TASHA SHAYNE

1. A pirate that misses his monkey

2. The wedding officiant loses his dentures the morning of your wedding

3. The last of your inheritance was spent on Beanie Babies

4. You book your dream vacation on an island, just before it’s overrun by the rebels

5. You inherit 3,000 classic literary novels from a distant relative in Croatia, and you can’t afford to ship or store them

6. You discover the person you told all your darkest secrets to — your best friend — is a rabid anti-Semite

7. The interview suit you bought online, at a great price, arrives just in time. Upon opening the box, you see it is lime green

8. As a freelancer, you finally get a big break on a terrific project that’s all-consuming, and the client never pays you

9. You’re upgraded to first-class, but the airline has run out of champagne, and the guy sitting beside you sweats profusely the entire trip

10. Suffering from perpetual insomnia, you read avidly but can’t remember any of the content a week later

1. When your parents go on vacation, you host a dinner party with all of their friends

2. You go to the mall and attempt to sell your shoes to the kiosk clerks

3. You do the Hakka dance five times a day as a weight loss strategy

4. You attempt to domesticate all the mice you’ve caught in your house with humane traps

5. You see if you can make your neighbor a morning person by singing Figaro’s Aria out the window, at the top of your lungs, at 7 a.m. every day

6. You create an assessment rubric, dress your dogs up in formal attire, put a steak and potato dinner in front of each, and score them to see who has the best table manners

7. At the beginning of a race, you yell out, “Do it for the Jews!”

I spent the night at my friend’s apartment — we’ll call her Delilah, because that’s not her name. 

I haven’t seen my boyfriend since last weekend. Consciously, I’ve been growing accustomed to having a weekend-oriented relationship, since we’re both so busy during the week. 

Unconsciously, I haven’t grown used to this schedule. 

Delilah and I sleep in the same bed, as we have every time I’ve stayed in her home, since college. We both talk in our sleep, so we hoped we might plan a trip together during those commonly unproductive hours. 

Instead, in my sleep, I sidled up to my friend. I awoke to myself stroking her hair and trying to kiss the back of her head. She was batting me away unconsciously, and I was thinking, “Doron’s hair is so silky!” Then, regaining most of my consciousness, I yelled out, “Oh my God! I thought you were Doron!” And then, Delilah banished me to the other side of the bed. 

I woke up several more times throughout the remainder of the night, laughing hysterically and trying not to wake Delilah up. I was worried she wouldn’t want to vacation with me anymore, in case I unknowingly tried to spoon with her again. 

Luckily, Delilah doesn’t recall the kissing or hair stroking, so I did my best to explain everything I could remember of the situation through the tears and impassable laughter. She only remembered my relentless attempts to snuggle with her. Regardless, she readily forgave me for the entirety of my uninvited affections. 

A Contemplation On That Which Is Less Than 100% Comfortable

In no particular order...

#1: Enemas

#2: Car alarms at 4 a.m.

#3: Getting inadvertently drunk while sitting shiva

#4: Being bitten by a dog with only one tooth

#5: The fourth hour after winning an Indian-food eating contest

#6: Hiccups during a national moment of silence

#7: Ordering room service over a bad phone connection in a foreign country

#8: Having to watch a terrible movie with your future in-laws that you recommended

#9: Buying your significant other cologne and later identifying the scent with that of your grandfather

#10: Realizing the extent of your dyslexia at the beginning of your first dance class

#11: Being hit in the head by one or two casually swinging, giant bosoms

#12: Learning that your hairspray contains lighter fluid

Music isn’t some woman that can be chosen from off the street to become a bedfellow. She’s not compliant without pursuit and cajoling. She doesn’t love you back when you stand under her window at night and recite poetry. She steals your heart and leaves you time and again on a mere whim. So what if you kiss her feet? So has every other tenor, baritone, and bass. Perhaps she’ll allow you to rest your cheek upon her lap for a moment before picking you off like a flea and flicking you into her pool of suitors.

No, if you find you’re in love with Music, you must prove to her the strength in your jaw, depth of your eyes, and broad expanse of your shoulders. If you pluck a flower and present it to her, she must understand the flower brought you pleasure first — otherwise, it is an empty gift.

If it’s Music you want, you must remember this: She will never be yours if you give her no reason to want you in return. You must give her as much as you wish her to give you, for she knows better than to just let any man have her and possess her. To court her, you must set yourself beyond the rest, to allow her to look at you when you are looking away. And then, when you hold her in your arms, you must let her also hold you in her arms; when you take from her a piece to add to your soul, you must replace what you’ve taken with the displaced piece of your own.

