Literally Speaking

Emily came home at 5 a.m. when George was just getting up. Her waifish frame appeared rather unexpectedly in the doorway’s morning cold. She had purchased more cigarettes on the way back. George wanted to throw them out of the window again, but Emily was stalking the apartment with an annoying, regal air. He imagined she would have commanded the fire pokers to behead him if he so much as touched her Marlboro Lights.
“Did you stay here all night?” she asked.
“Usually.”
“The people you find at bars, you know, aren’t all bad.”
George wondered who she met. He followed her to the kitchen.
“Did you want me to make you any breakfast? What are you doing today?” Emily opened the fridge and poured herself some water, mixing it with Vitamin C powder, forgetting what she asked the moment she asked it.
“Read some.”
“I’m sorry?”
George intended to lock himself in the study today with the radio station on MoneyTalk and graph every damn share he owned. He could not afford another RTJ tragedy.
“Some oatmeal then? It’s cold today.”
As he would be spending the entire day indoors, this hardly mattered, but he took his place at the table, on a chilly metal chair, watching the shadows of airborne leaves dance across the wood and frost skate across his trousers.
Emily clicked on the stove. She turned on the faucet and let water run, passing her hand quickly through it like a mountaineer by a stream sifting for gold.
“Do you know I’ve never been in that bar before? It’s been there for six years and I’ve never been there before.” Emily twisted her hair behind her head before stooping for a saucepan.
George watched more leaves skitter across the table. He reached out and caught one with his thumb and forefinger. A shadow; but it passed to his hand and played in his palm like the wings of Tinkerbell.
Emily was sowing raisins and almonds in the saucepan. She looked contemplative. No, she looked pleasantly rattled; she only presented a thoughtful demeanor to steady her hands.
“What did you have?” George asked.
“What… of the drinks?”
“I go to a bar to drink.” George let go of the shadow flailing to join the other leaves in their flight.
“No, no dear George. You should be buying others drinks. Women drinks.”
“Did someone buy you a drink?”
Emily laughed. Her eyes turned green, and George involuntarily shuddered again. She was chronically shudder inducing. “They bought me Manhattan, love. They bought me the entire fucking island and all the waters around it.”
Yes. What very, very green eyes.
“Your stocks can all crash and burn because I have the island,” she said happily. She twisted around and danced like a balloon banner on a used car lot.
“Is this a re-enactment of the entitlement?” George asked grumpily.
“You mean, did I dance drunkenly on the bar? You know I never dance when I’m drunk.”
George had never seen Emily drunk.
“I was sitting like a statue,” Emily continued, “looking like a Venus.” Emily turned her face for a moment, parted her lips, elongated her neck, widened her eyes and turned to wax. George started, scrapping his chair noisily against the floor.
“Don’t do that! You do that often enough and your face will freeze like that forever,” George said.
“That’s not so terrible is it? I’m so beautiful still.”
George stayed silent, because a man should never argue the contrary; she was right anyway though it disturbed him to notice. “What the devil will you do with the island Manhattan?” he asked.
“After I finish making your oatmeal, I suppose I’ll lie down and smile. But just watch sir George. The next time you crave turkey-cranberry sandwiches, you’ll encounter a billboard a mile-high,” Emily shot up on tiptoe, her fingers-tips sparking with contact with the ceiling, “plastered with Emily in Chanel.”
George had a sudden vision of Emily sipping a martini and sprouting up like Alice in Wonderland when Alice made the mistake of snacking in the white rabbit’s house.
Emily reached over the smoking saucepan and clicked off the heat. She served his oatmeal as elegantly as anything before lighting another cigarette and leaving the kitchen. The oatmeal was fairly scanty in the way of raisins and almonds… as if the chef was unfamiliar with any particular ingredient in stomach-filling quantities. Which, of course, was the case. She certainly didn’t enjoy eating like other mammals. “Isn’t it ironic:” George whispered at Emily’s protruding vertebra, “ Her majestic billboard will weigh ten tons, and she is on the verge of disappearing.”

