I drank a little more than I should. When I got home and prepared for bed, I caught a glance of myself in the mirror. I felt overwhelmingly perplexed by my own existence. I couldn’t recognize myself or what it meant to be me and I felt so scared and unsure if I was even alive. I wrapped up my toothbrushing and facewashing hastily and retreated to bed, where I turned off the lights and told myself it had to be better tomorrow. It was, and for that I’m grateful.
//
no good times, no bad times
there’s no times at all
just the New York Times
(Overs)
We attempted to claim a square of the beach, but instead the beach claimed us. Within 15 minutes, we were caked with sand that had been pelting us from the side. 70 degrees, but we had failed to account for the wind. Grit in our eyes, in our strawberries, between our teeth.
It’s not about the destination, but the journey, we joked, which is to say that we drove another hour to end up back in Prospect Park. We snacked and sipped coldish Narragansetts and threw a frisbee terribly and pulled out our books to sit idly nearby. Eventually, we parted ways. Our heads were too sand and sun-addled for much conversation.
Home at last, a glass of iced water to cool my throat and a steaming shower to wash away the detritus of the day. Sand pooled on the tile. I rinsed a green leaf out of my hair and giggled. It’s nice for cleansing to be so literal from time to time.
//
i couldn’t get younger.
(Voices of Old People)
25 is such a relief. I’ve been rounding up for nearly half a year. As a number, it has an arbitrary air of dignity. No one warns you how much it sucks to be in your early twenties.
After publishing a particularly raw essay this year, my dad emailed me a response.
Are you OK? Are you happy? Your age is the hardest point in life, I believe. From now through 29…
//
can you imagine us years from today
sharing a park bench quietly?
(Old Friends)
I am sitting in a garden, photosynthesizing next to a bush of Queen Elizabeths. The sunlight penetrates my skin, absorbing and metabolizing into something else. I’m hoping that the white streak of bird shit on the folding chair is long-baked in place and won’t come with me on my shorts.
Do you sing to your roses? an old man asks.
They’re not mine, I smile, but if they were, I would!
They can hear you, you know.
//
preserve your memories
they’re all that’s left you
(Bookends Theme - Reprise)
When I was little, I would sing to my ragdoll cat, Eddie. I would hold up flowers to his nose, which he would lean in to smell. Sometimes, I’d read him books. We’d sit together in the garage on what my dad deemed “The World’s Most Expensive Cat Bed”—the trunk of his 1964 convertible Mustang.
//
i’m such a dubious soul
and a walk in the garden
wears me down
(Fakin’ It)
I sit on a shaded bench next to some musicians. Passersby take pictures and videos. The crowd bottlenecks during Heart and Soul, and thins to a trickle during the Blue Danube. A tourist poses her tiny daughter for a picture. The girl flashes a peace sign. I eat my cup of mango alone. I resist the urge to gnaw on the core.
There are some people that look like the protagonist of a Godard film when they are doing something on their own. There are other people that look like the protagonist of an antidepressant advertisement.
//
wish i was an english muffin
’bout to make the most outta the toaster
i’d ease myself down
comin’ up brown
(Punky’s Dilemma)
I think that the people who religiously eat oatmeal for breakfast every day are the same people who need a Diet Coke at 3 PM.
//
heaven holds a place for those who pray
(Mrs. Robinson)
It’s almost 5 PM, and since I’m not dressed appropriately for church, I head to the movies. It turns out that I’m not dressed appropriately for the movies, either. By the end of the film, I am clutching my knees, desperate to hold on to the remaining ounces of warmth in my body.
Another night, we make our way to a wine bar after the reading. Over Pét-nat and Sangiovese, we discover similarities between our families. Catholic fathers, and Protestant mothers. Inevitably raised Catholic. He says that he met God twice while K-holing. I asked what God looked like, and he said God was more like an entity than a person. An orb of light.
//
look around
the grass is high
the fields are ripe
it’s the springtime of my life
(A Hazy Shade of Winter)
I am gradually transforming into my own dream boy, in the most juvenile sense. This realization comes a day after purchasing a Sonic Youth shirt, where all the text is in Japanese. My hair is short, floppy and curly. Someone laments how men love to be Shazam. One night later, I am ID-ing every song at the bar. I look and act like someone who I would have jumped off a bridge for at the age of eighteen.
Blame the stars or the heat or a month-long sexual drought, but I’ve begun to view things pornographically. A friend asks me if I ever listen to erotic stories. I laugh and say no, I watch regular porn like a red-blooded American. For weeks, I find myself obsessively scanning the perimeters. Who’s at the party? Who’s on the train? Who’s at the coffee shop? Who’s at the park? Who’s next? I sit next to a man on the subway and am intoxicated by his cologne. I find myself turned on by a group of shirtless guys throwing around a football. I begin to fantasize about people I dated briefly before breaking it off. Were they really so bad? I wonder what they’re up to…
I just want to be railed, I text Evana. This is not fully true. The opportunity has arisen, but I’ve been too cautious to dabble with mediocrity. I want something real, or at least something incredibly hot. I try making my profiles sluttier. I troll the apps, but rarely muster an in-person meeting. I offer a universal invitation to the universe: sitting on a park bench doing absolutely nothing. All this ends up inviting is conversations with the shortest stoners in the East Village. Too picky to be a proper slut, and too forward to be a proper femcel.