The subway smells like acrylics.

The painter is terrible, but she doesn't think so.

She squeezes a blob of purple and grey out on the canvas and smears it over other uncertain colors.

She needed to paint, though she had two stops to go. She stands up and starts singing badly to herself near the train doors. The doors open. She marches out, her loose denim overalls bunching beneath her knees. I imagine she'll hold her canvas closely to her body, in hopes that she'll "accidentally" have the non-denominational color stamped onto her stereotypically painterly clothing or charlatan skin. Should she go home tonight and write fantastically in her journal, I expect she'll read it years later, when she's a respectable artist, and consider what a silly fool she was. 

It's nice. I haven't made New Years resolutions yet. It generally takes me a week. But a large part of it, I think, will be to just see life as light-hearted. Even in its gravity, life is light-hearted, because it doesn't make sense, and we're all just a bunch of nut jobs running around and trying to make life be what we want it to be.

But we have no control over it.

It's hard and terrifying and primal and frustrating; we fail at the things we love and we're forced to relinquish the people we love and we lose hope and we have our hearts broken, but there is absolutely nothing we can do about any of it except ask for the things we want and work hard to have a positive influence on the way things are.

But ultimately, things will be the way they will be because nothing we want is actually up to us; it's contingent on the causes and effects of a trillion actions that have been made or are currently being made by everyone and everything in our environment. All we're doing in acting and thinking and feeling is reacting to our environments and adding our own actions and thoughts and feelings to the mix. We're unimportant in the world and the only existing thing in our own personal worlds.

Nothing makes sense, so it's light-hearted, even if it's dark-hearted. 

Today, I'm going to buy a canvas and paints. I need some art for my room, and I'm too broke to buy any. I'll also buy avocados. 

Things have happened. It's been a crazy couple of months. It's been a lot of breaking up, moving out, and getting on with my life. Good stuff!

Most recently, I've succumb to the world of online dating, which is proving to be completely entertaining. After being entirely resistant and calling online dating an inorganic way to meet sociopaths and the weird, unlovable masses, my friend (whom we'll call Amy, because that's not her name) sat me down and delivered an impressive persuasive speech on the merits of online dating. This lasted about an hour and a half because I'm really bad at changing the subject when someone's enjoying what she's saying that much. It reminds me of that time when I sprained my ankle and was lying helplessly on the couch while an infomercial for the Magic Bullet played on for two hours—the remote was a couple of feet beyond my reach while my phone was right beside me. One would think I'd have called for help changing the channel, but I instead called Magic Bullet and ordered three sets of them. (As a side note, I eventually blew one of them up in the microwave.)

Anyhow, after an hour and a half of my dear friend's urging, I promised to sign up on the free online-dating site. It took three more days of her sending me messages, "Have you created your profile yet?" "Have you signed up yet?" "Have you gone on there yet?" "Tasha, what's going on?" She promised I could disable my account if I disliked it. Did I mention she's in sales and marketing? Whatever they're paying her, they should double it.

So I went on the site and made the profile and answered questions about myself (my favorite type of questions). I put up a couple of pictures and then watched a ridiculous amount of notifications pop up as eligible bachelors "visited" my profile and flooded my inbox. 

Within twenty-four hours, I became overwhelmed and disabled my account. No! This isn't for me! I thought to myself. It's inorganic! They're all sociopaths! I want a good story! I don't want to meet my next boyfriend online!

"How's it going on there?" Amy asked me.

"I'm taking a day off," I told her. "I'm a little overwhelmed. I'm kind of stuck on wanting a good story of how I met the guy I end up with."

"Where'd you meet the last guy? In a hallway? How often did you tell that story? How'd that work out for you?" She had a lot of questions, and they stuck with me long after I said,

"I still have to get my stuff back from his apartment, by the way. It's proving to be a major headache."

"Just get your stuff. It's been over for awhile now and you need to move onto the next chapter of your life."

As reclaiming my belongings became even more of a hassle, and I grew even more frustrated, the urge to move forward with my life too insurmountable for inactivity. 

I'm re-enabling! I declared to myself, in front of my mirror, seeing that crazy look in my own eye. 

And then I discovered a brilliant thing about the world of online dating: It allows me to meet a number of people I'd never otherwise interact with. I've heard it's not like this in other places, but in New York, it like where introverts and artists go to interact with the outside world. And it makes complete sense now. 

All of a sudden, I have seven dates this week with attractive, well-read artists who want to have drinks or go see jazz with me and talk about literature, music, acting, comedy, writing, etc. Whether anything comes out of it or not, it's definitely a positive thing. Plus, Amy says she's very proud of me, which makes me feel accomplished.

