Furthermore, you know I am terrified of spiders and yet not only did you come parading into my bedroom without invitation or warning, you did so shirtless, baring that sloppily rendered, yet very frightening stick-and-poke tattoo of a black widow. You tell me you cannot take back the past, or any decisions you made on that naval vessel sailing through hostile waters, but you can certainly put on a damn shirt! (Aha! Ground rule #7b: YOU WILL wear a shirt around the house!)
After I dove under the covers, you plunked yourself down on the edge of my bed, as if nothing had happened, and proceeded to tell me about how you signed up two new dogs for your fledgling dog-walking enterprise, a gigantic Rottweiler named Cuddles and a tiny Chihuahua named Biggie. Everett!!!! Boundaries, please! The episode clearly did not seem out of the ordinary to you, hence the need for me to explain in writing why your behavior was unacceptable!
When I invited you to live with me I was taking into consideration not only our romantic history, but also the abuse you suffered as a child, and the PTSD you incurred during your military service—during which you avoided the horrors of war, but not of toxic masculinity. I’ve had to reconsider this decision. First, the invitation was ultimately driven by my financial straits, and yet your prorated rent is a week late. Second, the fact that you’ve already been bringing home Brie wheels and encouraging me to eat them is a source of considerable frustration. (You know Brie gives me an acne beard!) Clearly you are trying to wreak havoc on my normally decent skin to the point where no other man will date me and I will be forced to get back together with you as a last resort. You have not declared your romantic intentions, but I could see them plainly in your desire to remain in the room with me and the purple merman! Everett, I need you to understand that when we finally reached the shore of our breakup after the tumultuous passage of our relationship, in my soul I burned the ship of our love to the ground once and for all. (As a former navy man, I hope this metaphor resonates with you without triggering your PTSD—it does pain me to compare myself to the cruel Hernán Cortés so rightly depicted as evil and syphilitic in much of the work of The Three Great Muralists.)
When I sat down to pen this letter, I had resolved to ask you to move out, but as I write, Roscoe is gazing up at me imploringly. That capricious little miniature dachshund loves you so much! (And you have been walking Roscoe every single day AND scooping Charlize Theron’s litter box—a gold star for ground rule #1b!) I can hardly bear to consider the furball moping that will follow your permanent exit from my house. While your presence here threatens to be a gigantic cockblock, ironically the fact that you sometimes administer Roscoe’s 8 p.m. insulin shot might actually allow me to someday go on a date with Patrick. So for now, my longtime friend, consider yourself on final warning.
Your EX-girlfriend,
Roxy
P.S. When are you going to return my backpack you borrowed? (This pilfering warrants a new rule #7a. YOU WILL NOT borrow my stuff. Hands off!)
June 24, 2012
Dear Everett,
It was one year ago today that Brant Bitterbrush abandoned me with hardly an explanation. He had promised lifelong fealty, he had sworn himself to be my soul mate, and then he was gone. Little did I know then that Brant Bitterbrush had an even worse betrayal in store for me, one that triggered my current state of artistic paralysis. Is it any wonder that my workday today, on this anniversary of my broken heart, was a total fiasco and may result in my termination?
My day was emotionally harrowing on so many levels! It all started when I was riding my bike to work. As I headed down Sixth Street, in the distance I could see the Waterloo Video sign had been taken down and replaced! As you know, I cried when Waterloo Video closed a few months ago. Sure, these days we can download any movie we want in an instant. But what a cheap and sterile replacement for wandering the grubby aisles of Waterloo Video, where the disgruntled staff members wrote loving recommendations (or warnings) on Post-its adhered to each video. When Brant Bitterbrush and I were still a couple, every time we wanted to rent a video we would spend a good hour in Waterloo, passing especially hilariously reviewed video boxes to each other. The last time Brant and I were there together—just over a year ago—I considered renting the Coen brothers’ film “The Ladykillers.” I picked up the box and the note read: “Put this down and go wash your hands immediately—you are holding a piece of shit.”
Just as my love for Brant Bitterbrush was not enough to keep us together, my appreciation for Waterloo Video, a true cultural institution, was not enough to keep the store open. Until today, I held great hope an establishment worthy of the location’s storied history would take its place. Perhaps a tiny brewpub or vintage clothing store would move in. Even a funky greeting card stand would not have raised my ire. So long as a local store took over the space. As you know, that intersection of Sixth Street and Lamar Boulevard has always been a bastion of quirky local culture and business—BookPeople, Whole Foods (which, though now well on its way to becoming an international behemoth, was, not so very long ago, just a single tiny health-food store), Waterloo Ice House, Waterloo Records. The intersection was a haven of everything truly and uniquely Austin.
So as I peddled by on my twenty-four-inch cruiser on my way to work—sweating in this boiling heat (whose only blessing is to keep every Californian on the planet from moving to this city, which was so recently a Shangri-la)—I almost biked into the street when the new sign hanging over those once hallowed doors came into full view: COMING SOON: LULULEMON. Yes, it’s true. A Lululemon store—destined to sell overpriced workout gear to trophy wives whose sole job is to attend Pure Barre and keep it tight—will open in the space formerly occupied so well by Waterloo Video. Is this glorious town we live in selling its quirky, beautiful soul to the highest corporate bidder? It seems so.
That store’s arrival is a symbol of the sort of change that will price us all out of this town. Sure, I had the good luck to inherit $35,000 from my grandma and the good sense to use it as a down payment on my little house. But I can practically hear my property taxes growing as I write. And what about the artists and musicians and deli maids I hold dear—where else would they go? If you look at a map of Texas, it’s clear there is no other livable option.
Dizzied by grief at this unexpected development—and perhaps a little addled by the 105-degree heat—I arrived at Whole Foods. Instead of eight hours behind the fogged glass of the deli case, per usual, I’d agreed to cover Annie’s shift on samples while she had her interview with Whole Foods CEO Lite Topher Doyle. But first, I had to take a quick stroll down Beer Alley—a morning ritual during which I try to spot the scrumptious Patrick—but alas there was no sighting of my crush. I hurried to the deli to prep for my shift.
I put on my apron and unwrapped and microwaved some gag-inducing frozen tuna burger. Jason and Nelson came by to comment on how disgusting it looked and offer me sympathy about having to work samples for a whole shift. (Aside from Annie, they are probably my favorite coworkers in the deli. Jason is a passionate spray-paint-graffiti artist. Nelson surely has interests of his own, but I always just think of him as Jason’s sidekick.) They helped me haul a sample table out to Bakery, where I set out my tray of morally repulsive morsels. Is there anything more humiliating than handing out microscopic snacks to strangers? I hate standing behind a bunch of wasteful mini-sample cups, smiling and offering a nibble to every passerby as if I’m some sort of culinary streetwalker. But it was for dear Annie so there I lurked, right around the corner from the three-foot-tall burbling chocolate fountain and beside a giant display of boxed crumb cake.