//
somethin’ tells me it’s all happening at the zoo
(At the Zoo)
Absolutely nothing tells me it’s all happening at the zoo. Nevertheless, I force myself uptown, on assignment. I need to finish this article, and I have very little to say about the zoo.
It isn’t the kind of day where I feel like anything good could happen. In fact, I suspect it might be a bad luck day. My morning had been a frustrated stab at writing and the city is bizarrely empty due to the holiday weekend. On the lurching bus, my stomach churns uneasily. I wait momentarily at a kiosk to buy a ticket but concede that purchasing it on my phone will be faster. I enter and begin to wander.
The thing about the Central Park Zoo is that there are approximately 5 animals and 5 million people. The snow leopard is sleeping in a corner. The only thing visible is the tip of her tail, dangling enticingly at an angle you can only view by crouching down and looking parallel to the glass. I look instead at a man’s arm, tanned orange with tiger stripes tattooed. He has the exact body and posture of Tony the Tiger.
I wrote a play in 2018 about a potentially-pregnant teenager who goes to the zoo with her grandmother. It was all very precocious, but I’m no playwright. Dramaturgical mediocrity. It very well may be the last time I wrote a complete piece of fiction. Attempting to remember the names of the protagonists, I look up the PDF lurking in my old Berkeley inbox and scan the cast of characters. I chuckle at my juvenile delight in em dashes.
DELILAH – 17-year-old who might be pregnant. She has unruly curly hair that she constantly puts into a ponytail with a scrunchy she keeps around her wrist, just to take it down later. Her natural beauty is detracted by her personality and mannerisms – she is often sarcastic and moody. She wears ironic thrifted clothes, which can include large “dad” jeans, tiny sweaters in pastel tones, Doc Martens, etc.
LAURE – Delilah’s Grandmother, 68. Outgoing and young for her age. She wears large jewelry and band t shirts. Hyper critical and a bit gruff – the “tough love” sort.
I watch the seals showing off with splashes and claps, wondering if my characters are alive and strolling through Central Park somewhere. If they are visiting New York, I doubt they’d be at the zoo. Perhaps they would be getting a caricature drawn on the path somewhere. Or, more likely, eating watermelon in Sheep Meadow. Laure would be judging a fat tourist with an ice cream cone. The baby, if born, would be a kindergartener. Delilah would be 22.
Once I found them in the park, I would have the courage to introduce myself. I would be nervous that it would be a little awkward, but we’d obviously hit it off. It would be a relief to see people after spending so much of the day alone. Before long, they’d feel like family.
I would notice that Laure smokes Marlboro Reds, as my own Granny did. Funny coincidence that she was an artist who had three kids, too. I would be relieved that Delilah doesn’t look like me at all, but notice that we’d have the same sense of humor. A similar aura. I’d realize that “moody” was a misjudgment when I initially wrote about her. She was really more of a mix of uncouth and occasionally serious, which I could definitely relate to.
You’re 22, right? I’d ask. She’d confirm and we’d laugh about what a precarious age that is. I’d tell her that I’d send her an article that I found excerpted (on Instagram, of all places)— Twenty-Two And All The Things I Wish I Knew. She would seem older than her true age, of course, with all she’s been through.
We’d catch up on everything that happened over the last five years. How did they fare during the pandemic? Did she go to that college in New York? Did she just graduate? Is that why Laure was visiting from California?
But, there’s the question of the baby. The end of the play was intentionally ambiguous, and I never personally concluded whether Delilah was pregnant or not. Would there be a little kid walking beside us? Running around and showing off and asking people if he could pet their dogs. He’d be careful, of course, letting the animals sniff his hand before going in for a pat. Would he ask to watch videos on Delilah’s phone, and would she let him? Surely, she wouldn’t, since Laure would be standing there raising an eyebrow.
We’d agree that the zoo was overrated, but the kid would be begging to go, so we’d concede. There’d be a trace of unease behind Delilah’s eyes, but Laure wouldn’t notice. I’d walk them to the zoo entrance, but say that I was heading out. I already went earlier in the day, and didn’t want to keep intruding on their family time. I’d tell them that the Tropic Zone is not to be missed—the little boy would really love the mongoose exhibit. They would joke that it better not be another five years until we see each other again, and I would promise that it wouldn’t. I’d hug Delilah and the boy. Laure would give me a friendly shoulder squeeze. I’d wave farewell and watch them vanish into the crowd at the zoo.
🫖 That is all. With love, Charlotte. 🫖
this is beautiful, love the ending featuring the play characters
pure poetry charlotte :')