Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing by Lydia Peelle Page A

for the rest of my life is unclassifiable, too much to bear. When the list comes to this I get up and sitat the kitchen table and watch the snow, the snow that seems always to be falling.
    Navigation
    After looming for weeks, the day of my office Christmas party arrives. Every year it is the same. We all bring our husbands and wives to a third-rate steak house and get drunk and have a gift swap. The husbands and wives stand around making awkward small talk, and we all compliment one another on how nice we look out of our office clothes, drinking swiftly and heavily, sick to death of one another. At the center of all this sits an enormous, blood-rare roast. Last year my husband stole a bottle of vodka off the bar and we snuck out to the back alley, where we wrapped up in his coat and tried to name the constellations we could see between rooftops. The thing I was most grateful for: he could look at any situation, no matter how dire, and instantly know the best way to navigate through. If I was lucky, I’d be pulled along with him. At five o’clock someone comes by my cubicle and reminds me brightly, for the third time today, about the gift swap. I can see those gifts—the scented candles, the plush toys in Santa hats—already tossed in the garbage and on their way to the landfill. I reach into my bag for an aspirin and find the herpetologist’s card. I just remembered, I say to no one in particular. I have plans this afternoon. I pull on my coat and hat and go, stumbling through the exhaust-stained snow, the wind slicing through my clothes. The university loomson a distant hill. When I finally arrive, it seems deserted, nothing but an expanse of iced-over parking lots. It takes a while to find the building whose name is printed on the herpetologist’s card, and just as I am about to give up I see it, a low industrial structure that sits on the edge of the campus like an afterthought. Inside, the halls are ill-lit and empty. I follow the signs to the herpetology department. Down one flight of stairs, then another, then another. With each flight I grow warmer, strip off a layer—coat, hat, sweater, scarf. By the time I have found the herpetologist’s office, deep in the basement, I am breathless and damp with sweat.
    Anticipation
    When I knock, the herpetologist flings open his door and beams at me, ushering me in. The tiny room is tropically warm, one wall lined with aquariums that glow with ultra-violet light. This is my office, he says proudly, and those are my anoles. He is wearing battered khakis and sandals with socks, as if he has just come from a jungle expedition. The anoles give the room a frantic energy. They puff and posture, do push-ups, circle one another warily. Their bodies are sharp and lizard-like, the dulled green and brown of sea glass, and fans of brightly colored skin hang from their chins: red, purple, blue. Do you want to hold one? the herpetologist asks, eyes sparkling. When I step closer, their faces seem wise and irascible, and as they swivel their eyes I get the sense that they are sizing me up. But the herpetologist has already pulled themesh cover off one of the tanks and is watching me, expectant. I reach in and make a halfhearted show of trying to catch one, my hand sending streaks of panic through the tank. I look at him and shrug. Like this, he says, and I see his hand slip in like a stealthy animal. Suddenly, an anole is clasped in his fingers, its head between his thumb and forefinger, tongue flickering, as startling as a bright scarf conjured in a magic trick. I gasp, my lungs blooming with the warm air, and find I’ve been holding my breath. You’ve got to anticipate, he says, grinning.
    Raft
    I come home to a red light flashing in the dark of the living room: a message on the machine from my husband. I have to play it twice—his voice is slurred and halting. This is how it has been for several months: when he gets drunk, he wants to work it out. I