2011

Twenty eleven is upon us. It's a new day, a new year. The sun is shining brightly outside my kitchen window, throwing long shafts of light across my black and white checkered kitchen floor. I am listening to old Motown songs on the radio and wishing that I could let go. New Years' Eve was what it always seems to be for me, an event that caused unnecessary stress as I attempted to find myself something so super fun to do, something that might live up to the outsized expectations that so many people put on the night. It ended with me waking up hungover, but not the good kind where you think about how amazing the night before was, but the kind where you begrudge the hangover, that you wonder why your body must feel this way when there wasn't even the fun payoff that should normally precede the nausea.

I went to Erica's with Jacob, had some drinks there, took some Adderall, and then Jacob and I left for Easy Street at Dixon Place. The space was overwhelming and the Adderall was making me too self-aware, canceling out all the benefits I acquire from alcohol, an ease, a slouched happiness, things blurred, happily so. Instead, everything had clear edges, was sharp. Jacob was soon insanely wasted somehow. We went to Eastern Bloc, a bit bored at Dixon Place. I was already basically propping Jacob up at this point in the night, holding him up as he veered around the sidewalk. I really dislike nights like this, where the person you are hanging out with gets so wasted that you become their caretaker, that so much of your night instead of having fun, letting go, is spent constantly watching some other person.

At Eastern Bloc, someone apparently bought him shots to celebrate his birthday while I was doing my best to avoid this gay writer that I went to Miami with once and ended up running away from his condo in the midst of my stay, taking the bus to my friends house, my bag in my lap. I kept thinking about this man, not pleased that he was there, not pleased that I was becoming more and more aware, watching out for this writer out of one eye. Out of the other, making sure that Jacob wasn't falling or dropping glasses.

I went out for a smoke and saw Jacob showing off his cracked iPhone to someone. I expressed concern about his still functioning phone and he then threw it really hard against the sidewalk, making it now a non-functioning phone. Clearly, sadly, it was time to end my night, to take this mess home at one something in the morning, despite that I had been looking forward to a night of hard partying, of staying out til six or seven and eating some diner food in the morning, that I had not had one of those nights in forever, that I just wanted to be out among human beings.

Instead, I held up Jacob on the subway the entire way home, held him up as we walked home, and then slept next to his passed out body. I tried kissing his neck, horny, hoping he would wake up and want to have sex. He was dead passed out and I jerked myself off on my side of the bed, disappointed and annoyed. It's just another night and there shouldn't be reason to read the end of the world because of the events of one night, but it's fraught with a symbolism that I buy, a lit major, a fan of narratives, that the opening scene sets the tone for the book, for the movie, that it's thought out, a way of showing us what is about to come.

I did however in the course of writing this encounter a really lovely song on the radio, the Pointer Sisters' "Yes We Can Can."


What a beautiful song and message. I am going to try. I have to let things go. Anger is your insides tightening up. I need to relax them. I want to get high. I am going to some things in this year. I am going to do more physical activity, perhaps in the form of capoiera classes. I am going to write more, but I say that every year, every month. But I am going to. I am going to try to get out of this country at least once this year. I am going to get a new job. I am going to be alive and am going to try to be nicer, try to relax, let things breathe naturally.