Justin Bieber - "What Do You Mean?"

I haven’t had a bed in weeks. I am beginning to wonder if this is why I feel so unstable as of late, so unmoored in some ways.

There was a bedbug problem. Welcome to New York. The bed got thrown out, the exterminator came a few times. I have been sleeping on the couch since, which is fine and not that big a deal, but I have felt slightly crazier than usual these past few weeks and perhaps it actually has to do with a bed, that not having my little nest to return to each night has me frantically flapping my wings, a lost bird, wondering where my nest has gone to.

The wings are flapping though. All of a sudden, I have reached an absolutely restless moment at my job, something I predicted would happen at the end of the summer. Prediction proved correct. I am plotting steps on how to either get involved in a different job within this same agency that I like a lot, or, failing that, going elsewhere. The hunt begins. It never ended. To live in New York is to be engaged in a constant predatory hunt for that next thing, that next step, something else, something better. Even once you get your name in lights, you’re looking for how can you get a bigger sign, a brighter sign, an LED sign.

There is that. There is also that guy, that beautiful, beautiful guy. He makes me feel nervous, awkward, and wildly insecure. I like him so much and I am scared of how likely it is to end in disaster, because of how gorgeous he is, how smart he is, and probably most of all how he is my co-worker. I make the best life choices, in case you didn’t know that about me already.

We hung out a few nights ago at a bar by my house. When we parted ways afterwards, we made out on the street corner. Kissing him is the greatest high for me lately. I get positively ecstatic. It’s the joy of getting something you wanted so, so bad, of finally getting to taste the thing you had been so hungry for. I told him that I wished I had a bed to invite him back to. He told me he wished the same.

So, yes, I’m getting a bed immediately. Or actually probably not, because I am insanely broke and this next paycheck is going toward rent and my trip to New Orleans. So I might be sleeping on a couch until mid-September. But I need to figure out a way to not make that happen because this fling might not extend until then and I want so bad to roll around with this person in my bed which I have yet to acquire.

There are other things going on, so many other things, a best friend leaving, generalized stress and panic among friends, work drama, parties, so many parties, and life, this glorious, messy project of being alive and finding your way in the world, of trying to at least.

Carly Rae Jepsen - "Run Away With Me"

There are few better feelings than finally getting to kiss a crush, that guy that you’ve been flirting with for weeks awkwardly, and who you’ve finally ended up on a dancefloor with together and you guys are close and staring at each other, and you can feel it about to happen, there’s that leaning in that happens, that moment of indecision where things could go either way, and you can feel it so close, about to happen, and then, magically, iit does. I honestly can’t think of a better feeling in this world. Children of the world, I have this message for you: dreams do come true!

He’s a co-worker of mine. I met him a few weeks ago when we were both here late at night working on the same project. We took a break to go grab a drink nearby and chatted. Ever since, I have been so smitten with this guy, have been so excited about working on this project particularly because it meant I would get to interact with him more.

I had a house party this past weekend and invited him over to it. We hung out for a bit there and then I couldn’t wait to leave my own party, to go out with him. Luckily, my roommate let me abandon our house and all the people still in it so I could go out with this guy to Spectrum. Shirts came off as they often to do in the muggy sauna that is the Spectrum in the summer and we danced around. And then that kiss happened! That kiss! I had been wanting that for weeks. I wasn’t sure it would ever come, thought that this would be another unrealized crush, a beautiful guy that I would lust over for a time, nothing coming of it. But things turned out differently this time around. This time around, the story took a happier ending. The kiss turned into more and more. We made out all over Spectrum.

We left together at some point, five something in the morning, both intending to go to our respective homes. But walking away together, we made out more. He invited me back to his house. We took a car there. He scaled his fire escape because he had forgotten his keys and tried to wake up his roommate. It was all too cute. I couldn’t believe my luck, that this was all happening. In his bed, we made out and cuddled and fell asleep. I left early in the morning, he still passed out, me hungry and too awake to stay in bed, too happy with life.

Riis Beach

The sun had just set, a beautiful sunset, dark orange globe seen over Jamaica Bay as we approached the bridge taking us home from the beach. I was riding in the back of a bus with many of my friends, having spent a lovely day at the beach, drinking, swimming, listening to music, flirting. There was a point in the day where I was bobbing in the ocean, skinny dipping near these other two guys. The three of us starting making it, rubbing our dicks against each other under cover of the ocean, our skin sliding against each other, saltwater between us. It was a really sexy moment. I recalled this. I was also getting texts from a different cute guy I met at the beach on this bus ride home. I recalled meeting him. I recalled sitting next to this still other guy with beautiful feet and an even more beautiful smile. I thought of all these things and they made me want something else.

I was surrounded by cute gay couples sleeping on each other’s shoulders. The seat ahead of me. The seat to the left of me. The seat diagonally across from me. It made me happy to see my friends so happy, to have that comfort with another person, to have a person to share their exhaustion with, someone that they would go home with.

I have been having more sex in the past month that I have probably had in the last year. The snowball effect is in full effect. Sex and the confidence I have from it is attracting more and more sex, attracting more and more cute boys. And yet, as much as I enjoy these moments with other guys, what I am seeking out in all of those moments is not sex but is something that might lead to this, that might lead to me having some cute boyfriend that I could sleep against on a bus ride home as dusk settles over Brooklyn streets, that might lead to something shared, that might lead to love.