Coconutty

If you've never had an older brother, you probably can't understand how it is that I came to be stuck about 25 percent of the way up a palm tree on Saturday.

But perhaps you will enjoy the story anyway.

The simple answer is my brother and I were celebrating Mother's Day with our mom in Miami and we all wanted to drink some coconut water... you know, the kind they devote entire shelves to in grocery stores.

Brandon says he drinks the magic stuff a couple times a week, whenever he finds a tree low enough to shake down the fruit.

We thought we had found such a tree on one of our walks down the beach.

"Maybe you can climb up, Rebecca," Brandon said.

"I don't know," I hedged, shading my eyes as I peered up the branch-less trunk.

"Yeah, it may be a little too tall," he agreed.

If you have an older brother, my post could end here. You know Brandon's response is the answer to how I came to be stuck up the tree. If you don't have an older brother, here's what you missed:

If an older brother says you can't do something, that means you have to do it. Even if he's right. Over the almost 32 years Brandon and I have shared on the planet, this rule of siblinghood has caused me to be: much too far out in the ocean, accidentally upside down in the air on snow skis, and generally much tougher than I otherwise might have been.

On Saturday, it was obvious to us all as soon as I began my climb that I could not make it up the palm tree. What was apparently less obvious was that I also could not get down.

"Oh well," Brandon said, starting to walk away from the base of the tree.

"Help," I said.

But it was too late. I had already begun the painful slide down, scraping off what seemed like crucial parts of skin on my inner thighs, inner calves, and the tops of my feet.

But I didn't cry. And if you don't know why, you obviously don't have an older brother.

The Orange Door Is No More

I wish Tiffany and I were the kind of people who had the time or talent to turn an orange door into a piece of art. Or the kind of people who had an apartment big enough to display such a piece of art. But we're not. Maybe someday.

Anyway, shortly after Tiffany dragged the orange door up to our apartment, we put it outside on our patio until we could "do something with it." But instead it just sat there. Through rain. And snow. And more rain and snow. We made one half-hearted attempt to peel away the layers of paint and then we made a judgment call. We decided the door had to go. We needed space for flower pots. 

"It's kind of sad," I said, as Tiffany leaned the door up against a tree outside our building.

"Yeah," Tiffany agreed.

"Such a great keyhole."

We stood for a few seconds, and then we turned and went back upstairs.

A few days later, we were on our way to dinner. We passed a woman and a man walking together. I noticed the woman was staring intently at something. I turned and saw the orange door leaning up against a wall on someone else's patio.

"Hey," the woman said to her companion. "That's my mom's door."

She took a picture with her phone.

Tiffany and I smiled at each other.

The next night, someone put four flower pots out on the curb. 

We took them home.

Invisible Stuff

When I tried to step down from the linen closet shelf to the sink, I knew I was in trouble. 

"Help me, Tiffany," I called.

"Seriously?"

I considered my options. I was perched like a koala bear straddling the door jam, several feet off the ground. In one hand, I held on for dear life. In the other, I clutched the bar of Irish Spring soap I'd climbed up for. 

"Yes," I said. "Very seriously."

Tiffany and I have less room for stuff in our new apartment. And all the room we do have is extremely vertical, meaning people like us, who stand 5 feet 3 inches off the ground, can't see it or reach it, hence my unfortunate climb (Tiffany eventually rescued me by lifting me out of the linen closet).

Our storage woes cause all sorts of other problems too.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to Target to stock up on:

Irish Spring

laundry detergent

razors

tampons

dish washing soap

face soap 

face lotion

only to find when Tiffany koala-ed up to put the stuff away that we already had extra quantities of:

Irish Spring

laundry detergent

razors

tampons

dish washing soap

face soap 

face lotion

that we'd forgotten about. 

So even though we have less space for stuff, we actually have more stuff because we can't see any of the stuff we do have.

Donut Money

I knew as soon as we stepped onto the train that we'd picked the wrong car. There was a woman standing in the middle of the aisle and she was bundled up in ten or twenty coats and her skin was like leather and her eyes were black dots, hating. As soon as the doors closed, she began screaming at the top of her lungs. Something about JFK and then:

"You can take your donut money and shove it up your..."

"Did that woman just say donut money?" I whispered to Tiffany.

"Yes," Tiffany whispered back. "Yes, definitely donuts."

I've never had specific donut money. I've had laundry money and lunch money and fun money, which my mom sometimes slips into a card that she mails me with a little note, like: "Get your hair done!" or "Go to the movies!" or "Buy an ice-cream!"

But never donut money, although I do love donuts. I tried not to make eye contact with the woman, but the further I turned my eyes from her face, the closer she got to me physically.

"I don't want your donut money!" she spat.

I changed tactics, trying to express my understanding of her position with a slight nod of my head. Who would want my donut money, if I had any?

She turned away from me suddenly.

"F*#$ you and you!" she screamed, wheeling around in a circle. "I know who killed JFK! F*#$ you!"

"Did she just say..."

"Yes," Tiffany hissed. "Shhh."

Suddenly another passenger began to sing, right at the angry screaming woman.

"Oh god," I whispered.

"F*#$..."

"HALLELUJAH..."

"JFK..."

"PRAISE JESUS..."

"DONUT MONEY..."

"LORD LIFT ME UP..."

But then the lord did something better. He let Tiffany and I out at the next stop.

