I’m happy to report the revival of my cellphone!
And I’m reposting this, because it needs to be said again, even though I only posted it a month ago.
I’m out of half and half, but I NEED caffeine and so I’m taking my coffee black this morning. Throwing it over ice cuts the bitterness and I can gulp it down to free my sleep-adled brain.
One sip of black iced coffee brings back a hundred and one snapshots and then my brain is off and running; curse my memory that can never remember where I left my keys, but that remembers every cup of black coffee.
It was the spring I was twenty and I wasn’t sleeping much anyway. I wasn’t doing much homework either. Lukewarm black coffee in a small Dunkin Donuts cup, in the hallway at the top of steps of Hickory A, the night before the APD final, and it was Mother’s Day, because my mom had lectured me because I was giving up my D.C. Internship, but I didn’t care because in those days, nothing mattered, nothing but “this.”
Black coffee and a corn muffin, playing Dar William’s “End of Summer” CD on the quick trips I used to make for what would stand in for breakfast/lunch/dinner before Comparative Politics.
Iced black coffee, but from the Dunkin Donuts up 29, on one of those fabulous days that I’ve referenced a thousand times. For the entire summer afterwards, until I quit drinking it, black coffee brought me back to that afternoon.
But not the mornings, like this morning, when I couldn’t seem to get myself out of the house to be productive before class, and I would sit there writing instead, no; those mornings were French Toast Coffee.
And French Toast Coffee is a whole ‘nother set of memories.
And reading that, I realize; I got another audience after that, but now that audience is on its way out. So I’ll probably be writing less (this used to be unconscious, breaks in writing) which will relieve my friends-list of my over-analytical and angst-ridden entries, which I’m sure are no less annoying then my “omg, I-am-so-happy-and-my-life-is-perfect” entries. I am mostly kidding, but I do have trouble writing when my life, and my audience, are in flux
I do feel better today, but also worse, because I feel trapped in my fifteen year old self. At least I am self-aware, which in my book, should make it more forgivable, but I am also having to work hard to convince myself I am not being harshly judged. And since sitting here writing in LiveJournal is really not helping my case any, I’m going to get dressed and do something less emo.
So Internet is completely down at work, leaving me with NOTHING to do. I’m effectively so bored that time is standing still.
But it’s funny; I would do nearly anything to be able to stop time this summer; there have been so many right nows, todays, right this seconds. There has been quiet contentment and uproarious laughter, and it’s all so lovely, I want to hold on to it, and stand in the light as long as possible.
It’s like this: now is the most contented and comfortable in my own skin I think I’ve ever been.
I am not racked with anxiety. I am not crying spontaneously, or without reason. I am not struggling (Boo to thee who say you cannot do NYC on a budget.) I am not longing. I am not unhappy. You may say this is a lot of “nots” – what are you, anyway? — but I tell you this list of negatives is incredibly significant and positive, despite it defining me in negative space.
So I sit here, in this little den I’ve created of comfort and stability, and I look ahead. I see the weekend; an outing to Culture Club with the girls, going to Coney Island with Jill & Drew, another Sunday in Astoria. I see next week, another set of Astoria-centric outings.
I see the next month of cramming in last minutes and last moments. I see a list of plans and people to see. I see good-byes that I’m refusing to think about right now. I see a life that it full of…well, life.
And then, that’s it, I look ahead, and there is leaving this den. There is packing up my apartment. There is driving to Chicago. There is starting school. There is a life that is just plain different from the one I’m living right this second.
And while it is scary, I am not paralyzed. I’m excited about the new things life will bring in the next year, even if some of them will bring some pain, too.
At first I was scared stiff by the thought of my life changing rhythms. Did you know I burst into tears when I found out I got into U Chicago and insisted I didn’t want to go? I didn’t want to leave the cacoon of comfort New York was becoming. It was at the corner of one phrase and another, a final push to learn to let go.
Now I’m generally sunny with occaisonal bouts of doubt. Only occaisonal ones, that stay for a beat and then move on.
So, you see, I think I know how this works. Change is good. My mind knows this now. And I am not collapsing into fits of anxiety, and I am not succumbing to fear. I am embracing change and looking forward to it.
