It was right before lunch that Michael, a co-worker that I have a flirtation with, asked me how my life was going, whether I was liking the job. I told him that I loved it, that the job was going good, that it was the only part of my life that was. Things would change after lunch and I am convinced that I somehow jinxed myself by being so positive about this job.

During lunch they announced the three people that were going to go out to LA for a week or two to train at their hotel there, an assignment I wanted a lot and which I thought I would get. I didn't and was a bit surprised about that, knowing how much the managers liked me and how much better I was doing at picking up all these various computer systems and other things we have been taught over these past few weeks. After lunch, I got called into a meeting with a couple of managers and I was a little nervous about it, it seeming quite ominous and me thinking it was either going to be good news or bad news, either getting some sort of promotion or getting fired. I really didn't know what it could be. They told me that they did a credit check on me. I have a terrible credit and I know this. They said it was because of my credit history that they didn't send me to LA and furthermore that because of my credit history I was a liability at the front desk, could not work in that position. They apologized, saying it was company policy, that they liked me a lot and were really happy to have me working there. Instead of working at the front desk, which I was really excited about, I am going to be working in rapid response, which deals with all sorts of problems and handles impossible requests that guests may have, such as finding a guitar in the middle of the night. It pays the same amount, still a lot, but it is certainly more work and certainly less glamorous. And it may potentially pay more as I would be more prone to get tips in this position and some fun people are also working this job.

However, it still sucks to be told such a thing, to be pulled off a job you like, to be told you are not going to LA solely because of your bad credit - all of this is quite embarrassing. And it is not just the free vacation that I am missing out on, but it is most likely a higher position and more money that I am missing out on, as they said that the people that were going to LA were going to be people they wanted for management later on down the line.

This news was a giant punch in the gut, especially since I really loved my job in a way I haven't in many years, especially since it was the one area of my life that seemed to be going fantastically. I still have a job at least, still a well paying job that will still be crazy and fun, but the news definitely brings me down. Also consolation is that when I told Michael this, he confessed that before he was hired he had had to explain his bad credit history to the head boss, which would have been ever scarier.

I hung out with Diego this afternoon so we could assemble our Halloween costumes. While he was getting ready to sew my outfit together, I started to hug him, started to kiss him. He tried to say it was a bad idea, but soon gave up the attempt, starting kissing also, and we hopped into his bed, ripping off clothes, having amazingly hot sex. I didn't want it to end. It did. After orgasm, I knew he had been right, that it was a bad idea. It felt good then, but now doesn't feel so great. I feel like I have lost.

up with live people

John Waters was seated in the row behind us last night at the screening of Bruce LaBruce's Otto, or Up With Dead People at MoMA. I say this not so much to dish celebrity sightings because that wasn't the effect, or it was and was something more, and was only a piece that contributed to the overwhelming feeling I had last night at this event. I think it might be difficult to overstate the importance he played in my development artistically and otherwise. As a teen, I watched his movies, earlier ones, over and over again, obsessed with them. He helped make me weird, encouraged my weirdness. The making of those earlier films fascinated me, that this gay weirdo could get his likewise weird friends to act out his insane movies, and that the result, though incredibly low budget, was amazing, amazing because of that low budget aspect, because it was filmed in backroads Baltimore locales, because there is something real and fresh and not canned about it all, and that he showed his stuff in local cinemas that would, midnight showings, incredible drive for his art. But this is a digression. The point here is that John Waters means a great deal to me and I have seen him around town before but never been seated so close to him, and so even before the movie started I got pretty fucking nervous and giddy, thinking about this my life and my heroes, I thought about being young and watching his movies and what they meant to me then, so incredibly much, and here was that person responsible for them and me seated so calm and casually right in front of him rather than screaming and jumping up and down, trying to get him to understand the effect he has unknowingly had on my life, and I thought about this line of queer artists in the room, Waters behind me, and up at the front of the room, LaBruce.

Terence Koh was in the audience also. There were some other recognizable big queer artists in the room and then in the front row, I spotted Bruce Benderson. I hadn't talked to him since our big blowup in Miami a year or two ago and got incredibly nervous again, though for different reasons, dreaded him yelling at me or something else awkward occurring.

