the Impulsivity fiend in my brain

midtown, January 30th, my apartment building

I’m on my way out the door this frigid January morning in New York City. Bundled like a Patagonia babushka, my trusty sled-dog of a pet, Lennox, pulls me towards the elevator of our fancy new high-rise apartment building. Kyle and I moved to midtown a few weeks ago as we will both be on Broadway later this year and wanted to live a bit closer to work. We explained this exciting news to our demonic, domesticated Balto, but she was not impressed. As far as Lennox is concerned, the best part of moving to an apartment with a doorman is the bevy of crumbly dog treats these men keep in the deep pockets of their wool coats, ready to be handed out whenever she passes by. Like an Petco Pez dispenser.

I enjoy living in a large building. There’s a bit more anonymity to the situation. We’ve spent the last five years in a six-story Harlem apartment complex with shared laundry in the basement. There is a ghastly intimacy one must partake in with the neighbor who’s also seen what your period underwear looks like. Because we lived on the top floor in Harlem and….because I’m lazy….Lennox and I would take the elevator down for her morning walks. Under-caffeinated and in a mishmash of college emblazoned sweats that can only be described as Bag Lady Frat Bro chic, we often shared the elevator with neighbors on the fifth floor. The ride was short, but I am incapable of sitting in comfortable silence when awkward conversation is so much more delicious. For just sprinkling of examples, I once spent the brief elevator commute commenting on someone’s exposed toes to confused stares (I liked their nail polish, but I think something was lost in translation). Another time a neighbor walked in wearing an Ohio State sweatshirt and I inexplicably blurted out, “Traitor!,” which was hard to walk back from. And on yet another occasion, an innocent bystander on the third floor bearing Trader Joe’s bags had to deal with this horrific non-sequitur: “Love the T. Good stuff,” like I was a Midwestern dad asked for his review of the Eras tour. Friends, that’s just grazing the surface, the Small Talk Sample Platter Du Jour, if you will. A friend I worked with once asked me if in moments of stillness my brain presses the “SAY SOMETHING. ANYTHING” panic button and I have never felt so seen-slash-eviscerated by a single comment in my life.

Kyle does not possess this idiosyncrasy. He is perfectly comfortable exiting a taxi cab having never learned the name of the driver’s firstborn, and he doesn’t look at elevator rides or coffee barista interactions as a chance to “stand out”. Because of this, he is effortlessly cooler than me and when he does say something it is always the perfect concoction of breezy and charming, a shot-sized dose of acceptable human interaction that goes down smooth and never garners a second thought beyond, “Oh yeah, the guy in 6A? Real nice. Good hair.” Because of this, I normally let Kyle take the reins.

But Kyle left this Monday for six weeks of work in Los Angeles, and so the task of enacting Normal Human Person Who Also Lives Here has fallen to me.

Which is why, when my Iditarod lackey and I got in the elevator this morning on the 20th floor and saw a lovely young couple standing in the back right corner, we made silent googly eyes at one another with the unspoken directive to “Be Chill.” As we made our descent, the couple reached their hands out for Lennox to sniff.

“She’s so cute! What’s her name?”

“This is Lennox!”

“Hi Lennox! Can I pet you?”

“Yeah, go for it!”

Normal Female Neighbor reached her hand out. Lennox acquiesced to her scratches for a second, before turning her attention back to the doors. Doorman-scented Iams treats awaited her, she didn’t have time for social interaction.

“Oo, babe she just rejected you,” Normal Male Neighbor jested, while his female partner laughed.

Terrified they would assume my dog (and by extension, me) unfriendly, I blurted out, “No, I like you, I just have to shit real bad!”

Silence.

I should pause here to say: I offered this record-scratching phrase up in my “Lennox voice”, which kind of sounds like Roz from Monsters Inc. on helium: a chain-smoker who just did cocaine. Normal Human Couple who lives in my building don’t know about Lennox Voice™, however, and so to their untrained ears and unassuming minds, they had just spent their 60 second elevator ride dealing with an aloof canine and a human being who not only can’t control her bowels, but also can’t control her desire to speak about it aloud. I backtracked frantically.

“Oh my god, that was so crude. I meant Lennox probably has to shit- I mean- go to the bathroom. She likes people. She just…”

Ding. We had reached the lobby.

Normal Human Couple shuffled to the exit, not even throwing us a backward glance. Lennox and I cowered in utter defeat.

Do you ever think of yourself as a little Sims-like creature, making your way through the world, unaware of who, or what, exactly, is manning the control booth? I like to think of my brain sometimes in relation to Inside Out, the delightful Pixar movie we’ve all cried to on airplanes.

In addition to Joy, Fear, and Anxiety, my brain also serves as residence for a tiny jester-sprite called Impulsivity. Impulsivity wears a denim bucket hat and pink overalls and doesn’t know what a filter is, let alone how to use it. In bad Impulsivity moments, she cozies up to Shame afterwards, and needs to be soothed with back-scritches, a glass of water brought to her in bed, and the reassurance that while rash decision making has consequences, we can also try again tomorrow.

Sometimes, though, Impulsivity flies towards the exit doors, bounding into the day like Lennox for her morning walk. And when she utters a sentence aloud she doesn’t even remember forming, and then peers at it hanging in the air like a tiny, kaleidoscopic blimp, she laughs with Joy: at herself and her mental chaos, wondering what brilliant, unhinged thing could she possibly say next.