What's your name again?

Ok. So maybe I knew it was her birthday this week. Maybe she might have mentioned it at some point last week over, like, the one dinner we've had together in 9 months of cohabitation. Maybe I thought, momentarily, to get her something to commemorate it, but when you say "hi, good morning, how are you?" about twice a week to someone, it's not that hard to let the day they came into being slip out of your mind.

My apartment is definitely not off the scene of "Friends" as I'm sure most of my west coast dwelling acquaintances must think (somehow since I moved to NYC, I've become rave queen, sex goddess and "The Apprentice" style executive in the minds of some of my former Oregonians...obviously I don't plan on correcting the sex goddess part). But this is so not the set of Friends that we don't even have a living room. We don't eat together, we don't watch the news, we rarely have more than a brief exchange on the 3 or 4 mornings a week I care to stay at my own apartment.

Having a roommate is the most necessary, inescapable evil of the NY experience. Even in the humble boroughs, I have no choice but to share space (where's my fancy "Apprentice" salary now?!) and to share it with a stranger, no less. But when you share the bathroom, the fridge and a set of keys that guard your most personal space, where else should you extend or deny that intimacy?

This morning she was slicing into what looked like a hardly-eaten summer torte from whole foods while I dumbly joked: "oh is that your breakfast?".
"No, it's my birthday cake".

Oops.


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