The movie was really good, reminded me a lot of Raspberry Reich in its thematic concerns and in its structure. But the thing that I was distracted quite a bit by in this theater were thoughts of ambition and of place. In some ways, I felt like a fake, felt like someone that had sneaked into the party. I was surrounded by all these talented artists who were creating work and who had contributed so much to this dialogue I have spent so long listening to rather than jumping into. I felt like I shouldn't be there, that I had contributed nothing, made nothing significant, nor even really insignificant, and was just some hanger-on, a groupie to this big band. And I don't want to feel like that feeling ever again. I want to be in the band, want to be the band. The moment was one of revelation, of my age, of my talent, and of my laziness, and it made me so determined. It is beyond time to get serious, and yes I have lots of distractions in my life right now, among them needing to find a place to move, a new job, Spanish classes, and the need to think of a Halloween costume, but there are always distractions, and it's time to move.

I need to keep this theater in my my mind in these coming weeks and years. I need to explain why it is that I should be sitting there in the company of all these talented artists, need to explain what it is I think I am doing seated in that audience there.

I have consumed a lot of really amazing art this week and it has all inspired me in different ways: Charlie Kaufman's Synechdoche; a lot of work at MoMA, especially Nan Goldin's "Ballad of Sexual Dependency"; the Queer Zines exhibit at the NY Art Book Fair, which has an amazing catalog that I am reading now; and The Judy Experience playing at Starr Space.

I feel so overwhelmed these days in a really good way. I am still lonely and still confused about my loneliness. I am sleeping little, waking up early for work, like six am, and staying up late. There are thoughts of all these consumed cultural products in my head, the two movies I just saw, both so incredible, and there are thoughts about what I should be doing and those thoughts are going to have to start taking dominance. I don't know if I am accurately conveying what that experience in the theater meant to me, but it meant and still means a great deal, was a kick-in-the-ass moment that I needed, and I've got that in mind as I chase other things in mind.

Fall

waiting for home

In case you didn't know, Bowie at the Beeb is one of the best albums ever, particularly on fall days when you are feeling a tinge of melancholy and are unsure about your life and outside around you there is the sight of physical change in the landscape and there is also the knowledge that you are reminded of with these changing leave colors that your life, or at least mine, is also about to undergo some transformation. Leaves will change colors, fall to the ground, and there will be sadness, a fallow period, and then reemergence, new things sprouting. There was a period in my life, back in Sarasota, when I would listen to this album a lot, my roommate at the time, Jamie, possessing it, playing it, and getting me really into it. Bowie does this particular feeling so well and to find something in music that feels right, feels like the proper soundtrack to the emotions you are experiencing, is great. In fact, perhaps it is not so much that the music provides a nice musical rendering of your feelings, but rather that the soundtrack inspires the scenes, provides a context for your life that you were otherwise lacking, sends you off in the right direction, provides the cues for what expression you should have on your face in that scene, how you should walk away when you are leaving that bar, thoughts of being alone, of an ending, and hopefully a new beginning in your head, as you, drunk, too drunk really, stumble up through the East Village to the L train back to Brooklyn, and where you will wait a good twenty minutes on the platform thinking thoughts, not necessarily good or productive ones, about your life and the changes that you are going through, and you will think these things intermittently, as you drift in and out of sleep, trying to stay awake until the train comes, until the train gets you to the Jefferson stop, and until you lock your door behind you and drop your keys on your desk.

Still, I am unsure about where I will be living and cannot wait to have that figured out, to have moved out, because as of now (and probably for the next month) until I move out, things are incredibly awkward at my house. Niki and I haven't talked in weeks and are never in the same room, both of us pretty much staying in our rooms. It is quite tense and certainly far from an ideal living situation that I cannot wait to escape.

My job is going quite lovely, the one thing in my life that is going really well, and I am really excited about this opportunity I have been handed. It is a joy to go there everyday and my co-workers are all charming and funny, people that I am quite excited about forming friendships with.