On Marriage

Despite the red equal rights pictures flooding my Facebook feed, I was in a funk all day yesterday. Little things annoyed me. Like the woman walking too slowly in front of me on the sidewalk. And the man walking too quickly behind me, almost right up onto my heels.

When I called my mom on the way home, I asked her if she'd been following the news on the Prop. 8 case. She hadn't. She'd been so sick with the flu she thought Monday was Sunday when I'd called her the day before.

"No," she said. "What's happening?"

That annoyed me.

My mom almost never annoys me, so I knew I was in a bad mood. I told her the case had been argued that morning.

"And how do you feel about that?" she asked, going straight to the heart of what I'd been avoiding all day.

"Well," I said, steering myself around another pedestrian. "Actually... you know what, I'm kind of annoyed."

"I bet," my mom said.

It's not that I don't think yesterday's Prop. 8 case or today's Defense of Marriage Act case are important. It's that I think the questions in the cases are so important they shouldn't even have to be asked.

In the time that my partner Tiffany and I have been a couple, most of our straight friends have married. Some of them have divorced. Others have stayed together, had children, and celebrated wedding anniversaries.

I first told Tiffany I loved her eight years ago, on the way back from breakfast on the streets of Brooklyn Heights. But we couldn't get married in New York at the time. When I convinced her to spend a summer with me and my mom in Missouri, a constitutional amendment prevented us from getting married in that state. We moved to California next, but we couldn't get married there either. Then the court said we could, and everyone said we better hurry up and do it and...then voters passed Prop. 8 and we couldn't get married again.

I continued to carry my paternal grandmother's diamond ring from one apartment to the next while Tiffany and I loved each other, while we considered what it would even mean to be married in such a confused world.

Eventually, back in New York, we decided we wanted to celebrate our commitment to each other in front of the family members and friends who have been celebrating our commitment to each other from the very beginning. We hope to do so soon.

Which is why it feels so annoying that any decision is left to be made at all, let alone by voters, or legislators, or the nine members of our nation's highest court.

The way I see it, I only needed one person's permission to marry the woman I love.

And my grandmother's ring is on her finger.

The Nice People We Meet on the Subway

I don't usually sit when I take the subway. I find sitting makes me feel more claustrophobic and usually some man's crotch ends up just a few inches from my face. Also, I like to balance without holding onto anything, like I'm surfing.

When I choose to sit, inevitably I do so just as an elderly man or pregnant woman or tiny child is boarding the train. Of course I bounce right back up to offer my seat. Most people are very grateful for an unexpected resting place.

But sometimes being nice backfires.

The other day Tiffany and I sat. Remember that long train ride to Brooklyn? Well, we were on our way back. I was tired and not in the mood to surf, so we sat down in the middle of a bench in a nearly empty car. A few stops later, the car was very crowded. I kept an eye out for incoming crotches, but what came our way instead was an elderly looking woman carrying several bags.

I say elderly looking because of what happened next.

"Would you like to sit?" Tiffany asked, half-rising from the bench.

The woman looked at Tiffany like she was an idiot.

"Do I look like I need to sit?" she snapped. "Do I look old? What makes you think I need to sit?"

I'm not proud to admit that at this point in the exchange I pretended not to know the woman I'm engaged to. Meanwhile, Tiffany began to stammer.

"No, I mean, you don't look like anything... I mean, it's just...we're getting off at the next stop!"

"Actually, we have two more stops," I said helpfully, reclaiming my partner.

Tiffany glared at me.

"But you're right," I hurriedly went on, "we really should start making our way to the doors."

Extra Door

When Tiffany and I lived in San Francisco, we bought almost all our furniture on Craigslist. It seemed like someone was always selling exactly what we needed, so we never saw any point in going to an actual store to buy the same thing for a lot more money. In New York, not so much. People here are too rich to bother selling things. They just throw them away.

Until last weekend, we hadn't bought anything on Craigslist. We had, however, picked up three excellent pieces from our neighbors. Our sidewalk trash finds so far include: a bookshelf that's too big for all our bookshelf spots (we're selling it!), a grocery cart that we have yet to use, a miniature baker's rack to give us extra kitchen counter space in our living room (the rack is not so miniature that it fits in our kitchen), and a bright orange door. We have no use for the door. That is to say, all our door frames have doors, so this door is nothing if not superfluous, but it's so pretty! And antiquey! As soon as we saw the old-timey keyhole, we had to have it. For now it's a decorative door on our patio.


But Tiffany kept scouring Craigslist, and we finally hit the jackpot with exactly the multi-purpose ottoman we'd been looking for. This guy was selling a piece that has a cushion top lid that reverses into a coffee table top. Even better, two smaller ottomans fit inside the piece, providing us with extra seating whenever we have company.

I was suspicious as soon as we approached the seller's apartment--a towering water-front high rise in the financial district.

"Why would someone who lives here need extra cash?" I said. "Should I put a rock in my pocket in case he's a murderer?"

Tiffany rolled her eyes.

(FYI: There are no rocks in the financial district anyway.)

It turns out the guy was just like us. Or he had been just like us until he moved into the towering high rise with the doorman and the swanky red lights in the elevators. Now, he was on the cusp of being someone infinitely more rich than us. But old habits die hard. He was selling his ottoman because he didn't need it anymore (he needed something bigger to go with his enormous new apartment).

Tiffany and I took a minute to breathe in the smell of his success before we hefted the ottoman up and walked awkwardly out of the apartment.

"As nice as it is," I whispered while we waited for the elevator, "it's a studio. At least we have a bedroom door."

And a decorative orange door too.