Or Tales From New York City That I Forgot to Write Down At the Time

My forgetfulness is comparable to Marilyn Monroe’s housekeeper- yes; the one who found Marilyn dead- as a witness of scandalous controversy, who didn’t understand the significance of events until it was too late, when she was standing in front of the cameras and Miss Sunshine’s microphone. Or a child reliving what truly happened on that ice rink in a reluctant therapy session. Only after I spent a couple weeks breathing sagebrush did the magnitude of this past year become manifest.

Nothing is sacred, you understand, as a writer, and suddenly I have stories to tell that I didn’t know I had. This means that for the next few weeks, Literally Speaking will be living in the past. Most of the time. Before I start in on my metropolitan drama, I have some present concerns that won’t take too long to address:

• On September 11th, I was asked no less than five times what date it was. Were they fucking serious? If Hollywood has been holding back an epic 9/11 masterpiece in mind of the timeframe, (”It’s just too soon to put Ben Affleck back in a careening cockpit. You know? Waaayyy too soon.”) their timely respect is unnoticed. Why, exactly, are people forgetting something as catestrophic as 9/11? I don’t really want to know, but it’s pissing me off.
• I thought that Family Guy’s premier would be much funnier. I laughed audibly only three times. I blame it on Stewie Vadar’s limited screen-time. However, this last episode in which STEWIE ACTUALLY KILLS LOIS was so amazing that I don’t mind anymore. What a twist! And how lame am I that I’m actually very excited about this?
• Speaking of LOL, I really hate that acronym. ILA (I laughed audibly) doesn’t sound so trite, but really, does it take that much effort to type “You made me laugh out loud!”?

With that off my chest, let me introduce the next two stories. One is fact. The other is fiction. Which is which? You tell me later.

Madison Avenue is a Royal Cemetery

When I realized that I was not invited to the fourth of July, I went instead, to chat with a bartender, who in turn made me a wonderful Jolly Rancher. The drink was cold and it was beginning to rain. I didn’t have an umbrella, and chances being that the rain would get worse, I left most of my drink, jolly and pink, on it’s glowing counter top and cast out into the storm.

I was heading for Madison Ave. It was not raining enough yet to buy an umbrella, or even cause concern about getting electrocuted while talking on a cell phone. So when my phone rang, I stopped and talked. About everything. How ironic that he found his independence on the 4th of July, and there was a lot to talk about. Where was I going next?

Well, the day before Apple released their iphone and there was something of a block party on 60th and 5th at the Apple store.

I didn’t know anyone there. And as fascinating at the iphone was, I felt bored after about five minutes. I headed back to Madison Ave… it’s very beautiful at dusk when all the shop windows look like nightlights.

I still didn’t have an umbrella, but an unfortunate aspect of my construction involves an inexplicable thirst for water in every form it comes by. Being raised in the desert was nothing short of torture… now: I didn’t want to go inside. The stores were lonely and lovely.

My presence was seamless.

I actually started singing.

The sun is still rising
And the lights will go out
I rush for the exit
(You can’t stop in this town.)
I will work it harder,
Everyday I feel smarter.
The traffic moves faster
While they carve me in plaster
So return white and lonely
To my throne in the sky.
“What do I have to do?”
But I cannot forget you.
I cannot forget you.

I return to my window
The sun sets again
I sit in the shadows
I sing and drink gin
When I dream I’m uneasy
I fall out of sleep
I remember how you smell:
The places we would meet.
So my phone rings
-I sing louder, I sing louder
“When are you calling?”
Teacher, your face is so haunting
Your face is so haunting.

At 79th St., I was sopping wet, grateful for my waterproof mascara… for it could have been worse. It must have been midnight, and the bus would take awhile. I was in the middle of the road, torn, gazing at the abandoned bus stop. My figure must have been a gothic one.

“Lady! Lady!” From what only could be a taxi cab…

I turned and walked to his window.

“You’re completely drenched. Get inside,” as kindly as his rough voice would allow him.

“I haven’t any money,” I said… he should know. Surely it isn’t terribly uncommon to see derelicts in designer in this neck of the woods.