I had a crisis at Marie's Crisis the other night, got quite sad while hanging out with Gabriel and listening to the bar sing sad songs while gathered around the piano. Earlier in the evening, I had talked with Diego and told him that I didn't think I would be able to spend time with him, that we weren't going to be good friends, that I didn't see how that could occur, and that I wasn't eager to again confuse boundaries and have a romantic friendship with someone that did not want romance. He was upset by that and I got angry with him, me even calling him stupid at one point in the phone conversation, getting increasingly frustrated with his method of thinking and of his inability to conceive why things needed to change for me. And at one point, I think the point at which I had finally had too much of the sadness, the bar broke into singing "Your Song." I had wanted to meet Gabriel for a drink and talk about our lives, but he had quieted me during one song, during a moment when I was trying to unburden myself by talking about things, expelling them through my mouth, and I bottled it, got sad, got annoyed. I listened to the sad song even though I wanted to talk over it. After a couple of these sad songs, I downed the rest of my beer, said goodbye, frustrated with my friend, with my life, with it all, and headed out into the cold fall night again, the air itself even mean these days, whipping me with its unfeeling, insensitive cold, and I pulled my clothes tighter and higher over my neck, keeping those boundaries between myself and others, the outside world, that I want so much to collapse. The turtle retreating back into its shell.

After some drinks at other places last evening, I made my way to the Boiler Room for the Butt party. I talked to Matt S. in line there and it was as if the world was out to taunt me, that when I would be feeling sad about boys, here would be one of the big ones in my life, one of the major causes of sadness in my life, my first kindof boyfriend, this boy that I was obsessed with and who has been an asshole to me, and me loving him all the more for it. I took his hands to look at them, see what it was about them that I found so beautiful, and I didn't know what it was, still don't. He has such a beautiful face. There is something harsh and awkward about the components of it, but when he frowns or smiles or rolls his eyes, the pieces work so well together, and I see this charming man and lose control of my bearings, become this boy crazy thing, still longing for this person who I should have long ago stopped liking.

So there was that interaction. There were thoughts of Diego. And I will add that Bowie is still playing and still sounding perfect. I ran into this boy, Antonio, who I have seen at Bob's place a couple times and who I have had a bit of a crush on. We talked a lot, it clear that both of us liked each other. At some point, a few drinks later, we started making out in the back corner. It was really lovely and the boy is so attractive. Diego then saw me and said hello. I talked to Diego and it was incredibly awkward and stiff, so unnatural, so not how I am used to talking, both of us being careful, and it made me so incredibly sad, this person that I like a great deal and loved, this person that things used to be so easy with, the two of us having so much trouble making short conversation. I lost it then, the steam I had, the confidence. I went back to talk to Antonio deflated, told him I was going home, and he was surprised that we weren't going home together, asked me what was wrong, could tell that my mood did a 180, and I explained, explained that I needed to go home alone, that I was distracted. And it then that I went out again into that night, the coldness making me more aware of my aloneness, nothing to warm my body against, no one to lean against, brush arms with, and made that trek up to that L train, thought about these things, and waited and waited to get home. I have been waiting for a long time now.

I have been thinking about Diego a lot these past couple of days, thinking of him in moments while riding on the train, while spacing out when someone is talking to me, and during all of these moments gaining insight into what it is to be this thing of skin and nerves and stirrings of a brain, of what is to be human and desire connection, of my life and how I have fucked up and how I haven't, and of how lucky I am. My sense of all this was really heightened this evening when I went to go look at the Elizabeth Peyton exhibit while at the New Museum for some other exhibit's opening. The galleries were uncrowded, everyone elsewhere, and more importantly I was a bit stoned, a bit drunk, and more than a little lovesick. The work hit me in all its beauty in a way it never had before, me always thinking it a bit too liked, a bit too popular, for me to really like it, that it was too surfacey, but this evening each of those images, their way of looking at people, was recognizable. They were songs sung in a language I understood. The melancholy that is present in a longing for someone was recognizable in the portraits of men, beautiful subjects that seem to barely care about your attentions, hers or ours, us viewers. And yet, despite that, maybe even because of that, still thinking the world of these things, these beautiful and distant men.