It's a perfect Williamsburg morning. I woke up on my futon bed, which my back is slowly getting used to—all I have to do now is twist-crack it in the morning and I'm able to walk again. 

I showered, laughed with Joseph Campbell about the Oedipus Complex, discovered deep smile lines and enlarged pores on my face. I contemplated why pores and lines on your face get deeper with age. 

I coughed and utilized my door as a giant fan because I'd decided to light incense in my room the night before and forgot that incense makes you suffocate if you don't have a cracked window or a large space. What did I think my room was? A nave? 

I packed my cotton, green messenger bag with my computer and moleskin, and greeted the sun and light autumn breeze that tickled the leaves of our street's trees. 

An older Italian gentleman sat outside in a chair that he must have brought outside that morning (it wasn't there the night before), eating a sandwich. "Hello," I said to him. "Hello, how are you?" He replied. "I'm doing well. How are you?" "Good," he said and continued eating his sandwich as I walked past. It was 8:30 in the morning, and I thought to myself that he was perhaps of the belief that it was never too early for sandwiches. 

I walked down two blocks to Union and across the street to the doorstep of my new-favorite cafe, The West. It's so close to me and they have good coffee and bagels and friendly baristas and plenty of places to sit. Plus, no children! No pop music—only stuff I like. Added bonus: A woman carried her cute, little dog inside—a little black and white creature with inquiring eyes and a pointed snout—and sat with him in her lap at the other end of the cafe. 

I've been reading about story structure, which has been slaughtering my imagination and drive to create. I don't think I can learn about story structure and write at the same time, maybe. I get too depressed, too hung up on how to make it work that I can't come up with the elements that could make it work. I did read an article today, though, that recommended I don't outline my story before I write it, but that I use the required plot points more as a checklist. I think I can handle that. 

For the next piece I write, I think I want to go with the story of a dragon that's being held captive by a beautiful virgin. Just saying. What happens is that the dragon has a change of heart when the damsel's in the tower and then sets her free to go about the world. But then she hears the story of another virgin who has a parakeet, and she realizes that there could be stories about her if she had a bigger bird...the biggest bird of all. So big, that it's not a bird at all...but a dragon. So, she goes to the wizard apprentice and charms him with her feminine wiles into making a potion with which she can feed the dragon and thereby ensnare it. She says to the wizard apprentice that when she is old and he is ready to retire from wizardry, his last spell should be to make her a young virgin again, and then they can get married—he says okay (because he has no social skills and this is the first time he's had this offer) and gives her the potion. She obtains the dragon and keeps it locked up in a dome. It's lonely up there, and the poor dragon has only one little window to look out of, from which it can see the young virgin wandering around. From this window, the dragon is able to see that the wizard apprentice visits the young virgin often, attempting to court her and get her to succumb to him before old age. But because she is obsessed with the dragon, she refuses his hand and says a deal is a deal, and he has to wait until they are old. It then occurs to the wizard apprentice that he must find a way to unleash the virgin's dragon!

And that's a story idea. I just came up with it. That's right. Metaphor everywhere. 

On another note, I bought myself a ticket to see Sondre Lerche on Tuesday night. This will be the first concert I go to a concert alone, but I'm excited. I don't actually enjoy going to concerts with other people, I don't think. So many things are more fun alone. When you go with a friend, you can't talk with him/her, anyway. You see the same thing, but okay... I mean, that's like going to a movie with someone. I don't see the point, except for being able to talk with them about it afterward. 

Another thought: There are so many books to read and so little time. Thus, I will buy a canteen to make tea in and keep in my bedroom, and I will sit on my futon all day and read.

It was all so lovely. We lay in bed—my laptop and me. I thought to my laptop, I will never let you fall. It was then that I realized we all exhibit a strange, parental protection instinct toward our laptops. We're perhaps even more protective of them than we are of our children, it'd seem.

Think about it: Let's say you're out and you need your laptop. Who would you trust to bring it to you? Your friend Charlene? How long have you really known Charlene? Your roommate? No, your roommate dropped her laptop last year while she was laughing. Now there's a dent in it. No way you'd let that happen to your laptop. The only people you'd trust to bring you your laptop are your family members and your boyfriend. Only responsible people who don't drop things regularly, who know how to treat a laptop and keep it safe from harm, can be trusted to bring you your laptop. 

Here's another scenario: You're hanging out with a friend and there's something that you're both going to watch on your laptop. Your friend waits for you to bring the laptop over to the viewing area, or if she wants to touch it, she will ask permission first. Of course, you'll say yes, because it's thought that she knows how to handle a laptop; but if she is not gentle, you'll be watching her, as would a mother bear watching her cubs—ready to maul her, should she threaten it.

