Rebecca Handler

The first time I fell madly in love was my freshman year of college. I saw this hyper-tall, not-conventionally handsome, sweaty man roaring through college on a bicycle and made it my mission to meet him. We finally did meet, one night in the rain, where we kissed near an overflowing garbage can. Even though he had no idea where to put his tongue, I didn’t care, and we dated for a year. 

He introduced me to a world of music with which I was previously unfamiliar. Metallica, Jane’s Addiction, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Cypress Hill. Angry, fun, not-conventionally handsome belters. And when a mysteriously named music festival landed in Long Island, my tongue-tied boyfriend borrowed a friend’s car, picked up Slurpee’s at 7-11, and took me to Lollapalooza. He wouldn’t let me buy a joint from a white man in a Rasta hat during Ice Cube’s set which should have been a sign that he liked to control me, but that day I thought it was sweet and I was in love with being with a man who could pick me up with one arm.  

That was the first time I heard Pearl Jam. When Eddie Vedder began to sing, I felt the way I do every time I look up at a skyscraper. Humans can do this? My people, my species, we can do this?

Nearly 30 years later, I am spending the weekend in Napa to attend a music festival with my just-tall-enough, very-much-handsome husband who has also introduced me to heaps of music and gratefully does not try to control me. Last night, as we were swaying to Stevie Nicks and marveling at her scarf changes between songs, I felt happy. Leading up to this weekend, I had three nightmares, three nights in a row, all having to do with October 7^th, when festival goers in Israel were savagely attacked. I was nervous. Now that I’m here, though, I feel fine. Which also feels weird.  

Pearl Jam is performing tonight. I hope they play “Better Man.” I want to dance, and I also hope there is somewhere for me to sit down.    

When I was being treated for cancer a few years ago, I created a deathbed playlist on Spotify so if things did take a turn for the worse, at least “Call Me Maybe” wouldn’t be the last thing I’d ever hear. Eddie Vedder was predominantly featured, along with Bjork (of course) and Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” which in retrospect might have been too frenetic. I deleted the playlist last year. 

As customary when returning from an international trip, I brought a special treat to share with my coworkers. The salted caramel sugar biscuits came in a rectangular, bright blue flowered tin, the perfect size for storing pencils or chopsticks. I emailed all staff: “Cookies from Oxford! Enjoy!” One by one, the cookies disappeared. In the late afternoon, I stopped by the office kitchen for a consumption check. Not only were the cookies gone, but so was the tin. I really wanted that tin. I found myself with a dilemma. Do I email staff to ask for it back, or do I suck it up and accept the blame for not making it clear that I meant to keep the tin for myself? 

It was a Tuesday, a day many of us come to the office to work together, in person. On other days, those with more flexible schedules and the ability to accomplish tasks remotely, we work from home. 

Three years ago, before Covid hit, there’s no way I could have negotiated this hybrid situation in which I now find myself. “Will you be in tomorrow?” was never a question. I never knew I’d frequently use the word hybrid.

That Tuesday, while making an espresso in the office kitchen, I confessed to one of my colleagues, “I think someone stole my cookie tin.” Without hesitation, he said, “I saw that tin. It was sparkly. Get it back.” “But what if I seem petty? I mean, I didn’t specify.” He said, “If those cookies had been in a Tupperware or on a plate, no one would have taken it.” When two other colleagues joined us, we filled them in on the drama. “This is exciting, an office mystery!” one of them exclaimed, checking the trash and recycling. No tin.

As much I enjoy the flexibility, Covid really screwed us. Recently I listened to a podcast about the negative effect of the hybrid workplace. The story focused on people earlier in their careers, the ones who most need to network but don’t know that networking is predominantly an in-person activity. The best mentoring opportunities and career discussions stem from spontaneous interactions. And fruitful, spontaneous interactions don’t happen over Zoom. 

With the encouragement of my kitchen colleagues, I decided to write to all staff. “It is with a heavy and somewhat self-conscious heart I ask for my cookie tin back. Please return it to my desk. No questions asked.”

Word got around. “There’s lots of people here today,” said the office manager. “Does anyone look guilty?” A young colleague stopped by to give my dog a treat. Laughing, she said, “Maybe Ginger took it.” She’s having her first baby soon, and we talked for a while about managing a full-time job while being a new mother. 

My coworkers have made numerous attempts over the past few years to entice people to come into the office. Free parking and office supplies, flavored sparkling water, dog treats, Nespresso pods, nice bathrooms with that special poop spray. We just got a massage chair. Still, many of us continue to choose home over the workplace. 

Our office has cameras, in the event of a burglary. Our company president put up $10 to the charity of the thief’s choice. Someone else matched it. Nothing yet. 

I met a man who is allergic to everything except beef and milk. And dark chocolate. He can eat that in small quantities. His bout with Covid two years ago left him with the inability to consume most things. Fruit? Itchy rash. Cucumbers? Forget about it. He leaves the house when his wife is cooking, because even the smells are repulsive. While he was sharing this with me at the dog park, he went through two Marlboro Reds. Our dogs seemed to like each other. I was surprised by the cucumbers because aren’t they mostly water? He said yes but they burn his mouth. 

