Mupples

The word mupples was coined a few years back by my then roommate, Piia, The Finnish Wonder.

Mupples=Male+Couple.

This weekend was one of absolute laziness, I must admit. Remnants of the tropical storm had fluttered their way up to Brooklyn bringing sideways rain and turning umbrellas wrong side out. My umbrella was beat to begin with, and was laid to rest late Friday night very unceremoniously.

I spent Friday through Sunday mostly just curled up on the sofa watching mindless television. This is a strange departure for me as I really don't watch TV much at all except for the show, Lost, which was injected into my veins like dirty heroin last fall, afflicting me with an instant addiction. It's return to television in October will mean that I will get my weekly fix and stop the shaking in my hands.

On Sunday, I decided to venture out into the world, which had turned from apocalyptic to rather pleasant. However, a strange wind was blowing through Brooklyn. As I walked down the street, I kept passing couples. Let me correct that. I kept passing Mupples. Some of them were hand in hand. Some of them just sort of skipping along. All of them looked medicated with happy pills or some sort of potent love tonic.

I wanted to be happy for these frolicking couples, but they only served as living reminders of my singlehood, which seems to have settled in like a pair of old jeans that maintain the shape of my ass even after they've been thrown in the laundry hamper.

I passed the bus stop and noticed that the bus was coming, so I decided to get on it. I had no destination. I rarely ride the bus because I feel that it is a portal into a strange world which smells and tastes of something of which I just can't quite comprehend. It scares me. If there are vampires in Brooklyn, I think they ride the bus.

Three stops into my busride a gentleman got on. I knew him, yet we had never spoken. It's strange how you can see a person repeatedly yet you never say hello. I knew that he had to recognize me as well. We are familiar strangers, an odd urban phenomenon that would never fly in a small town.

I used to see him walking his dog. I would see him go into his apartment, which was one block away from mine. I always felt sad when I would see him, because he looked sad and his dog was very old and could barely walk. I knew that the dog would die soon. At some point, I guess the dog did die, because I didn't see him walking it anymore.

I feel that it had a profound effect on him because I noticed that it coincided with his appearance at the gym. He was working with a personal trainer, very intent on some sort of fitness goal, I thought. Next came subtle changes. The grey hair he had atop his head changed to dark brown. His clothing changed from loose fitting outdated garments to tighter and trendier threads to showcase his developing muscles.

I think the death of his dog made him feel old and alone. He decided to turn back the clock in little ways. Of course this is all speculation, coming from a passive stalker.

It had been months since I had seen this familiar stranger. He sat there on the bus with his dry cleaning neatly folded over his lap, the grey hair emerging at the roots, the muscular frame softer than the last time we had met but not said hello. I think that he has forgotten his mortality again. How many dogs must die for him to stick with his gym regiment and the regular maintenance required when one commits to coloring one's hair?

We got off the bus at the same stop and walked in opposite directions, not saying goodbye. I walked past more mupples, feeling that there is some factory pumping them out in twos. I stop myself. Have I become bitter?

It is then that I notice a young boy feeding McDonald's French Fries to a squirrel and realize that the world has gone terribly awry and I might as well just eat package after package of bacon and embrace the fact that I am not part of a mupple and that ultimately, that is a choice.

I am single. I accept it and embrace it. I sit at restaurants alone like a mysterious European professor, obviously wearing tweed. I talk to myself. I take bubble baths and listen to lesbian folk music. One day I will own many cats and have stacks of newspapers. Eventually, I will stop shaving and take up whittling. I will learn the banjo and lose some teeth. I will lose touch with the world and become what many call crotchety. I will make my own loose fitting clothing out of burlap sacks and rock on a porch with cracked planks, which I will never take the time to repair. I will reject technology and be the last person to send paper letters as everything becomes wireless. Above all things though, I will maintain my sanity.
We must all have romantic notions.

Photo by the lovely Carrie Thomas