Then there is the sad case of your computer's death. With all safety measures taken, this strange and boxy child of ours will likely not survive the four or even three year mark. We can sense it's sickening, and we call the technicians. "Is there anything we can do?" we ask, hopefully. "I'm sorry," the technician will respond. "This is just how it goes. Your laptop has lived for four years; that's a full life. It's just its time." You nod solemnly and carry your laptop home, secretly blaming yourself for not letting it sleep for longer periods of time or for overheating it on those days you wanted to sit outside in the sun and work together. 

I redid the ending because the first one was just lame. Terrible! But we’ll fix that…I think you may want a picture, though, so you don’t get bored. A picture for you:

And now my story: (ahem)

  I have a therapist. We’ll call her Dr. Schmuley. I found her through my insurance company. Actually, I found Dr. Abrams through my insurance company, called her office, which was a weird kind of switchboard for psychologists, and they asked me which insurance I have. When I told them, they said that Dr. Abrams didn’t take my insurance anymore and then made an appointment for me with Dr. Schmuley. 

I went down 33rd Street to a large apartment-building–looking building, passed the doorman, got in the elevator, and sailed up to the 14th floor. I went down the hall and looked at the address I’d written down on the back of my receipt: “#14i.” I went down the grey hallway and knocked on 14i. No answer. Ten minutes later, a man walked down the hallway, looked at me, and then opened 14i and went in. I followed him into a sitting area surrounded by offices. The man went into an office and I wandered around, hoping Dr. Schmuley’s name would be taped onto one of the doors. No luck. I sat down at one of the chairs beside a corner, where there was a table stacked with an assortment of gossip magazines, to the right of a kitchen with half-size, wooden swinging doors, like a saloon would have. 

A woman opened the door to her office and took a look around the waiting area, even though I was clearly the only person sitting in there. I smiled at her hopefully, like a kid hoping to be picked for the kickball team. No luck. She retreated, leaving me sullen and rejected, wondering if I were even in the right place. There was a giant sign that had a picture of the first mobile phone ever invented with a giant X over it. Not that I would’ve called anyway, since the call would’ve connected me with the switchboard. I got up again and double-checked the doors. The same therapist woman opened her door again and looked out at me. Again, I smiled, hope returning that I would be chosen for the kickball team. But she did not want me, and she went back in her room. I stopped smiling and pretended I had never smiled at all.

A younger, more vibrant woman walked in. Her pretty hair twisted up on her head like taffy. She sat two chairs away from me. I studied the yellow brochures next to the magazines, seeing that there were three addresses listed. No names were listed on the brochures, though. But maybe I was at the wrong address.

The therapist opened her door again. Her face lit up when she saw the taffy girl, and then she chose her, holding the door open wide until the taffy girl was completely within.

Dr. Schmuley was ten minutes late, if I were even in the right office. I stood up. Maybe I was in the wrong lettered apartment? I opened the front door and stuck my head out to look at the number on it: 14i. I looked across at 14j. 14j had a mezuzah on the doorjamb. I looked at it longingly. I want to go in there, with my people, I thought.

Then I heard the elevator ding and I ducked back inside and sat down. A tall brunette with shiny shoes walked into the office and unlocked and opened the door to my right.

“Are you Tasha?” she asked, in a thick Russian accent.

I smiled at her. “Yes, I am!”

“I hope you haven’t been waiting too long.”

“Nope.”

I went inside to a large room with a Persian rug, a desk, a couch, a table, and two original paintings of flowers and naked women.

She told me to have a seat, so I sat on the couch, giving her the commander’s chair. She told me to tell her about myself and why I thought I needed therapy. So I gave her a list of key points. She didn’t say much, so I kept going, growing more nervous. As I spoke, she reacted with facial expressions: She would roll her eyes, wrinkle her forehead and nose and curve her sharp Serbian eyebrows into a V, or widen her eyes like someone was explaining to her quietly that Rasputin were still alive. She did all of these things seemingly randomly, and she said next to nothing. When she did talk, she’d say, “You should see the amount of anger on your face” or “It is apparent that you have a lot of fear toward your mother.”

“I like my mother,” I told her truthfully, afraid to disagree with her.

When the session was over, she told me it was time to stop, and I was grateful. Then she set up another appointment with me in two-weeks’ time.

I walked out, climbed into the elevator, dropped fourteen flights, greeted the daylight, and wondered what had just happened. For two weeks, I contemplated canceling my appointment, but I was afraid. I was afraid to call her because I hated phones and I thought she’d judge me for canceling, thinking that I just didn’t want help, that some people just didn’t want help. So I never canceled.