On my walk home, I did what I sometimes do after meeting someone new. I thought about spending my life with this person. Someone who eats beef for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. An adult who drinks glasses of milk instead of wine or even lemonade. I’d have to eat out a lot. The restaurant staff would know me as the wife of the man who can’t eat anything. Here, have this pear walnut Roquefort salad before you go home. I’d feel sorry for him, but I’d also expect him to step up in other ways if this new life were to work out. He’d have to be an exceptional homemaker, lovemaker, dog walker. He’d have to be the funniest, kindest, most generous person to have ever lived. And that wouldn’t be fair. Someone should be allowed to eat prime rib for every meal and also be a jerk from time to time.

Wiping my dog’s paws once I got home, I realized my dog only eats beef and the occasional broccoli floret. Ginger is a terrible homemaker and don’t make a crass joke about the lovemaking. I would need to think of this new imaginary husband as a dog and not a person. A dog who smokes Marlboro Reds.

Let’s face it. This would not work out. By the time the dog got settled in her bed and I had started making dinner, the man and I had separated. I was spending too much money eating out and was way too hard on him. He can’t help it that he’s allergic to everything. 

By the time my actual husband got home, I was tired from the new husband and subsequent break-up. At dinner, I watched my actual husband eat salad with tomatoes and shallots as he listened to our daughter talk about her American History class. He drank wine like a grown-up. He doesn’t have allergies per se, but he’s never liked cream-based soups.   

If I were a poet, I’d write about the dry-cleaning woman who was kind to my daughter and her bell-bottomed jeans that needed hemming. I’d write about the crow that waited on the sidewalk like a father forced to go shopping. But what about the man wanting a dollar for a coffee but how does anyone buy a coffee for a dollar in a town with eight-dollar donuts? If I were a poet, I’d stretch the word conflict to spill over the page and I’d rhyme words and phrases like antisemitism and no place for them. This morning, after the hemming, the patient crow, and the coffee incident, two freshly laundered Mormon boys in skinny black ties asked if I had time for a story. I said no thank you I’m Jewish. What I didn’t say was that today, on Irving Street, I am more Jewish than I’ve ever been, and my grandmother didn’t escape the Holocaust with my father, his baby brother, and diamonds in the sole of her shoe for all the who-said-whats. But maybe that’s exactly why she did. Because someday she’d have a granddaughter named in her memory who would still feel the hatred of Jews in the words people toss around without an eight-dollar morsel of understanding. If I were a poet, I’d fill a page with commas to look like tears, make a million copies, and hand them to slogan-lovers and say here, burn this instead. 

There is a bunny in the dog park. And it’s not a small, brown, outdoorsy bunny. This one is large, black and white, and fluffy. I first became aware of it when the friendly man with the Husky was running after his dog, screaming something in Russian. When I asked him if everything was ok, he said, gasping, “There’s a bunny.” I went on Next Door and sure enough, the previous day someone had posted, “Is anyone missing a rabbit? It’s in the park.” 

That was a month ago. Since then, it’s all anyone can talk about. It is a welcome distraction from Sadie the Terrier’s ear surgery or whether Chester is back on wet food. Now it’s bunny all the time. 

At first, everyone wanted to save the bunny. Red Raincoat with the Poodle was particularly concerned. “How’s it going to survive out here with all the dogs and coyotes?” Visor Lady (no dog) was convinced the bunny escaped the clutches of a neglectful owner. “If that were my rabbit, I’d be out day and night looking for it.” With all the big dogs running through the brush, we were all convinced that Bunny’s days were numbered. When my own dog hunted and gobbled up a gopher, I cringed at the thought of her nice girl reputation being replaced with Bunny Killer.

After a week or so, our worry turned to awe. “Darn bunny is still alive!” said the owner of the shaggy German Shepherd. “Saw it this morning!” The owner of the mean Chihuahua I once referred to as a cunt (not to its face) pointed out the increase of hawks in the park. I had been so focused on my own dog’s thirst for blood, not to mention the coyotes, that I had forgotten all about the hawks. 

It’s not a large park. You can walk its circumference in less than five minutes. I knew it was only a matter of time before I had my own spotting. And then one day, Ginger had run ahead on the path and when I turned the corner, she was intently staring at something. There, a few feet away, was a watermelon-sized, black and white bunny, chomping away on the grass, not a care in the world. This cutie had the confidence of a gangster. When I approached my dog to try and leash her, the bunny hopped away. Ginger sprinted after her. After a chase in the bushes, Ginger appeared, head hanging low. The energizer had outpaced a gopher-eating Lab. I was relieved. This park is so convenient. Being ostracized is not an option. 

Last week, several people saw not one but three bunnies! That sent everyone into a tizzy. “It’s all I think about,” confessed the blond computer programmer with the Pit Bull. I told her I understood, saying, “It’s the most exciting thing to happen to this park since the new playground.” She didn’t know the playground was new, so we had to talk about that for a few minutes even though my brain was screaming, “Bunny, bunny, bunny!” 

Eventually, the park community coalesced around a shared narrative that some dude had tossed his pregnant bunny to the curb, and now the tiny family is hopping around in the fresh air, mocking predators, and celebrating freedom. 

But yesterday, someone from a humane organization set traps. A few of us watched solemnly, as they set up three small metal cages with lettuce and carrots inside. This morning I expressed my feelings to the Russian Man with the Husky. “It makes me sad,” I said, “These bunnies seem like they’re living their best lives. Maybe they’re choosing quality over quantity.” 

He convinced me that if the bunnies survived a month with coyotes, hawks, and dogs, “they’re not stupid enough to walk into a little box.” As he sprinted after his dog, he called back over his shoulder, “Who wants to live life in a cage anyway?”