1.
Outside my apartment building in Roscoe Village. My long-distance boyfriend has just come to Chicago, and a group of us is going out to celebrate. As we gather on the sidewalk, it begins to snow. The evening will end badly--for that matter, so will the relationship--but for a lovely, quiet moment, the air is filled with soft, fat flakes and the world is calm.
2.
Tacked to the wall above my desk in my otherwise beige office at work: a black-and-white publicity still of Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion; a three-by-five church directory photo of my Granny Jewel at age 80; a postcard that has a drawing of Northwestern's University Hall on it; a snapshot of the BFF and me in the apartment we shared together just after graduation (we look 11); a snapshot of Kito and me, taken not long after we met.
3.
A recurring episode. It is Sunday night--or, rather, Monday morning, well past midnight. I have reviews to write and have to be at the office in a few hours. I pace the room, drink Diet Dr. Pepper, stare at the windows in the apartment building across the way, hoping to see signs of life or, even better, flashes of skin. My laptop, neglected, glows in the dark. It sits on my white desk, kitty-corner from the bed in which Kito snores boastfully.