Because it had been two weeks, though, I forgot the address. I looked it up on the Internet and found the building. I walked in and spoke to the doorman, explaining that I was seeing Dr. Schmuley.

“Do you know which floor?” He asked me.

“Yes, the 31st.”

“Right, i.”

So I got into the elevator, sailed up to the 31st floor, walked down the hallway, saw a mezuzah on the doorjamb to the left, blinked twice, double checked the numbers, and entered 31i.

It was as though I was living in one of those movies where the protagonist ends up in an alternate reality, is totally disoriented, and thinks she’s gone insane but will eventually have to prove to other people that she’s not. I was in a waiting room now, but the layout of the rooms was different. The table with the same magazines was stationed in the middle of the wall, instead of the corner, but the chairs were the same. I sat down next to the table then got back up and started wandering around to look at the names on doors, some of which were unlabeled. The kitchen was in front of where I was sitting now, instead of to the left. I sat back down for a moment, then stood up again and looked at the yellow brochures, which were the same as I’d seen two weeks ago. I sat back down and waited ten more minutes, my mind hurting, then got up and stuck my head out the door to look at the number and letter on it, then ducked back in. I took out my phone and glanced up to see the same anti-cell phone sign.

Someone was twenty minutes late in this alternate reality of mine. Or maybe there had never been an appointment at all. I thought of that prospect, and it made me happy.

Finally, I went into the hallway and dialed the number of the switchboard, which connected me with Dr. Schmuley, who humorlessly told me she was in 14i.

I got in the elevator, dropped sixteen floors, walked down the familiar hallway, went into the door on the right side, labeled “14i.” Everything was as I remembered it, and a feeling of serenity flooded me—the feeling that you get when you leave dystopia and return to your bed. Dr. Schmuley was in her office, waiting for me.

“I was going to call you,” she said.

“It was so funny,” I said. “It was like I was in the Twilight Zone.” I explained my experience and how funny it was while Dr. Schmuley’s forehead squeezed into a disgruntlement and alternately opened her eyes as wide as possible. I laughed. She did not laugh. She wrote something down.

When I finished my story, Dr. Schmuley told me that that was all the time we had for the day, and then handed me some forms to fill out while she processed my credit card.

“So we’ve discussed recurring appointments, yes?”

“We hadn’t really decided on anything,” I said.

“I think it would be good for you.”

“Yes. I was thinking about it, and I think there are plenty of things I could work on.”

“More than working on them, I think you could just talk.”

I nodded and said I was available after five o’clock on weekdays. She was not available after five at any point the following week, so we scheduled a time the following week.

Outside, I questioned the potential effectiveness of such therapy. Why pursue this? Because, I admitted, I want her to like me. Great. I was neurotic, paying to get help for my neuroses from a therapist who was making me even more neurotic. What an unfortunate state of affairs.

I continued to see her for two more weeks before coming up with a plan of action: The following week, I asked Dr. Schmuley if she was available for an appointment at 5:30. Dr. Schmuley told me that she unfortunately had an appointment at that time. The wheels in my head were turning, and I scheduled an appointment at a time I couldn’t possibly keep, so I’d be sure I’d go through with the plan. I would call her at 5:30 the following week, when she said she was busy, and thus reach her message service.

I waited on that fateful day and, with clammy hands, dialed her number. To my surprise, the switchboard operators picked up, cheerful and ready to take a message—so much better than hearing Dr. Schmuley’s austere, dual-layered tone explain to me on the surface that I could leave a message but underneath it all, imply that she’d judge me, no matter what.

“I would like to cancel my appointment with Dr. Schmuley!” I told the lady operator, whom I imagined having glowing clear skin, a long auburn braid down her back, a full-lipped mouth, and a preference for shirts that were button-down and collared.

“Okay dokey!” she said. “When did you have the appointment?”

“Next Wednesday at 10a.m. My name is Tasha Shayne.”

“Any particular reason you’d like to cancel?”

“Are you going to tell her?” A part of me lurched for compassion, and I thought this woman might say something along the lines of, ‘Oh no! I’m so sorry she was so awful! You deserve someone so much better!’

But she said, “I’m sorry…excuse me?” I’m guessing her script didn’t have “Are you going to tell her?” in it.

“Oh, I just didn’t know if it went on record or anything. Not to worry.” I went with my original excuse: “I don’t think she takes my insurance anymore.” “Which insurance is that? I could check for you?”