“Get in,” he insisted. “I can’t leave you here. Where do you live?” as I stepped in.

“79th and Amsterdam.” As I was riding home, I tried not to think about what this day would have been if he were here. He being nothing but a voice on my phone eons away. Because we would have driven to the beach with a bottle of wine and made our own fireworks. Instead I watched the water drip off my body and form a pool in the black leather seat.

I Found My Inspiration In A Leaf

“Have you ever seen Pulp Fiction?” Adam asked. “Because you look like that girl in it… Charlize Theron. You look like her. With your hair. What do you say we rent a movie huh? Like Pulp Fiction?”

“Do you have an umbrella?”

“Nah. Blockbuster is two blocks away. I’ll just hold my jacket over my head like this,” and he swung his arms up to stretch his jacket over his ears.

“It’s a bird! It’s a plane!”

We ran to blockbuster and back like deranged bats.

Give or take fifteen minutes, we were fairly high, because Adam had it on good authority that Pulp Fiction, like Alice in Wonderland or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, is most appreciated with marijuana. The gale outside was pounding my windowpane. Titan the Sea King was knocking. Blood was on the screen, but the thunder was outside and shaking my mind to pieces. Adam found some headphones and watched Pulp Fiction like a mute, but my eyes weren’t on the movie at all.

I leaned against the sill and slid the window open wide. I could see how high I was: it felt like miles and miles.

I dare you to knock me!
I dare you to time my fall
Until the end of time my voice will climb
And find and punish you all.

Gene Kelly Deserves Some Screen Time. Thanks For Reading.

My first roof-top party in New York City was approximately fifteen minutes long. I didn’t know anyone there, except for the friend that I came with, and spent most of those fifteen minutes on the phone anyway. It was impromptu. My friend and I were actually going to meet to discuss our one-night stand (also impromptu), but this city has an uncanny knack for spontaneity and so I found myself on the roof of a renovated complex in the East Village.

Really, I didn’t care either way. Here was a party: might as well. Unfortunately, as far as parties go, it was uncharacteristically dull and reminiscent of high school gatherings on the back porch of the rich kid’s house. When my friend suggested we leave, I didn’t mind at all. No one knows how to throw a party anymore. The art of entertainment and conversation seems to be foreign to America.

I bring up the party because Adam was there. I’d thought I’d met him before. In fact; yes. I had. Two months ago when I was drinking coffee in Java City, he walked over and dumped a bunch of condoms on the table. This night, meeting him the second time, we recalled the moment with fondness. He asked for my number and I gave it to him.

Actually, if a fellow is nice enough, I won’t withhold my number, though I may not remember him when he calls the next day.

Adam, thanks to the condom scenario, was an unforgettable fellow. When he called me on Friday night, I knew who it was immediately. I also thought it was ironic that the movie he was asking me to was “Knocked Up” since condoms seemed to be the basis of our relationship. The movie was for ten o’clock and I was moving.

Moving. As in: packing all my belongings and hauling them to another apartment. As in: Adam’s call was untimely because I was trying to move. My room was a disaster area, with bottles of nail polish and shoes waiting to be packed. I told him, “Thanks, but I’m moving tonight. Have fun at the movie.”

Five minutes later he was at my side helping me pack. I almost burst out laughing because all I could think about was my mother recalling her first date with my father. He too had called about seeing a movie but ended up at her house pasting green stamps (which, as far as I could tell, were coupons that required sorting and gluing. Their extinction is understandable.) While packing isn’t nearly as mundane as pasting green stamps, it is certainly a chore, and chores should never be a first date.

Adam was surveying my bed with me as I haphazardly threw things in a trunk sitting on my pillow.

Did I mention I was stressing out? I was stressing out. My packing was less than efficient. After watching me for a moment, Adam said, “You know, I’m an expert packer. I know how to make things fit in a small space.” With that, he began sorting my trunk with the finesse of someone who has moved too frequently. I let him reign and handed him my stuffed bear.

“Who’s this?” Adam asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t name him,” I said.