I was washing my face and brushing my teeth, was getting ready for bed so that I could wake up early again tomorrow, and while doing this, just moments ago, I realized many things, the thing that sparked all these other realizations though was the chronology of my relationship with Diego. It started nearly a year ago at a party during the MIX festival, at the now shuttered Boysroom. It ended at a party during this year's festival. That this queer film fest bookends my romance with him seems funny and seemingly meaningful, though what exactly it would mean I could not tell you, just that there should be some significance there.

In the Peyton show, there was a blue painting of Walt Whitman. I took that as meaningful also, a sign.

Numerous Rooms

After waiting about half an hour for Bob to meet me, I gave him back a DVD I had borrowed from him a couple of weeks ago, Four Rooms, perhaps my having watched it a sign of what my future held for me or perhaps an invocation that brought that future about, soon afterwards getting employed at a hotel. I had been through training sessions all this week with about forty other people, the inaugural cast of this hotel. Training was fun, held in a posh setting, catered with yummy food, and was with a really interesting group of young people who were fun to chat with and who I am excited about working with. The place is still not open and there is training up until that point, including tomorrow morning starting at 8.

But to get back to the original narrative, this mentioning of recent details of my life, having a job and such (still no apartment though), now taken care of, it was after I angrily handed this DVD back to Bob, annoyed that I had to wait in the chilliness of an October evening for him while underdressed for it, that I hopped on the downtown train and went to the MIX festival. I was quite late for the screening I had wanted to attend, but tried to go in anyways. I was told I needed a ticket and so went to the ticket table asking for a ticket since I had volunteered for them. They directed me to hospitality, who turned out to be Jeremy, and who I started making out with. We ducked into a little alcove off to the side of the lobby and went at it. We were soon sucking each other's dicks, licking body parts, and having a really hot time. It was when he was rimming me that I suggested he fuck me. We put things on pause to go find lube and condoms. He went in search of them and I pulled my pants back up and stumbled into the lobby to wait for him to return. There I ran into Ben, Gabriel, Richard, and several other people who were all leaving to go some penthouse party in Chelsea.

I was more than a bit off balance, really fucking horny, still in the middle of sex basically and was just waiting for Jeremy to return, but a penthouse party sounded great, as did hanging out with all my friends. I followed them since they were leaving right then, not seeing Jeremy around, and not even making it past the ticket collector after I had come all the way down to South Street Seaport to try to catch some films. Soon I was on the roof of some amazing apartment building in Chelsea, smoking joints, drinking cocktails, eating plates of food, and marveling at the incredible view of the city from there, also marveling at the unexpected unfolding of my last hour or so, that what was supposed to me going to a queer film festival turned into sex in the lobby of the festival, turned into being on the roof of some fancy penthouse apartment stoned.

We stayed there for an hour or so before heading back down to the MIX space for the festival's afterparty/sex party. There I had a chance to talk with Diego. This should have been mentioned earlier in the narrative to give this meeting some context, but it wasn't and so perhaps a bit of back story is in order. There is no need for seamlessness when you can just have endless digressions. A week or so ago at Julius' he had told me we needed to talk before proceeding further and I told him that I loved him a great deal and he said something similar. Ever since breaking up a month or two ago, things have felt more like dating then they ever did before. I have been able to unhesitatingly tell him I love him, have actually felt like I have, and have been quite smitten with him. We talk on the phone often about nothing and have been hanging out more often, and there has been lots of physical affection. So last night after he made some offhand comment, I sat him down in a chair and we talked about things, about what it is he wanted, what it is that I want. I told him that I liked him, that I wanted to have a romance with him, and that it frustrated me that he cast doubt on my seriousness whenever I had warm feelings toward him. He said he liked what we had. I asked him to define more clearly for me what exactly that is, explained that I wasn't looking for a prolonged flirtation, that this ambiguous status was only okay for me were he actually hoping it might lead somewhere else. He said that he wasn't, that he didn't want to be my boyfriend, that he didn't feel comfortable with that.