I just wish time would tick by a bit more slowly this summer, that’s all. I wish these long hot days of summer would become just a tiny bit slower. I wish it would all stop flying by so fast.
And so the internet goes back up, and there is distraction and things to procrastinate my assigned data entry again. But that hour ticked by, no joke. So maybe someone is making time go by a little slower for me. Maybe.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
My city shines at dusk. Leaving a bar, hugs exchanged with acquaintances-that-are-becoming-friends, phone calls promised, and then I turn and stride off in the air that’s cooled just enough to not be uncomfortable. Walking to the subway after an evening out carries a sort of exhilaration. I am alone in my thoughts and more at ease without having to be aware of my destination. These are some of my favorite New York City moments; my walks homeward are when I savor my independence, my competence, and my daily triumphs in the most mundane of places. I smile at my surroundings, thankful for all the things this city shows me.
Last night I walked down by Astoria Park and sat on one of the benches along the East River. There are no words for how much I love Astoria. I love Hell Gate’s Bridge, love seeing it when I walk up Ditmars Blvd towards my apartment. And at night, when the Triborough is lit up, I can see it from my living room window. Technically my Jersey City view of the Empire State Building would be more sought after, but that didn’t feel like home and this does.
Everyone keeps telling me that I can always come back, that my program in Chicago is only for a year, but I don’t know. New York City schools don’t have what I’m looking for except for location, and if I decide to get my PhD, that isn’t enough. This has been an all-too-brief love affair; I can’t believe I’m leaving in less than three months.
This has never happened to me; I’ve never loved a place I’ve been (physically and mentally and metaphorically) so much, yet been able to be so excited about where I’m going. There are still moments where I’m just involved in something else entirely and then it’s like “I’m going to U Chicago!!!” and I’m all giddy about it. Because it’s U Chicago!
And as good as these past two months have been, I have to remind myself why getting into U Chicago, and visiting there, and knowing it was right was such a relief: I needed to get out of New York. I needed a way out. I can’t quite explain it; I guess it was situational. But I knew I had to get away, and there have still been quite a few moments where it’s like “Thank god I have a way out.” And I think life is pretty good when my “escape” is the third best school in the country for political theory. (Yeah, I’m totally bragging about that little statistic.) So maybe the reason I’ve been able to relax so much is because I know I’m leaving. I know that no matter what happens, good or bad, I’m going to U Chicago.
I don’t know. Everything happens for a reason and I feel like I’ve been drawn to U Chicago by, as silly as it sounds, fate. And it was also way too much of a coincidence that the week I got my letter The Economist has a special feature article on “Chicago.” (Last year’s was on New York. Maybe I should choose my next city by the Economist report.)
So while I’m still not sure how I’m going to choose what books to bring, I’m definitely getting excited about Chicago.
Well. It’s almost 2006. I have survived a full year in the real world, and six months in the City. That right there is pretty damn good. This year is kind of a blur in a way 2004 wasn’t, because so much happened, but it doesn’t feel like it. Because I feel as if it’s been this way forever, and I say that in an entirely neutral way.
Anyway, I’m not big on New Year’s Eve, nor do I believe in New Year’s Resolutions, but these are things that I would like to commit to or work on or whatever. It is more of a “To Do” list then anything else, but it is purposeful. Starting January 3rd, I will re-dedicate myself to self-improvement. Or smtg.
-Drink less.
-Figure out the living situation by January 15
-Finish my grad school applications by January 15
-Commit to the 50 Books a Year thing and be hardcore about it. I’m already doing the “Three Books a Month: One serious non-fiction, one serious fiction, fiction/non-serious non-fiction.” I definitely read 50 Books a Year, but this is if you count things like re-reading The Little House on the Prairie box set and mass market chick-lit. Some book bloggers say these would count, but some don’t so I don’t know if they should be included in the total. Wow, I’m really neurotic. Maybe I should try and do 100 books? I don’t know. I want to read everything. Whenever I go to The Strand and look at the tables full of cheap Oxford World classics I think that I should read them all. Like, I think I should go to The Strand after work and purchase several of them. Which I won’t do, because I’m moving and the last thing I need is MORE books to move. But then I want the entire history section in my living room. And then I have this fear of not being well-read or educated enough for grad school, because I’ve still never read The Republic all the way through. But now I have the Bloom translation. So I have to read it. And continue to refer to one of the speakers as “That Thrashy guy”
-Stop going on rants about reading books and intellectual insecurity because I will be fine in grad school because I’m going to get a fully-funded ride at Rutgers, and study with a Tocqueville scholar and write about the ways in which women in an aristocracy were better off than women in democracies. Sebastian will get credit, since he gave me the idea last December at the Parting Glass gathering.
