Streaming Now by Laurie Stone

Author:Laurie Stone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dottir Press

HUDSON, New York, July 2021

I bought five ears of corn for a friend who was coming to visit. She said her front teeth were temporary and she might need to cut the kernels off the cob. It rained, and the grilling was canceled. When I opened the fridge today, I saw a canvas bag in the bottom bin. Inside the bag were five different ears of corn. From a month ago? A year ago? There was mold and blackened bits but no smell—five decomposing little corpses, each wrapped in its own shroud. Was this my house?

I remember stepping off the bus from the airport in Newark and wheeling my bag through Times Square. I would look out the window of the uptown bus, recalling every shop and patch of green along the route, until I was on my street and home, in a manner of speaking. I never liked where I lived, not really. It was a marriage of convenience. When you live in New York City, you love most that you live in New York City.

The man I live with told me he imagined living on after me. He does this from time to time, as I do with him, except I don’t see my life without him. Everything slips from my mind. I said, “Don’t kill me off, even in your imagination.” He said if I died, he would sell our house.

Last night, I was staying with a friend in Massachusetts. I woke up and thought I might not be peeing enough, and so I got up and peed. The man I live with said he also imagines me living on after him. I said to my friend, “I wouldn’t sell our house.” She looked past me and said, “You don’t know what you’d do.” When was the last time I surprised myself? I think it was the other day, when I realized I misread people more often than I understand what was going on between us. Once a thought like this forms, it seeps over your entire life like the orange drops used to numb your corneas during an eye exam.

This month, during our sessions of streaming, the man I live with and I watched two movies emblematic of their times and two current TV series.

One of the old movies was A League of Their Own (1992). The man I live with was all like, “Tom Hanks, you are such a bad actor, you can’t even play a drunk.” I liked the movie’s sentimental version of feminism, where you look at a forgotten phenomenon, like women in baseball during World War II, and show how women—with economic backing and more control over their lives than in domesticity—wake up to the power of their bodies. Madonna is adorable with partner Rosie O’Donnell when they were besties IRL too. Madonna isn’t allowed to take over the film by director Penny Marshall, and Madonna looks like she’s having a very good time, diving face first into home base and dancing with strangers in a bar.

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