American Hustle

In a condo somewhere in Delaware, I was gathered with my family on a couch, drinking wine, as I had been doing pretty much all day, watching, as we have for several Christmases now for some reason, Love, Actually. And it, as it usually does, made me really lovesick and crazy feeling. The Britishness of the production made me think about Jacob, somewhere off on the British Isles, and I missed him, missed that time in my life in which I felt some feeling close to that feeling of love exhibited by all these characters in this film. I kept drinking because really what I instead wanted to do was dance and stomp around and seek out boys.

I watched so much television while I was there. There wasn't much else to do. I was only there for two days and that felt like too long. I was so excited to get back to New York, especially since I had been texting flirty messages with the guy I met at Diego's holiday party this past weekend and had plans to grab drinks with him as soon as I got back into the city.

Before I boarded a train back to New York, I watched American Hustle with my family. The sky was grey outside the theater, a multiplex in a run-down shopping center. We sat in the back row, crowded theater. I love Jennifer Lawrence more and more with every movie I see her in. The movie was great and only would have been better had Jennifer Lawrence's character had even more screen time.

I drank a beer on the train back, talked to my sister next to me, listened to Beyonce, and texted more with this guy about meeting up. I asked him if he wanted to meet up in Bushwick. That's when the quick flow of conversation paused. About ten minutes later, as we left the Newark station, as we were almost back to New York, as I was getting positively giddy about hanging out with this cute guy, some new person, making conversation, making out, there was a long text back from him apologizing. The text started with "Yikes." It then followed with an apology, with him explaining that he had thought he had been texting with someone else, some guy he had hooked up with the night before this holiday party, that he's so sorry, that he still wants to hang out in the future though sometime.

The skyline of New York was getting bigger and bigger as we sped toward it. Home was getting closer and closer. The dreams, hopes, and fantasies that we project on to this city are brought back down to the ground, to the gutter, in that unique way and with that particular form of brutality that only this city seems capable of doing. I wasn't too sad about the guy because the train soon zoomed underground for that final stretch to Penn Station and I knew, with that text, with being underground, with it all, that I was home.