Post-NY

A Love Letter to My Sick Boyfriend, In A Post-New York World

My Darling,

I have no idea how to take care of you when you’re not feeling well, especially in Los Angeles. Driving over to your place really isn’t an option, what with the 101 freeway acting as a long, traffic-jammed barrier, separating my home from yours.

If we were still in New York, you would live in Bushwick, and I would live in Manhattan. Had you fallen ill there, I would simply have to bribe the guy working at the bodega below your apartment to run you up some Advil and Gatorade and ginger ale and saltine crackers, which would undoubtedly hit the fifteen-dollar credit card minimum. He would grumble, but it would be worth it.

Or, I could hop on Seamless and order a nearby deli to bring you some matzoh ball soup. Obviously, I wouldn’t be able to order from Carnegie Deli, even though theirs is the best, because they don’t deliver below 50^th Street. Nonetheless, I would make sure it was the good kind, with no carrots, and a good ball-to-broth ratio.

But if things were really dire, I suppose I could brave the J train at rush hour, and take the 45-minute journey from my office to your building. Maybe if I transferred right at Delancey Essex, I would be able to get a seat before all of the hard-core bridge-and-tunnel-ers began their commute home. If not, I’d probably end up squished between three or five winter coats, none of which would be familiar in smell, texture, or heat. I’d manage, because I do really enjoy being with you.

Then again, that might look too desperate, too much like an act of love. After all, we’ve only been dating for three months. Hopping on either the brown or the orange lines after 7 p.m. is the kind of romance reserved for at least a ten-month commitment. Come to think of it, I might miss the yoga class I normally take in the Flatiron District, and for what? To drop off some orange juice and vitamins, only to contract whatever disease you currently have and re-distribute your germs to everyone else on the subway that evening?

So. I won’t come to your apartment, or attempt to take care of you. Because this isn’t New York. Los Feliz doesn’t have any soup that isn’t Thai curry, which, while delicious, probably won’t make you feel any less like vomiting. Taking PCH to Santa Monica and cutting up Sunset wouldn’t do either, because I might actually see my next birthday before I arrived at your doorstep. I could try to get off somewhere before the 405, but taking side streets runs the risk of me stopping at In N Out Burger for the third time today, and my Pilates instructor would be furious.

I really hope you feel better. Please know that I love you very much, and were we not in Los Angeles, I would be a much better girlfriend.

Love always.