-Read the Economist more often. Each one of those should count as a book. There are so many words! You couldn’t get away with that in an American magazine. Oh the Brits!
-Commit to doing more stuff in The City. This month it’s the Museum of Natural History. I’m going on Sunday. Anyone who wants to join is welcome.
-Eat actual meals, maybe even meals with Nutritional Value. Doritos are not a meal. Salsa is a condiment, not a food.
And that’s all I can think of right now. And I get out of work in twenty minutes anyway. So Happy New Year and all that nonsense.
So I woke up, and now I can’t fall back asleep.
It’s 3:30 AM and once upon a time this was my favorite time of day. Sitting in my room in Hick A, watching the lights in Tower dorm go off, one by one, till the building stood dark, smoking Cloves on my front porch, and watching the sky get light, and then falling into bed before the rest of the campus began to wake up. There’s a romanticism in watching the days turn like that, and I, realizing lately there’s no point in denying it, am a romantic. Walt Whitman eat your heart out.
This is the first time I’ve been up at this hour in a very long time, and I can’t say I’d want that lifestyle. It’s just an unexpected waking state, where for a moment, I miss having a voice that late in the night, even though I’d crawl into bed with nagging dissatisfaction, I’d still find myself in the same place the next night at 3 AM, and so there was something addictive about it.
I’m such a drama queen.
Favorite time of day now: There are two, I think. The morning. I get off the PATH around 7:45, and walk to work. The route has become so familiar. Times Square literally vibrates some mornings alive with real and figurative energy. I feel so awake and optimistic on these walks. I hate having to go upstairs. I hate when I get hit with a wave of sleepiness that I can’t shake, and caffeine doesn’t help. I miss whatever crazy energy I used to have that got me through spring of 2004 with little to no sleep. I feel old.
The second is quittin’ time, and walking out of work with Charice and whomever else we’ve caught the elevator with. Charice and I are usually out of our minds at this hour. (Thursday for example, I was singing songs from How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying ((hey, it HAD been a really long day)) and she was doing impressions of a butler) It’s wacked out stress relief, and getting on the PATH to go home is almost a downer. (Waits for someone to chime in “That’s because you’re going back to Jersey!”
This has been a completely wasted week and I am fighting a low-grade bad mood. I will feel far better when the GREs are over and I’ve spent the weekend productively chipping away at the pile of grad school applications. I have jury duty next week.
I’m headed to Saratoga for Columbus Day weekend to spend some quality time with The Misanthropes, get a beer and grad school advice from a professor, and see various transfers who are still in the Saratoga area.
And then by mid-October, things should be closer to completion.
I’m also thinking about moving. Long story, involving irrational things like “vibes,” and grittiness, and softness, and epiphanies had on bus rides through Essex County. Maybe Washington Heights. Maybe. I’d have to give up the across the river on the jersey side moniker. And my pretty, pretty view.
, angst, Depression (with a capital D), exes, friends, hampshire, navel gazing, nyc, taking-myself-entirely-too-seriously
I need to write lots of maudlin pages of how wonderful this visit was (and it’s still not over!!!). But for now, I will simply report that I am sitting in my old room in Fain C, having come home from dinner, driving, coffee, & confessions with one of my favorite people in the world, to hang out with my former housemate downstairs, where we decided, as we decided at 10:30 PM on so many nights, to go buy beer at Price Chopper, and then came home to have a few beers and watch whatever was on TV, and do bits of our homework while we watch, and I know that I am exactly where I need to be.