“So just ‘Bear?’”

“Just ‘Bear.’”

He probably thought I was heartless and uninhibited. I mean, who leaves stuffed animals unnamed? What kind of unattached woman neglects to identify a bear as cute as mine?

“I feel like I’m invading your personal space. I mean… I’ve seen your bear.”

“You’re not invading I assured him. Because really, I am not a private person at all. I can be too honest with people I hardly know. Someone walked in on me in a unisex bathroom on 58th and 1st the other day while I was looking at my breasts in the mirror, and I hardly felt over-exposed. In fact, if he had stayed I could have turned around and asked him if thought one was bigger than the other and ended my debate. He read the situation differently and fled before his crotch could tent. Poor man; his face was very, very red. Though, back to his crotch, I imagine he was fighting an erection the rest of the evening. I do have very nice breasts.

Adam latched the truck close. He watched me while I was washing the dishes and we must have talked about something or other. When conversation dragged I began singing, because I have an instinctive impulse to start singing whenever water is running.

I didn’t have enough luggage to justify spending moving on a moving company, or even a truck, so I flagged a cab. The first cabbie was a dick and refused to carry my plethora of belongings and sped off before I could tell him exactly how big of a dick he was. Adam flagged the second cab and sweet-talked (read: bribed) him into accommodating yours truly.

While riding through Central Park, I learned two things: 1) Adam was raised in the West Village and 2) he is a freelance handyman. If he learned anything about me, it was equally unremarkable.

When the cabbie was unloading my luggage, I tried to pay him.

“It’s already been done,” he said. “I’m sorry, but he handed this to me first,” he pointed to a twenty poking from his shirt pocket. Adam was piling my things onto a luggage cart.

“You wonderful bastard,” I said.

“Do you know how you can repay me?”

“How can I repay you?”

“If you let me take you to dinner.”

I later learned that he didn’t have enough money to take a cab back home, so he hitched through Central Park at midnight and met a lot of interesting people.

Wednesday. 7:00. Dinner with my new friend Adam.

I wrote a play. Really. It’s called “Listen to the Band” and took me two years to write. Someone pointed out to me several months after completion that “Listen to the Band” is actually a song by The Monkees. I couldn’t change the title because it was just too perfect, but I did buy The Monkees greatest hits and converted “Listen to the Band” to my ringtone.

More than anything I wanted to meet someone who could produce my play. I arrived at college expectant and hopeful that my masterpiece would find its way to the hands of a knowledgeable and well-connected professor, a student director and an actor going places.

I met the actor where I frequently meet soul mates: while I was buying coffee. He was promoting his theatre group. The group was concentrated on African American theatre, and as my play depends on jazz, I latched on his company like a sprig of Ivy on Yale.

Vlad is four years my senior and a Haitian actor with more dedication to his calling than Jesus. I made my mark as a dramaturge, than as a playwright among his contemporaries as well as a wonderful dancer and lover of Mojitos. I wondered frequently why he picked me out. Understand that I am as white as they come. To give you an idea of my whiteness, CoverGirl doesn’t make a foundation light enough. (True! Being pale can be expensive. The same amount some spend on tanning passes I spend on customized make-up and sunscreen.)

And while we’re describing my physic, I may as well admit that I know perfectly well why Vlad noticed me. My ass is rather round for someone so petite everywhere else. I can not articulate how much I despise my J.Lo butt. But if New York City has taught me anything, black men really love a girl with a round ass. Lord knows I’ve tried everything short of anorexia to decrease its shape, but all I’ve done is make the rest of me smaller. I dare say my butt to waist ratio is still exactly the same.

So Vlad noticed me. Attacked me rather, while I was adding Splenda to my poison.

“Do you want to write for the theatre?” He said.

Do I! So the black community welcomed me with open arms, and thanks to my ass, felt I was their equal on the dance floors for the most part. These hips do not lie.