I got incredibly sad and my eyes swelled with water. Diego looked at them, seeing it, and I didn't want them to overflow so was trying to steady myself by looking at him, trying to hold it in, to not seem so fragile. It didn't work. The water started streaming down my face and I started to laugh because when one can't control their body or things in this world outside of it, it seems the only proper thing to do. I laughed a bit, trying to counterbalance how sad my eyes looked and the now depressing exchange I was engaged in. I really wanted things to work out, I liked him an incredible amount, and sadly our attempt at being friends after breaking up didn't work out - it was friendship and something more, much more - and I knew then that it was going to be very difficult to be friends with this person, that I would probably rarely see them and would probably have to curtail the one on one hanging out that I enjoyed so much, that I was saying goodbye and losing one of the closest people in my life.

I told him I was going to dance and walked away. I knocked back a couple drinks, talked with friends, and did dance, celebrated life. This guy on the dancefloor said hello. I said hello, touched him, he touched me, and I led him to some room and had really hot sex with him. We wiped the semen off of our bodies on to the fabric in the art installation that we had had sex in, black fabric covering the walls of the room, a small video monitor on a chair playing a grainy black and white loop of something. I never even looked at the video.

bjork on the stereo

I am aware of fall in a way that I wish I were all the time when I cut through the park by my house on the way to the subway. There are some brilliant splashes of red and yellow on a few of the trees there. I haven't been so aware of fall, of the incredible changes occurring in the landscape around me, because I have been preoccupied with the changes in my own life, some willed by myself, others seemingly willed by forces outside of myself, frustrating me greatly.

The good news, actually really good news, is that I got the job that I wanted. It is going to pay me a fair amount of money and will probably be quite fun also. Training, of which there are supposedly three weeks, starts on Thursday, and so these my last couple days as a free man.

Thursday is also looming for me in another way. It is when Niki is returning from her trip abroad and when the tension will probably return to our household, to what through sneaky maneuvering is actually her household, not ours.

The bad news, if really it could even be called that, is that I am not going to live with Richard. Sharing a room with him probably would have been a terrible idea, but I was still disappointed today when he told me that he was instead going to share his room with Posey. This is bad news, or appeared that way to me earlier today, because it had been my one sure method of escape, of quickly getting out of this apartment and away from Niki.

I just need to save some money in these next couple of weeks and the goal is either to move into a room in an apartment close to Manhattan, on the L for an easy commute to work, or to find a studio for rent on the L, most likely far out, and live by myself. Today, I came across two studios for around 850 nearby where I live now. Those finds have me incredibly excited. I am getting more and more excited about this idea of what it would be like to live by myself and really want to snag one of these places.

I don't know. I do know that I really hate this process of looking for a place to live, of even thinking about it, and can't wait to get this behind me.

Things are kind of weird with Diego, but I guess that's not new. I am still reading Joseph Mitchell. There is so much actually occurring, even aside from this quite tumultuous unending of my life, housing and employment wise. I am feeling love for a fair amount of the population. I recently saw Happy Go Lucky and really loved it and am considering seeing it again. A strange cat just climbed through my apartment window interrupting my thoughts, this activity of talking about my life, and there is symbolism in that, that interruption, and there is an ending in that.

This morning, I am breathing a sigh of relief, feeling a lot less anxious, one of my big concerns now no longer one. That would be the issue of a job. There, of course, is still the big issue of a place to live, which having become an issue with Niki telling me to move out also became the reason for me to seek out a job, to have a more steady income to make a move to another apartment. But perhaps even that issue of a place of residence has been solved, but we will address these in turns.

First, the job. In this past week or two, I have probably sent out close to a hundred resumes and cover letters, occupying way too much of my time and mental energy, applying also to just about every temp agency in New York. Doing this and not hearing back from anyone while flipping back and forth to reading the latest grim economic news on the internet is not and was not a pleasurable experience. With the market's giant swings downward and my inability to find work, I was feeling very unmoored and had more concern about my future than I perhaps ever normally do. A couple of days ago, I did finally hear back from one of the places I applied to, and mind you it's not like I was applying to work at Goldman Sachs or Google. I was applying at some shitty office jobs, some shitty retail jobs, shitty low-paying editorial jobs. But the one I heard back from was the [redacted to avoid Google searches by said job] to be a bellhop. There was a group interview yesterday at SoHo House, a mildly intimidating environment. They interviewed us three at a time in a fucking screening room. They had us seated on the stage while six really hip people sat in the audience asking questions, taking notes as we answered questions, and sizing us up clearly for how cool we appeared to be.

