Giant Robots vs. God vs. The Girlfriend
Peter Tatara - July 30, 2007
I haven't written in a good while. I know in the grand scheme of things, my silly, trite, and often asinine musings will last no longer than the fame of whoever the fuck wins CBS's Pirate Master (a high-seas reality show featuring a crew of "real life pirates" -- including several from landlocked states). But still I write. In part, I guess, it keeps me sane.
But while I've thought of writing innumerable times over the past month or so, rarely have polished words emerged. What's kept me away? And, of more interest to you, have I gone insane?
For the past three years, I've been with a girl. I assure you she's real and not, as you may imagine, a construct of my imagination created solely for the purpose of my stories. Throughout our relationship, I've suggested, begged, and pleaded with her to abandon quant, rural, pastoral Boston for a life with me in the Center of the Universe -- New York City. Then, not long after the start of summer, much to my surprise, she finally agreed, and for the past handful of months we've been living together in shiny, happy sin.
While I should really stop here, leaving the rest up to your imagination, I will instead continue on to describe our private life together in New York. And as hard as it may be to believe, I have not given up my writing for tantric, acrobatic, and frequent sex. I assure you the sex is indeed tantric, acrobatic, and frequent, but that is only part of the relationship, and there are other nights where, after cooking her dinner and watching half of some crap movie on cable, we both pass out completely content in front of the television.
We've touched all of New York's boroughs, taken in the Coney Island Mermaid Parade, seen fireworks from the Queens Gantry, watched a movie in the open air in Rockefeller Center, eaten doughnuts from a dive on Prince Street that Food Network calls one of the ten best doughnut shops in the country, split an ice cream cone at 2 AM in Times Square, both have year passes to all of New York's aquariums and zoos, and are bumming around Chinatown every other day of the week. We're someplace new, trying something different at least once every seven days.
Before the month is through, we'll be getting sauced to the music of HAPPYFUNSMILE at Forbidden City, walking the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, and going on a quest to find New York City's best (veggie) burger.
And then, each night, we'll retire back to pass out to some crap on cable. And, honestly, I'm as excited to sit beside my half-asleep girlfriend with Stan Lee's Harpies flickering on screen as I am getting lost in the middle of the Bastille Day Street Fair with her. It doesn't matter if we're going out or staying in.
So, there's the truth. Rather than writing, I've been doing absolutely nothing with my girlfriend.
I'm writing this now because of a sliver of time that's opened up to me, as she's back in Boston for a few days gathering up more of her things to bring to New York City. When she returns, I'll want nothing more than to almost burn the apartment down with a package of Jiffy Pop and then slip into sleep next to her as America's Got Talent flashes across the TV.