So now you have met two actors, both of which I’ll admit to sleeping with, but I haven’t fallen in love. It’s difficult for me to fall in love with an actor. I’m wary that their affections might be an… act. Actually, I haven’t fallen in love with anyone in New York City. I didn’t come for love after all. Nor has anyone else I gather. I’ve dated a fair few, but I gently break things off before anything emotional starts to grow so that we can remain good friends at least. To conclude Adam’s part of things, we spent a pleasant evening with Italian wine and his sheets and he taught me billiards the week after. Halting the romance was as simple as a phone call. He was on rebound anyway.

This morning I received a phone call from dear Brandin, the best friend of my former love back in my desert home. He’s close to being my best friend when you come to it, us both being in the city and loving the same man. Platonically. I was considering wasting my morning sleeping. I was doing such when my cell phone began singing.

“Guess where I am?” Brandin said.

“Where?”

“Your room.”

I was in my room. I was pretty sure he wasn’t.

“What? No you’re not.” Than I remembered. My old room. My desert home room. The room that is the size of the average studio apartment in the East Village. With my old bears and pictures. I tried to remember what I’d left. I had a sneaking suspicion that my room wasn’t representing me very well. He was in hometown teaching a dance workshop that I desperately wanted to be a part of.

“I like your bed,” he said. “I think you have better dreams when the bed is diagonal.”

“Have you seen Anthony?”

“I’m going to have breakfast with him and Bob in just a moment. But I wanted to call and see how you were.”

“I’ve been meaning to call Anthony. To see if he’s called Kelly. He’s in love with her you know.”

“I don’t know Janet,” he said.

“I don’t know either. That’s just what he said,” (meaning Anthony.) “But he also said that he couldn’t picture himself growing old with a guy. I don’t know. I mean, that’s his own quagmire…”

I said “quagmire.”

“Really, I think that sexual preference is so terribly socially constructed. I think everyone is born bi and than gets confused.”

We talked sociology for awhile. We talked about dancing and writing and New York in the summer.

He wished I was there.

I wished I was there.

Than he wished he was here.

The city, I said, is lonely enough without best friends. He knows I’m right. He also knows, I suppose, that I’ve yet to love anyone besides Anthony.

“Next year,” he said.

“Yes.” I said. “Next year.”

Why We Must Give A Fuck: The Traditionalist Philosophy That No One Wants To Hear

We start curdling at the mention of “teamwork.” It is inherently connected to unpleasant moments in our younger school years when an important grade was dependent on the stupidest person in class. Most prefer to work alone. Those who don’t confuse “work” with socializing. From the moment I understood the concept of employment and citizenship, I fantasized about a world that involved very little contribution from the world around me; one where I could fly solely on my charisma, sass and intelligence.
I quickly realized that this wasn’t a common position. Such a position requires either more guts or money than I currently have in possession (though let me interject here that I’d best inherent either or quickly or this city will kick my ass royally).
Let me put it this way: We’re all stuck in this together.
Now I’ll elaborate.
I can’t help but notice that the high single status of this city

Aggghhh! Can’t I write “Gone With The Wind?” Why can’t I find anything new and intriguing? Besides Allen Ginsberg. That song I just wrote was actually ok. I mean, it’s not Guggenheim Grotto or anything, but it was pretty good for someone just diving in. What did that poetry class do to me? Have I changed mentalities? Am I a poet now?

More important: WAS I EVEN MEANT TO BE A WRITER? I feel very limited in my topics. I mean, I’m [redacted age] with the research habits of, well, I don’t read as much as I used to.

Which is unfortunate. The Glass House was a lovely book. But since then? Anything worth remembering? Besides the first couple chapters of “The Last Tycoon” and most of “Howl”? Don’t think so. I make promises. I get my hopes up. Randy gets my hopes up. But then I realize that I don’t have any material, really, to parade anyway. I’m not Jo March. I want to be. I want to live in a nice, rent-free hotel in the middle of the city with time to create fantasy stories for newspapers.

I’ve noticed they don’t publish fantasy anymore in periodicals. Not that I know anything about fantasy. What I write is very status dependant. As in: I’m just a very opinionated individual spouting off whatever comes to mind. There are some people who did well at that sort of thing. Andy Warhol comes to mind. (He’s been coming to mind frequently.)