I hadn’t planned for this response, as I’d anticipated just dropping the excuse and hanging up.

“Winged insurance,” I lied.

“Oh, no, she doesn’t take that.”

“It’s small. Out of Indianapolis,” I told her, impressed that such a long city name popped into my head first.

“I see. No worries. Thank you for calling!”

“Thank you!”

We hung up, and I felt like dancing.

Therapists. They’re just not worth the stress.

I have a therapist. We'll call her Dr. Schmuley. I found her through my insurance company. Actually, I found Dr. Abrams through my insurance company, called her office, which was a weird kind of switchboard for psychologists, and they asked me which insurance I have. When I told them, they said that Dr. Abrams didn't take my insurance anymore and then made an appointment for me with Dr. Schmuley. 

I went down 33rd Street to a large apartment-building–looking building, passed the doorman, got in the elevator, and sailed up to the 14th floor. I went down the hall and looked at the address I'd written down on the back of my receipt: "#14i." I went down the grey hallway and knocked on 14i. No answer. Ten minutes later, a man walked down the hallway, looked at me, and then opened 14i and went in. I followed him into a sitting area surrounded by offices. The man went into an office and I wandered around, hoping Dr. Schmuley's name would be taped onto one of the doors. No luck. I sat down at one of the chairs beside a corner, where there was a table stacked with an assortment of gossip magazines, to the right of a kitchen with half-size, wooden swinging doors, like a saloon would have. 

A woman opened the door to her office and took a look around the waiting area, even though I was clearly the only person sitting in there. I smiled at her hopefully, like a kid hoping to be picked for the kickball team. No luck. She retreated, leaving me sullen and rejected, wondering if I were even in the right place. There was a giant sign that had a picture of the first mobile phone ever invented with a giant X over it. Not that I would've called anyway, since the call would've connected me with the switchboard. I got up again and double-checked the doors. The same therapist woman opened her door again and looked out at me. Again, I smiled, hope returning that I would be chosen for the kickball team. But she did not want me, and she went back in her room. I stopped smiling and pretended I had never smiled at all.

A younger, more vibrant woman walked in. Her pretty hair twisted up on her head like taffy. She sat two chairs away from me. I studied the yellow brochures next to the magazines, seeing that there were three addresses listed. No names were listed on the brochures, though. But maybe I was at the wrong address.

The therapist opened her door again. Her face lit up when she saw the taffy girl, and then she chose her, holding the door open wide until the taffy girl was completely within.

Dr. Schmuley was ten minutes late, if I were even in the right office. I stood up. Maybe I was in the wrong lettered apartment? I opened the front door and stuck my head out to look at the number on it: 14i. I looked across at 14j. 14j had a mezuzah on the doorjamb. I looked at it longingly. I want to go in there, with my people, I thought.

Then I heard the elevator ding and I ducked back inside and sat down. A tall brunette with shiny shoes walked into the office and unlocked and opened the door to my right.

“Are you Tasha?” she asked, in a thick Russian accent.

I smiled at her. “Yes, I am!”

“I hope you haven’t been waiting too long.”

“Nope.”

I went inside to a large room with a Persian rug, a desk, a couch, a table, and two original paintings of flowers and naked women.

She told me to have a seat, so I sat on the couch, giving her the commander’s chair. She told me to tell her about myself and why I thought I needed therapy. So I gave her a list of key points. She didn’t say much, so I kept going, growing more nervous. As I spoke, she reacted with facial expressions: She would roll her eyes, wrinkle her forehead and nose and curve her sharp Serbian eyebrows into a V, or widen her eyes like someone was explaining to her quietly that Rasputin were still alive. She did all of these things seemingly randomly, and she said next to nothing. When she did talk, she’d say, “You should see the amount of anger on your face” or “It is apparent that you have a lot of fear toward your mother.”

“I like my mother,” I told her truthfully, afraid to disagree with her.

When the session was over, she told me it was time to stop, and I was grateful. Then she set up another appointment with me in two-weeks’ time.

I walked out, climbed into the elevator, dropped fourteen flights, greeted the daylight, and wondered what had just happened. For two weeks, I contemplated canceling my appointment, but I was afraid. I was afraid to call her because I hated phones and I thought she’d judge me for canceling, thinking that I just didn’t want help, that some people just didn’t want help. So I never canceled.

Because it had been two weeks, though, I forgot the address. I looked it up on the Internet and found the building. I walked in and spoke to the doorman, explaining that I was seeing Dr. Schmuley.

“Do you know which floor?” He asked me.

“Yes, the 31st.”

“Right, i.”

