Sunday, December 8, 2013

"Nothing Going On But the Rent" - Gwen Guthrie

Snow was falling. I was walking down 5th Avenue, the Empire State Building looming a couple blocks north and the Flatiron Building a couple blocks south of me. There were tourists all over the place, cameras aimed up toward these iconic buildings, everyone full of glee about the sight of this falling snow, the New York skyline behind the trailing flecks of white illuminated every now and again in their descent by the various streetlights, car headlights, and storefront windows of the city, trying to capture the happiness they felt, the elated feelings that the beginning of snow falling in New York City can bring about, hitting click click click, hoping to capture the feeling, bottle the joy.

I walked along 23rd Street, headed toward Trader Joe's, taking in the sights I see just about every day made fresh again by the falling snow. I thought about people not in New York, wanted them to see this, wanted to see this with them.

I bought some mixed greens, some chicken, some carrot juice.

My day was spent in a fog of hunger and hung-overness. I did some shopping I needed to do, stuffed my face with a burrito at Chipotle, went to the gym, and did not go to the Balthus exhibit which had originally been my whole purpose in heading into Manhattan today. I was moving slower than I wanted to. After eating the burrito all I wanted to do was eat another one, was to head home to my couch and order a ton of Mexican food and make the world the happy place it was while I was inhaling that burrito in a crowded Chipotle, sharing a table with a woman frantically checking her phone over and over again, waiting for someone it seems. The person never came, or maybe did after I finished my burrito and headed out into the streets of this city.

Somewhere in the East 50s yesterday, I drank a fairly strong vodka drink and did some superhero roleplay with the guy I saw a while ago. He had an entire scenario he wanted to act out. He was going to play three bad guys, whom I would defeat one by one, until all three of them ganged up on me together and captured me. The vodka helped me get into character. Led Zeppelin was blasting again. "No, you can't do this, you're not going to get away this," I said as he had me, Batman, pinned down and punched my stomach over and over again.

After I showered, washing off the semen from both of us that was on my chest, the conversation quickly and seamlessly pivoted out of the world of fantasy and superheroes back into the typical chit-chat conversation that is the basis for so much human interaction, for so much of our time. The off switch had been hit and we obeyed its directives. I told him my plans for the night. We talked about food, an easy subject for me. We talked about Bushwick, Brooklyn, and a changing New York. We talked about steak tartae, my love of it. He talked about eating raw meat as a kid as his mother made hamburgers.

I walked through the sharp, cold air, smoked a couple cigarettes, listened to some really great songs, rode a subway, and soon was at a house party in Williamsburg for a friend's birthday. There was this guy there who told me that he grew up on Long Island across the water from the Fire Island Pines. His parents were conservative evangelicals and in his teenage years, he would take the ferry all the time in the summer and get fucked in the Pines. It was the nineties and he had long hair at the time. I drank more vodka, did some other things, and talked to various people.

Andy and I left at some point, walked over to Metropolitan. My crush from Oak was there. I didn't talk to him, was too nervous. I did talk though to this tall, handsome guy who I had been making eyes at across the bar. As he was walking past me to go to the bathroom, I said hi. He told me I was cute. And we were off from there. We chatted. We danced to "High Energy." I talked about how I had just been listening to this song over and over again earlier in the evening on the subway. We kissed. We got in a black car and headed to my house. The driver let us smoke cigarettes in the car and we flew through the streets of North Brooklyn, leaving trails of orange embers out both rear windows. Between this train of glowing orange dots burning brightly before fading were our hands, fingers interlocking over the middle seat.

I woke up this morning, realizing that this guy was in my bed, having briefly forgotten in the first moments of waking up. We cuddled and I was already starting to feel hungover and couldn't wait for this guy, nice as he was, to leave, so I could unravel into the mess I felt like, so I could sprawl out on my couch, coffee cup at my side, moaning over an egg sandwich soaked in Cholula hot sauce.

And I don't know what I want. I know that I sometimes think that I want a guy in my life again, someone handsome and charming, and for the hour or so that this handsome and charming guy was in my apartment this morning, holding my hand, being all cute, I could not wait for him to leave. I also know that once he was gone and when I was alone, that that is when I felt really happy.

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