Nine PM on a Tuesday night, we’re home, fed, watching TV, doing our best to forget about all the work we didn’t get done in the past twelve hours that needs to get done before we can go to bed (but probably won’t). Boyfriend lies on the couch with Cat sprawled across his stomach while I putter around the kitchen. I like puttering. Walking around the house in your underwear, taking care of all those little tasks that require no actual thought, doing things that exist just to get done. Overall, I’d say it’s a highly underrated activity.

“Check it out! Annie Hall’s on!” he says, gesturing excitedly with the remote.

“Sweet! Turn it up.”

I’ll have the alfalfa sprouts and a plate of mashed yeast. From opposite ends of the apartment, the two of us quote along in unison.

Clutching a trash bag that’s nearing a state of extreme overflow, I pull on a sweatshirt, prop open the front door with one elbow and step into the hallway in my socks. “I’m gonna take the trash out. Don’t let Cat wander outside.”

“What? Oh. Ok.” His eyes never leave the screen.

Putter putter putter. I pass 7J – home of the whiter-than-white trust fund kid who alternately blasts Biggie and Bob Marley at 8:30 in the morning. As I pass his doorway, I can hear the TV blaring inside:

What is so incredibly great about New York? It’s a dying city! Didn’t you read “Death In Venice?”
You didn’t read “Death In Venice” until I bought it for you!

Smiling, I putter on, wincing under the retina-searing fluorescent lights. I pass 7F – the tall, Aryan couple with the organic produce delivery containers always sitting outside their door. Sure enough, there’s the TV strains from inside their apartment:

I can’t enjoy anything unless everybody is. If one guy is starving someplace, that puts a crimp in my evening.

On to 7M – the “real adults,” as Boyfriend calls them. They have a three-year-old, an infant, a housekeeper and a Yorkie, all in a two-bedroom. The only one who speaks to me is the three-year-old. And there it is, behind the door:

I flew three thousand miles to see you!
I’m late, Alvy.
Air miles! You know what that does to my stomach?

With a grin, I open the garbage chute, stuff the pungent bag inside and pad back to our door, shutting it just in time to keep Cat from taking herself on a field trip down the hall. Boyfriend hasn’t moved an inch.

“The funniest thing just happened,” I say, shooing Cat inside and letting the door slam behind me.

Awards. They do nothing but give out awards here, I don’t believe it. Greatest fascist dictator, Adolf Hitler.

Boyfriend looks up at the shound of the door. “Huh? What? Did you say something?”

Still grinning, I flop down on the couch beside him. “Never mind. I’ll tell you later. Let’s just watch the movie.”

I guess we keep going through it…because…most of us need the eggs.