So I got into the elevator, sailed up to the 31st floor, walked down the hallway, saw a mezuzah on the doorjamb to the left, blinked twice, double checked the numbers, and entered 31i.

It was as though I was living in one of those movies where the protagonist ends up in an alternate reality, is totally disoriented, and thinks she’s gone insane but will eventually have to prove to other people that she’s not. I was in a waiting room now, but the layout of the rooms was different. The table with the same magazines was stationed in the middle of the wall, instead of the corner, but the chairs were the same. I sat down next to the table then got back up and started wandering around to look at the names on doors, some of which were unlabeled. The kitchen was in front of where I was sitting now, instead of to the left. I sat back down for a moment, then stood up again and looked at the yellow brochures, which were the same as I’d seen two weeks ago. I sat back down and waited ten more minutes, my mind hurting, then got up and stuck my head out the door to look at the number and letter on it, then ducked back in. I took out my phone and glanced up to see the same anti-cell phone sign.

Someone was twenty minutes late in this alternate reality of mine. Or maybe there had never been an appointment at all. I thought of that prospect, and it made me happy.

Finally, I went into the hallway and dialed the number of the switchboard, which connected me with Dr. Schmuley, who humorlessly told me she was in 14i.

I got in the elevator, dropped sixteen floors, walked down the familiar hallway, went into the door on the right side, labeled “14i.” Everything was as I remembered it, and a feeling of serenity flooded me—the feeling that you get when you leave dystopia and return to your bed. Dr. Schmuley was in her office, waiting for me.

“I was going to call you,” she said.

“It was so funny,” I said. “It was like I was in the Twilight Zone.” I explained my experience and how funny it was while Dr. Schmuley’s forehead squeezed into a disgruntlement and alternately opened her eyes as wide as possible. I laughed. She did not laugh. She wrote something down.

When I finished my story, Dr. Schmuley told me that that was all the time we had for the day, and then handed me some forms to fill out while she processed my credit card.

“So we’ve discussed recurring appointments, yes?”

“We hadn’t really decided on anything,” I said.

“I think it would be good for you.”

“Yes. I was thinking about it, and I think there are plenty of things I could work on.”

“More than working on them, I think you could just talk.”

I nodded and said I was available after five o’clock on weekdays. She was not available after five at any point the following week, so we scheduled a time the following week.

I have a former professor that really likes me. I have no idea why she likes me so much. She doesn't quite get along with many people.

She's a poet that lives up in the mountains with her husband, beyond the reach of pavements or phone service or cars without four-wheel drive. Her husband is a highly skilled carpenter, and together, the two of them built their house out of reclaimed wood and recycled materials. The house is completely solar and wind and water powered, and it has its own room for recycling. Between their massive, rich-soil generating compost, their recycling, and their frequent visits to the city of Boulder's Center for Hard to Recycle Materials, they haven't the need for a trash receptacle. The inside of the house resembles the log cabin of a Polynesian king with a reverence for literature, if such a thing were to exist: The perfectly cut-and-whittled polished wood is adorned with elaborate and colorful masks and carvings of Polynesian gods, rendered from my professor's husband's anthropological knowledge of the Polynesians, gleaned from living amongst various tribes for years as a youth; there is also a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf that majestically wraps around half the perimeter of the abode. My professor also has her own workstation, in front of a gigantic window with a view of the city below and the tops of the mountains directly across. Upon her desk, pressed against the window and behind a holder for fine-tipped pens, there is an exquisitely-designed apparatus with what look like tiny cubby holes; within nearly all of the hundred cubby holes are scrolls containing poems which my professor has had published. There is also a mailbox inside their house—a simple white mailbox that you might find in front of any suburban house. My professor has told me how sad she is if any of her first-time visitors see the box and don't ask about it, as it's meant to be an oddity, a conversation piece. Because of this, I've made it a point to ask her every time I've come into her house; unfortunately, I've forgotten it every time, and I would never want to admit that I still don't know why she has a mailbox in her living room. I do, however, know there is a good reason for its being there.

This professor, whom I've lost touch with on more than one occasion, has sought me out, complimented my creativity, my intelligence, and my writing. She says that I should write professionally and that I have a exciting rareness to my personality. I take this as an even greater accomplishment, as she's mostly a misanthrope and is particularly hard on her students, as she actually was on a friend of mine, whom she criticized for not being original in her poetry. 

In her last email to me, she writes, "As you know, I think a successful life is about having a worthy purpose. You must and will find work that is of value." In light of my recent struggles with self-enterprise and working for a soulless corporation that borders on clashing with my moral code, my hope translates her prediction into a fortune and gives me strength. 