Speaking for myself, as a reader of my own work, sometimes I am amazed at my genius, and other times I find that I’m very, very bored reading what I’ve written. And what have I written? Nothing to remember. Nothing with a moral lesson or geography lesson. The only information in anything that I write is about me.

Me. Me. Me. Does this make me a vain writer? AM I ONE OF THOSE?

[Suddenly remembers The Story Of My Baldness. Sighs with jealousy.]

Apparently I only know how to write about me. Because that’s all I know. Lack of empathy is taking its toll. I just don’t know what others are thinking. I don’t care, really, what they’re thinking because I can make it up myself and it sounds more interesting.

I mean, more interesting to me. But what about you? Does this interest you? I mean, take the man in front of me rubbing his lips. What is he thinking? How could I possibly make my observation of him interesting to someone not sitting where I am?

More than likely, Ernest Hemingway couldn’t make this man interesting without knowing more. Thus my failing and barrier. I never bother to learn more. And when they insist that I do, when they initiate conversation themselves, I feign interest and wish they would shut up so I could commence formulating their persona on my own without their own terrible vocabularies fucking up their image.

Yes. I am one of those people who like to watch someone walking down the street, and before they turn the block, I’ve already decided/discovered that he grew up in Amsterdam with a Jesus-obsessed grandmother. He sold shoelaces for a man who could only speak Hebrew during the summer when he turned seventeen and saved enough money to come to America, the home of Mary-Kate Olsen, whom he had fallen in love with at the newsstand on the corner. He came to New York frightened and hopeful. He passed me on the street hungry, eying my bag, aware now that New York is a tough, tough grind if you don’t have money or connections and Mary-Kate has a boyfriend.

I just completely made that up. I mean, that’s what I do, but I haven’t assumed anyone of harboring long-distance affections for Mary-Kate Olsen. The stories are just similarly ridiculous. Ask my friends.

So should I write? What do I write? How can I write without any income? How can I write living with a perverted drug-dealer that demands rent every time I see him? I mean, I abstain from peeing and brushing my teeth if he’s even in the apartment. That can’t be good for me.

Do you know what else isn’t good? That in the past week, I have been cheated out of at least one-hundred-fifty. Charge at bank buying coffee with debit card? Seventy dollars. Training at Monaco where the dishwasher pilfered through my purse? Sixty –something dollars.

Now I’m getting upset. KEEP YOU’RE FUCKING HANDS OFF MY MONEY.

I’m getting off subject. Did I have a subject?     I guess I’m just talking about myself as always. But here’s the thing. I’m really, really confused. I thought I came here to write. Than I wanted to model. I still want to model. Than I wanted to sing. I still want to sing. I want to write, model, sing and appear on the cover of New York Magazine. (Really. When I said I was a vain slip of a thing, I wasn’t over-exaggerating. Recognize people!) I even have the title of the article picked out: New York’s Own Lulu Reincarnated As A Writer. The article would have several fantastic shots with me and my fantastic Louise Brooks bob, wearing clean, edgy, fashionable clothes and incandescently white skin looking orgasmic over a typewriter and the window of my new, fashionable apartment in SoHo. There I would say witty things, promote my play, (i.e. promote myself) and take a bite out of the women I hate. So I thought I was here with a plan. I didn’t plan well at all. I’m a world-class failure at planning.

Take my bank account for example. A couple hundred dollars have been donated to Starbucks. Is that necessary? Uh…. No! Especially when, apparently, I’m attractive enough to make other people buy me coffee if I’m really pining for it.

I mean, I haven’t had to buy alcohol yet. Why waste money on coffee?

I just, don’t know what I’m doing. I’m lost without security man. I’m completely lost. I feel like I need money to be me. Which isn’t a good sign.

But then, I don’t think its money. I think it’s my own space. I don’t have my own space. As mentioned, I’m living with a horny criminal.

And if he thinks that he’s getting 700 a month out of me for half of a full bed, no kitchen, no living room, and a bathroom without a lock, he has another thing coming.

