Thawing

On the first nice day of the year, in the hour I had free between my lunch and dinner shifts, I took the $20 cash I had just earned from eggs, bacon, and pancakes to buy a new play. I did my usual dance, crawling and squatting and ducking to try to find something I might like and hadn’t read yet. As much as I love The Drama Book Store, it’s much easier to look for something you know you already want than to try and discover something new. I always feel bad for the bottom shelf authors, who have done nothing wrong except to commit the sin of alphabetical misfortune.

I decide on “How to Defend Yourself”, a play I’d heard about when it ran a few years ago at New York Theatre Workshop. The clerk smiles when they ring me up.

“This is a great one. You’re really gonna like it. It’s such a well-constructed play.”

And I know it’s their job to seem enthusiastic in the same way it’s my job to go “ooooh! That’s my favorite!” every time someone orders a glass of the sauvignon blanc, but the thing is that the sauvignon blanc is actually my favorite, so I choose to believe them, too.

I go to Carvel after to get a cup of ice cream and then, because Bryant Park is just a little too far, I lean up against the nearest planter, reading and eating and trying my best not to get chocolate smeared over the play I just paid $14 for. I am in heaven.

The last time I felt this happy was during the blizzard (the second one) (although, the first one was pretty thrilling too). Boyfriend picked me up from my morning shift. It felt like playing hooky, or getting sent home early the way they used to in elementary school.

We decided to see a movie, whatever was playing right now. We run down 42nd street to the AMC and make it just in time to see Psycho Killer, a movie that has the rare 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. We hope that it’s going to be so bad, it’s good. It’s not. It’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. What the producers had on Malcolm McDowell to get him to agree to appear in it, even for the 10 minutes it takes between his introduction and his murder, I’ll never know. Boyfriend takes a nap for about 20 minutes and misses nothing.

We get out of the movie just as the snow begins to blanket the streets. Boyfriend heads to our favorite bar and I run to get meat and cheese for our day of being snowed in. I fall. Twice. Once the way they taught me during the one ice skating lesson when I was 10. Once straight on my ass, and hard. A courier stops to watch me flop around in the snow. “Miss! Miss! You have to be careful!” I am both deeply embarrassed and very touched. It’s nice to know someone cares.