It definitely induced quite a bit of nervousness and self-consciousness in me, the slightly scary interview. I started to relax when it became clearer to me what they were looking for. I was glad I had dressed the part, wearing skinny gray jeans, a ladies black tux shirt, and white dress shoes. The other people being interviewed had done similar work at upscale hotels, but it was clear that these interviewers didn't really care too much about that. They kept stressing that they were going to be a party hotel, where media and fashion people came to party hard. Wank. Superficial latching on to the idea of hip. It was a look and a type of person they wanted. Luckily, I can play the part well. In my individual interview afterwards, the woman interviewing me again talked to me about the environment they are creating - a cool place where people come to party - and then she asked me about nightlife and New York and where I went out to. It was such a funny interview, one that seemed so distinct from the other ones I have had in my life in which they try to access your skill level or intelligence; this interview seemed solely about gauging my level of hipness, my coolness.

Even though there were twenty or so people being interviewed there that day, I left pretty certain that I had gotten the job because my interview went so well. And this morning, I got an email telling me that I had gotten the job and so on Monday I go to pick up my offer letter and on Thursday start a few weeks of training before the hotel actually opens. The job pays really well, has excellent benefits, and will probably be a lot of fun I imagine. I am quite excited about this. It is obviously not where I imagined myself at 27 and certainly not what I hope to do long-term, but it will hopefully allow me to transition to that spot, giving me enough money not to have to worry about that, to move somewhere comfortable where I might be able to work, and health benefits! It has been so long since I have had health insurance. I am quite excited about that.

So, with that worry alleviated, there is the second twin concern of my life these past few weeks, and that would be of where I am going to live. Richard has proposed that I share a room with him in the house(!!!) he lives in near Prospect Park. I am not necessarily that excited about sharing a room, but he is perhaps the only person I could actually see doing that with. He is going to be in California for the most of the next couple of months anyways. So I am thinking that I could try it out, that maybe a room would open up in the house at some point, and either way in a couple of months should I want a room of my own, I would have plenty of money saved by that point to go about finding a place to live. So I am quite relieved about that. However, he is still out of town and doesn't get back til Monday and so has yet to discuss these things with his roommates. So it is still a big maybe at this point, but a maybe is better than nothing, and a maybe with Richard is also better, way better, than the straight 37 year old bodybuilder, who was the only person to reply to my numerous emails to people off Craigslist.

One day soon, let's get really stoned and watched Lost Boys. We can light candles.

In the elevator, riding up to the apartment, I wanted to turn back. The elevator was filled with other people going to the bukkake party. They were the type of people had I an imagination more based in reality and its actual grittiness may have imagined as the type of people likely to attend such a function, however my imagination didn't do so and so I was surprised when Diego and I were riding up this elevator with the type of people that dash quickly into porn stores, creepy looking middle aged guys that looked like they never spent time in the sunlight, probably spent all their time masturbating in front of their computers.

The apartment and its setup continued the unsexiness of the elevator ride up to the place. Porn was playing on the television. Loud techno was playing. All the furniture was covered in protective plastic sheets. There were some cute people at the party, but there were also some not-cute creepy people there. I was getting it on with Diego at one point and looked up to see about twenty guys jerking off, watching us. That was too much for me to handle and I ran away from Diego, ran away from the hungry eyes of the watchers, and found a spot in a corner, where I was able to observe people getting their dicks sucked, really one of my favorite sights to watch, both the expression of the person getting head and the person giving it, those expressions and the actual dick thrusting in and out of someone's mouth.

The bukkake bottom lied on a bench in the middle of the room and drank a glass of jizz that apparently someone had been saving up for the event. People came in his mouth slowly. He would sniff poppers in between loads. I came in his mouth. I found Diego. We gathered our clothes and left.

