Guggen-heights

I'm not afraid of heights except when I'm somewhere that's up really high in the air. When I was little, I wasn't afraid of heights even then. I was afraid of elevators. I didn't trust them to stop themselves, and so I took the stairs--often dragging the rest of my family or at least one member with me--no matter how tall our destination.

My brother has always been afraid of heights and once stopped me from looking out at the top of a Look-Out we had summited together when we were small children.

"Get back, Rebecca!" he cried, throwing his arm to block me from approaching the safety railing. We went back down again without seeing anything.

I was reminded of this the other night at the Guggenheim. I'd never been there, and the spiraling, ascending design really was beautiful until I looked over the edge at the glittering gala-attendees below. After that it was terrifying. I saw myself plummeting the several stories to my death amid silver tray-laden servers passing chicken satay on sticks.

"Get back!" I cried, throwing my arm to block Tiffany and Rob from approaching the curved railing. I understood my brother's arm from so many years ago. If you love people, a fear of heights is like a blanket you can't help but throw over them to prevent them from seeing anything. It's why I'll never sky-dive. And why Tiffany never will either.

I wanted to laugh at myself, but I didn't see anything funny about our altitude. So I just took Tiffany's hand in my sweaty palm and we three walked on together.

The Notebook (lesbian-wedding edition)

The first time Tiffany and I had a moment to think about our wedding after we got engaged came high up in the air on a plane, somewhere between New York and Miami. Everything about the ring on her finger was still new. That day, we took pictures of her left hand holding a coffee cup at breakfast, a beer bottle at the bar, and a pencil while she studied. We tried to obscure the rubber band she had to wrap around the ring to make it fit (the ring I "borrowed" from Tiffany to use as a model was not one she wore on her ring finger. Apparently it was a thumb-ring for a giant).

Anyway, even though for years getting engaged felt like the Big Thing, now the Big Thing is the Wedding, and we have to plan one. We brought a notebook on our Christmas holiday to jot down our ideas, in case we had any.

"So should we talk about the wedding?" Tiffany asked shortly after take-off.

"Sure, I was thinking..."

"WAIT!"

I looked at her, startled.

"Maybe we should write this down in the notebook. Should we get the notebook? I think we should get the notebook. Can you get the notebook?"

I got the notebook.

Now that we're a little further down the line in our wedding planning (translation: we've planned NOTHING but have talked an awful lot about many things), I've come to appreciate the Notebook. As far as I can tell, it's mainly helpful in that it allows us to cross out what we've written down after we realize how incredibly affordable our ideas are for multimillionaires.

O-M-Double-G-D, It's a Cat

Did I tell you about our cat?

Tiffany and I live in an apartment where pets are not allowed. It is our greatest sadness, which is why I was so happy one day to open the curtain of our patio door to find a beautiful black and white cat staring in at me from outside.

"O-M-Double-G-D, it's a cat," I whispered to myself, using my great powers of deduction (O-M-Double-G-D is oh-my-good-god-damn for anyone who's interested).

I backed away slowly so as not to startle it and then sprinted the 20 feet between me and the bathroom where Tiffany was showering.

"Tiffany!" I yelled. "There's a cat on our balcony!"

Then I loved Tiffany a little more because her first response was not:

"What the hell are you talking about?"

It was:

"Oh my god! We have a cat! Get it some milk!"

I ran into the kitchen and filled a small bowl with milk. When I ran back to the patio, the cat peered at me, and then, when I opened the door, darted away, over the wall that divides our patio from our neighbor's and into an open sliding door.

My great powers of deduction only go so far. Because we've never seen our neighbor and he/she/they has/have nothing on his/her/their patio (not even twinkly lights!) I did not consider that he/she/they might own a cat. Invisible neighbors don't have pets.

"Oh," I said to myself. "It's someone else's cat."

And then I drank my saucer of milk and went back to report the sad news.