I have learned that my boyfriend does not enjoy getting pummeled in the face by tomatoes. 

The First Ever NYC Tomato Battle was supposed to work like this:

1. Go to the edge of Brooklyn, at the end of the 2 or 5 lines

2. Follow the giant "Tomato Battle" signs that lead you to a shuttle 

3. Arrive at a field where you register for the battle

4. Proceed to an area where there will be all varieties of Danish food available and a beer garden with exotic beers 

5. Enter field where there will be a large amount of overripe tomatoes 

6. Proceed to throw tomatoes at strangers.

Here's how it went

1. Took the subway to the edge of Flatbush, Brooklyn

2. Walked toward a giant sign and got into the last seat of a school bus and realized how uncomfortable those things really are when you grow older

3. Arrived at an aviation field and stood in the longest line ever to register

4. Proceeded to an area where there were "chicken sandwiches," which consisted of chicken on a cheap ass bun; the beer was bud or bud light

5. Were searched for weaponry before being ushered into a fenced-off asphalted area with a dump-truck amount of tomatoes—a small number in comparison with amount of people there were

6. We couldn't get near the pile of tomatoes and ended up along the fence. It soon became clear that most of the tomatoes were far from being even ripe, as we were beaned in the face, head, chests, etc. 

7. As I scavenge for tomatoes on the ground to throw back to the center of the crowd, my boyfriend is just standing still, his head a target for tomatoes. A person, two feet away from him means to hit his friend in the head, who is behind my boyfriend; he hits my boyfriend square in the face. My boyfriend declares, "I'm done with this!" and we leave, smelling like ketchup.

8. My boyfriend throws his broken sunglasses as hard as he can into a dumpster and then confides in me, "Getting hit in the head makes me angry." 

The subheading on Discover Magazine's article, "Grandma's Experiences Leave a Mark on Your Genes," reads, "Your ancestors' lousy childhoods or excellent adventures might change your personality, bequeathing anxiety or resilience by altering the epigenetic expressions of genes in your brain."

Maybe that's why it's in my heart and head like a flashback, but I seem to have it more extremely than my other Jewish friends: Why, when I hear a baby crying, I can become deeply lost and incredibly emotional over a mother's pain of having to murder her own child to not reveal the hiding spot she shares with others. 

And when I was a child, I would try to hide and sleep in the smallest spaces I could contort my body to fit into, in case the Nazis should ever come to my parents' door. 

And I have hidden, in my adulthood, many times when there was an unexpected knock at my door. Where would I go so that they would not find me and take me away?

I have, many times, evaluated friendships by whether a friend would take me in and hide me from the Nazis. 

I've been told that I learn too much or know too much about the Holocaust or that I should not have been exposed to the facts and emotional history of the period at such a young age. That, to me, is missing the point entirely. It is better to know, to care, to feel, to know than to be introduced to concepts later and have the knowledge eroded by apathy. 

Creature of Imitation

Show me how to live. I’ve forgotten. Or perhaps it was never inside me to begin with. The desire to live exists in little flames, flickering from my fingertips, each fingertip a tiny cigarette lighter.

    Safe Inside

You look in the cafe window, and I watch you. Until I’ve finished my coffee, you are just my exhibit, in your concrete habitat.

    The World is Your Gymnasium

It’s impressive the way you pull up your body like that, stretching and lifting your torso as you hang from the pedestrian walk signal. Once you master the traffic arm, will you be graduated to the street light?

    Beware Those Needles

Brooklyn is a disgusting place. Walk around inside, bathe before bed, and go to sleep with blackened feet. The difference between the streets and your living room: There’s less Hep C in your living room.

  Island Woman

Is it too much to want to just eat eggrolls for the rest of the night and feel just fine afterward?

If I were given an eggroll to eat every day, the following would happen:

1. I would not be satisfied with just one, even if I were allotted a million eggrolls but had to space them out and could only eat one a day. It's not a greed thing so much as a location thing. I would not want to keep the eggrolls in a refrigerator, pantry, or cupboard; I would want to keep them in my stomach, at least three at a time. Thus, being allotted one eggroll a day would make me miserable because I wouldn't be able to store them in the location of my choice.

2. I would feel like I wanted to throw up all the time. Over time, or even after just one eggroll, especially after consecutive days of indulging, eggroll eating would make me want to throw up all the time. I would feel the nasty, oily, and fried feeling take over me, like fog overtaking a skyscraper. Soon you can't see the skyscraper anymore, it's just a cloud with its own weather system. That would be my stomach and head. My feet would feel fine, but the fried nastiness would overwhelm and shroud the uppermost part of my body with a cloud of nausea.