My love of Diego has been growing a lot during these last few days, what we are entirely undefined at this point, both admitting at some point in these past few days that the problem was trying to define it, trying to be something. I get so much joy from just looking at him, making eye contact. We ended up by the Hudson, sat on a bench along the river, it a bit late and the park empty. The moon was so fantastic at this point. It was a brilliant orange, fiery orange, and setting over New Jersey. He was asking me about my family. Some guy sat on the bench next to us even though there was the entire park of empty benches. I kept on talking to Diego but noticed that this guy kept glancing at us and that he kept on rubbing his crotch. He would stop rubbing his crotch whenever I looked in his direction, but I knew what was going on and it drove me crazy. I got up to leave, Diego confused because he had his back to the creepy man and was unaware of what was going on. We walked further down the river, away from the creepy guy, me having gotten more than my fill of creepy men at the bukkake party. I ranted to Diego about how rude that guy was, that this city was full of sexual maniacs, of perverts. Diego reminded me where we had just come from, told me that we were perverts, that we had just come from a bukkake party.

The moon was so beautiful and I felt so lucky to be able to observe it with this boy that I like a lot, like more each day. I held his hand and walked to the subway with him and felt really comfortable, really happy, whatever thing we have making me forget the stupid aspects of my life, making me again aware of the joys to be had.

"maybe sparrow"

I woke up this morning many times, woke up this night many times, the time being spent on a Chinatown bus, forty dollars one way, carrying me from the outskirts of Nashville to lower Manhattan, a fifteen hour overnight ride which I slept intermittently on. But there was this one time when I woke up this morning when we had crossed the Pennsylvania state line and dawn was just starting to break. Most everyone else on the bus was still asleep and missed the sight, but slowly and slowly the sky started to fill with the grayest of light until orange started to seep in toward the center of it all, the earth, darkness, falling off the horizon, and the light getting a little brighter, eventually an orange ball of sun appearing on the far edge of the land, rising over farmland and the occasional barn. I was still miles and a couple of states away from home, perhaps further, perhaps my idea of home entirely wrong.

Niki talked to me when I got to what I thought was home, wanting to discuss the awkwardness of the past couple of weeks and what could be done about it. It again devolved into a similar conversation as the one that started the tenseness. She again told me I should move out. I told her that it wasn't her apartment to make that suggestion. She told me that it was her apartment, that she had got a lease and got it in her name. To her, it was a game of power, her ethics entirely different from mine, certainly from most people I know. I was pretty shocked by this ace she threw down, by the shadiness of it, having called the landlord after our last fight apparently and gotten a lease put in her name. The thing makes me so disgusted with her, though I was kind of before, but this scheming, her shady way of going about it, is entirely off-putting, and more than a bit disheartening from someone that is supposed to be your friend. She thinks she won something, but she has certainly lost me. At this point, after having decided this a couple times before over the course of our rocky friendship, I am done with her in my life.

This was all the more upsetting because I just spent several days in the woods of Tennessee with faeries, running around in silly outfits with friends, making out with cute boys in the woods, rolling around naked on a hill. It was such a beautiful time, one which I didn't want to end, and which I departed from earlier than most to come back to New York for my Spanish class tonight, a decision I am regretting even more now after this latest encounter with Niki. I met some really amazing people down there and thought about life in really magical ways. There were moments when I was incredibly stoned and laid in a garden watching butterflies frolic around me, thinking thoughts about beauty, purpose, and life, thoughts which I hope to soon replicate in some sensible form. I saw several shooting stars each night that I was there. The place and time was filled with magic.

I am thinking now about what to do, about where I should live, when I should move, whether it should be here in New York, some place more rural, or potentially some place foreign. Dreams of WWOOF and English teaching are in my head, were so before this, but now those dreams are taking on more prominence, as is the idea of a house, a dog, a yard. Niki is leaving the country for two weeks tomorrow and I am really excited about her absence, that it gives me time to think through things, these questions of habitation, as well as the thoughts and things I brought back with me from Tennessee to think through, those questions, always pertinent, now perhaps more so, of beauty, purpose, and life, and the relation among those things.