The Cycle

They were college friends at least ten-years removed. One had gone to Wall Street and the other to some corner where rent was cheap, but that night any love lost seemed found at the bottom of a liquor bottle.

They were sharing a bike: Art at the pedals and Buttoned Down perched on the handlebars. I spied them crossing Second Avenue, swerving past a college girl in a junior high skirt. They both looked and, like Stacey from “Wayne’s World,” smacked into a parked car.

Legs didn’t break her stride.

2010 Relationship Sensus

Taste

Is this milk bad?

_ Yes.

_ No.

_ I can’t tell.

_ Why do I have to check? You’re the one who drinks milk.

_ Since you cheated, everything tastes sour.

Touch

Did you use all the hot water?

_ Yes, but I pooped right before I showered, so you wouldn’t have wanted to go in there.

_ No.

_ No, it was your idiot friend Jeff, who I will never call “The Dingus.”

_ I didn’t use it, so much as I wasted it, like you did with the best years of my life.

Smell

You can’t smell that?

_ Of course I can smell it, but I’ll never admit to it!

_ If you really loved me, you’d love that smell.

_ No, my secret cocaine addiction has decimated my olfactory sense, along with our bank account.

_ Yes, but I know it’s yours, and wish you would stop acting like this is ‘Survivor: Our Apartment’ and farts will get you voted off the island, though I would appreciate it if you went to the other room until this episode passes.

Sight

Blue socks with black pants?

_ That kind of old-fashioned attitude keeps us a twosome in the bedroom.

_ You notice that, but you don’t notice THE POPPY SEED in your teeth?

_ I’m color blind, and I’m worried that you don’t know that.

_ I’m going out to get cigarettes and sleeping pills.

Hearing

Are you even listening?

_ What?

_ Huh?

_ Sure, yeah, definitely.

_ Hello? Oh, that’s fucking great.

Charity of the Round Table

My credit card number has been stolen before so when it happened yesterday, I wasn’t scared. I knew the knights of Visa and their shining headsets and dexterous fingers would easily best the dragon/porn addict/ring-tone fiend who made use of my account.

In fact, as my chivalrous savior paged through my recent charges – “$50 to Facebook?” “No.” “$200 at StringCorp.Com” “No, again.” – I was as confident as a busty maiden with long flaxen braids and a reputation for loving big armor. Then my Lancelot asked, “$100 to United Way?”

“Excuse me?”

“Did you give $100 to United Way?”

“No,” I whispered, fidgeting with the hem of my medieval fuck-me gown.

I didn’t give to the United Way, fair knight. It must have been the noble person who stole my credit card number. But you’ll still hold me close and fix my account, won’t you?

Luck of the Irish

Their batch was as red-faced and green-clad as any pack of Long Island teens celebrating the day when snakes were chased from the Emerald Isle, but I liked them more. Probably because one of the boys was talking to a crusty wanderer holding a “Money for Bus Fare” sign, and that seemed more human than vomiting in the street.

And when that wanderer made his ask for a few bucks to get from here to there and the wobbling boy reached into his cargo shorts, I was thrilled. Almost as thrilled as the boy’s friend, who picked just that moment to backhand the charitable one’s crotch, sending him to the pavement and shouts to the air. The crusty guy cheered, too, though I suspect he didn’t get any money.

A Brief History of My Mom’s Web Presence

1999: Blog or Email?

My mom got tangled up in the internet around the time my sister and I left the house. That’s when a member of her bridge club wrote an email with the subject line “Blog or Email?” that went on to ask whether various things on her computer were blogs or emails. Though most of the contested items were Word documents, Mom was convinced that they were ethernet. That correspondence sold at the peak of the internet bubble for $1.2 million.

2000: Happy21stBirthdayGraham.biz

Strangely proud of her misguided responses Re: Blog or Email? Mom designed this — not actually a web site, but an Evite to my 21st birthday party. She added ‘.biz’ to the title of the event because she thought it might attract an upscale crowd. The party’s centerpiece was a huge chocolate cake sculpted to look like a first generation iMac with two white dinner candles crammed in the back like TV rabbit ears. On what was supposed to be the cake’s screen, Mom had crudely rendered my face in icing meant to look pixelated with “www.happybirthdaysweetpea” scrawled above it. She tried to auction the left over cakeand the candles/antennae on eBay, but could not find an interested party.

2002: NancyNancyTotallyNancy

After Ellen ran a segment about online dating, I helped my mom open a Match.com account that she called her “kissing blog.” Her profile name was NancyNancyTotallyNancy. She claimed that her guiding philosophy was “Wild women don’t get the blues,” and despite my protests, insisted on answering the fill-in-the-blank question “ _____ are sexy, _____ are sexier” with “back rubs” and “front rubs.” After one particularly horrible date, she filed a breach-of-contract suit against Match.com, claiming, “I can’t find a good man at your hunk show.” The trial is ongoing.

2004-2006: YouTuba.com

Although I was totally convinced that a web site designed to convert audio samples of every visitor’s voice into the style of famous tuba solos from the 19th century wasn’t a cash cow, the venture was purchased by Google for an undisclosed sum in 2006. An archive of her favorite tracks, including a Christopher Walken/Also sprach Zarathustrasoundalike, is available at the sister site FrenchHorny.net.

2007-2008: MomLovesYou.org

Mom eventually made the common move from internet fan to web felon when she launched this phishing site. As words of maternal wisdom appeared on the screen, undermining identity-theft software downloaded on to each visitor’s hard drive. Although she did give a percentage of the siphoned funds to Heifer International, she used the lion’s share to buy tea towels, bridge handbooks, and rare tuba 45s.

2009: Mom.Blogspot.com

Mom used to put this URL in the signature line of her emails, though the page belongs to a Swedish film production company called Mathias och Mikaels. In our increasingly infrequent phone conversations, she neither confirmed nor denied a relationship with the company, though I suspect she sold them embarrassing videotapes of my childhood, as every Swede I meet tells me I look just like the fat baby from the diaper commercials. When I wrote to info@mom.blogspot.com about the matter, I received a royalty statement and a reminder to call my sister in response.

2010: VjaGrA_emBIGGen_69_LONGest_LoVeR, etc.

Though it has been some time since last we spoke, I believe that my mom is now sending Viagra-oriented spam. Federal prosecutors have barred me from speaking in detail about my allegations, as an investigation is pending, though I will admit that my suspicions began when I noticed that all the erectile dysfunction solicitations I receive were signed “Love, Mom.”