Underneath It All

I suppose I just should have been flattered that the lunkhead, twenties-ish, rental apartment broker chose a fifth floor walk-up as the first apartment in the West Village he'd show me to be my new single-guy home. Nothing like a dark, dirty, postage stamp sized, fifth floor walk-up in the Village for $3500 a month to make you want to move to Miami. I figured he was doing a bullshit broker bachata - letting me see dreck to soften me up for a kill shot in the fancy full service building at four stacks a month.

At the urging of friends and shrink I've expanded the search for my aging kink-boy bachelor pad to include neighborhoods other than the FiDi. While I'd love to walk to work and I've found a great building, the Wall Street area does button up early and, save for the tourists, is pretty dead on the weekend. So I'm having to put up with broker shennanigans. Spare me.

To boot, I've decided not to go see She. I may not have shared that She lives on the same balmy beautiful island where twenty years ago this fall, my wife and I ran away and were married at sunset, on the beach, with our bare feet planted firmly in the sand. I figure at this stage, the downside risk of being caught is just too great. If I can manage to get one of these snake oil selling brokers to get me a decent apartment, in a few months I can go visit She with a clearer conscience and less chance that I'll turn an amicable separation into the battle for Bastogne

But I'm really sad I'm not going. These days I'm either sad that I'm separating or sad that I haven't seen She in going on five months. Plus, other than her unexpected and totally sweet invite, She is in the throes of what I've come to think of as seasonal disconnective disorder. Sunday will be a month since we've spoken. It's hard to do anything but email her as she's always shooing me away from g-chat or a quick phone conversation while she's working. One would think she is the executive assistant to POTUS. Mr. She's car is permanently kaput so they're car pooling in the morning and She can't call me. She doesn't do email or text much and has said it makes her uncomfortable if I call when Mr. She is around.

I guess the thing is I've been here before with her need to disengage. It seems if I just suck it up and focus on other things, She cycles back. Try as I might though, underneath it all, my little insecurities begin to croak and bleet like a chorus of spring tree frogs until they reach this unbearable cacophonous, crescendo of doubt and need.

But I abruptly shake myself and say, "Snap out of it, fool." Life is good. Just around the corner the loutish purveyor of rooms for rent will show me the coolest one bedroom loft with a little terrace on the Lower East Side. I'll pick my way through early morning tenement streets lined with hip restaurants and hot bars for a run along that other river. I'll find a little local coffee joint where they make my extra large red eye to mainline caffeine with my endorphins. And one day soon She will whisper something incredibly hot and dirty in my ear and all this festering puzzlement will be worth it.

Or maybe one night there will be a certain someone across the bar in that new little local joint I eat dinner in twice a week ... I know some real bad tricks and I'm in need of a little discipline.