Hee. Janet, make that Lulu, the bitch.

I’m going to make people start calling me Lulu. How cool would that be?

Essentially, writing is my punching bag. My canvas. My chocolate. Well, chocolate is my chocolate too, but writing has this power. I want to write. I feel like I need to write or I’ll go insane. But am I talented enough to make a career out of it?

Right now there are two voices, two faces in my head: the first is the defendant, last semester’s writing teacher. I told him I wanted to write. He told me that I should. He told me I have talent. The other is Randy, where he says…. Nothing. I sent him samples of my latest novel and I haven’t heard from him since. Another is Hazel. She said I was funny. Another is Ashley, where she says… nothing. I sent her my entire play and I haven’t heard from her since. Which is basically equivilent to: “Uhhh… not quite dear one. Maybe in another ten years with a PhD.” But here’s my pain prickler: I hate to think that I’m beginning to base my future on whether or not there is money involved. I’ve done a hell of a job pretending that it doesn’t exist; that it doesn’t define me. Money and I have a very simple relationship. When I have it, I spend it. When I don’t have it, I don’t buy anything. But now I wish I had something saved, something to move out with. Something to pay rent with. Something to get out of debt with. It’s a feeling akin to my former geography teacher calling to tell me, “This just in: the world is flat.” I’ve found that I can write all the intelligent, heartfelt, egotistical, sentences I can think of but will probably end up living in a cardboard box with all my poetic eloquence. For what did I write once? That “one must be elegant even if it costs them comfort and reality.”

Idiot.

Really CANNOT believe where I am. I’m in denial. I was thinking the other day that I must have been experiencing some level of depression my entire second semester. I don’t know what I’m experiencing now. I just don’t feel like I have the control I used to have. But maybe that’s because I haven’t danced for awhile. I haven’t had the space.

Scratch that. I have the fucking space. I have access to a studio twenty-four-seven on Lafayette street. I mean, I haven’t been to the gym. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m making mistake after mistake. I’m losing dollar after dollar. I’m just waiting for something to happen to snap me out of it.

SNAP. What am I doing? Have I asked this already? What am I here for??

Really, I can answer this if I don’t think too much. I came here for the cultured, hip society. I came to shop. I came mold myself into a Grecian statue. I came to show Anthony that I am the woman of his dreams. I came to attend concerts in Brooklyn, read all the new books, see all the new plays. I came to live the life I can’t afford. I also, initially came to write. I still want to write. I said I still want to write. But what has come of it?

Then, what can come of everything in such a short amount of time? I haven’t even been in New York City a year yet. This isn’t time to give up. So I won’t give up. If I have to cheat and steal, I’m here to stay. I just… need a plan.

I hear that I’m beautiful. The first night I was here, that woman at Carmine’s asked me if I model. And just last week, someone shouted “Hey model!” when I was walking in SoHo. But that takes stability and support. It also takes some spa work because I have never undergone the pain of a bikini wax. And I think that’s a prerequisite of any modeling launches.

I’ve fantasized about singing in the subways. I wonder how much a speaker costs. I wonder if I’m really going to be able to come home this summer. I wonder if I can get back what I’ve lost. I wonder if I can find a job that really makes enough money. I wonder if I’ll ever have enough money to go back to college.

I feel like, by writing this, I’ve sorted things out without really sorting anything out. The problem is, as a quaint re-visit to the above title, whose message has now completely gone to hell, I don’t give a fuck about the people I step on. My heel is really bothering my drug-dealing “landlord” right now I imagine. He’s worried that I’ll never pay him. His worries are well-founded. The moment I have enough to move, I will, without so much as a parting word. Lulu was known for being a bitch. But here, you can’t survive without being bold and conniving. Cue locksmith. I should have told him to put that drill up his ass and lower that price to the double digits. I should have gone back to Monaco’s today and flayed the pickpocketing dishwasher.

Cue Lulu. I’m not taking anymore shit. I’m going to write and I’m going to wait. I’m going to dance, and this summer, I’m going home and telling Anthony that I loved him once.