It was around the fourth drink that Jill-IAN turned to me and said, in her uber Brooklyn accent “You know, 2007 better be better than 2006.”

I clucked my tongue and sympathized with her – she’s had a rough year, losing her job and worse, getting brutally dumped back in May.

Drew chimes in that 2006 hasn’t been that bad, it’s just the whole getting played by the girl he had feelings for totally sucked

And so I add that my love life is DOA, but 2006 has been a pretty damn good year. Maybe even the best of years.

Jill considers this for a moment. “You know,” she says. “I love you and I love Drew. Getting to know you has been one of the best things that could’ve happen to me.”

We embrace, because we’re a little drunk — hence the gushing — but the gesture is heartfelt nonetheless.

“I agree,” I tell her. “You saved me; you’re part of why I was able to make this such a good year.”

“Awww, Neumsy,” she says in the voice she reserves for moments like this. Then she switches back to Brooklyn-tough. “What about you Drew? We’ve like, improved your life significantly, haven’t we?”
“Of course,” he answers sardonically.

I raise my Sam Adams – only $3 here, our favorite dive bar way the hell out in Brooklyn – “To our love lives sucking less in 2007.”

Amen.

I still want to write all about Saturday night, but this is what’s on my mind, so it gets preference.

Cary called me around 8:30 “Are you done packing?” she asked.
“Um…somewhat…,” I replied
“Well are you too busy to have coffee with us?”
“Absolutely not, what time?”

So Cary, Dayna, and I met up at Freeze Peach and then migrated to Igloo for food. We chatted about the board, of course, because you can’t get together with Astorians without discussing “the Board.” (The whole “I feel like I’m dating 35 people” thing is definitely true. It’s like so many of us hang out, on an increasingly regular frequence, but it’s always in a group, so there are a lot of mildly awkward one on one interactions. It’s a bizarre development of community) and AG, and men, of course.

I’ve never really had groups of girlfriends before, and that’s what was really developing for me among the Astoria girls…I’m going to miss them; we’ve had a lot of fun together.

So we hugged Cary good-bye and Dayna and I headed home (we live three blocks from each other) and we ran into Josh. I am really, really going to miss living somewhere where I am constantly running into people I know. I love the walks up 21st Avenue with Dayna — we are always “getting home safe” companions, and she remarked that she loves the walks home because it’s so peaceful, and I said I would miss the independence of being able to come home alone and not worry. Southside Chicago may not allow that.

I’m going to miss Astoria, and Astorians, and Astoria girls. This is the most amazing community ever.

When I was counting down the days left at Skidmore, I had plenty of down time to write. Now I have even more to write about and no time to write.

Off the top of my head, without eloquence

My Astorians party on Friday was relatively low-key. We took over Hell Gate’s Social again, brought in lots of food and ordered pizza (I will miss New York pizza.) A lot of people showed up; I felt very popular. Sooz made me an awesome card, the front of which is laminated google-map directions from Hyde Park to Astoria. I got an Astoria Hell Gates shirt — I love that bridge. We took lots of pictures. There was much girl talk among the usual Astoria ladies. I am going to miss this community more than I can put into words. It’s been an amazing experience. Ok Rousseau I GET IT.

Last night was PLI people and random people and O-town people and people I hadn’t seen in a really long time, and at one point Jill-IAN was like “Jesus Neumsy, who ARE all these people?” because I had been fretting about people not showing up and looking like a loser. Everyone was buying me drinks, and I got to talk to everyone and didn’t take enough pictures, and I think I managed to not be too emotional, although I think I hugged everyone about 19 times. I will write about it later.

I have lots of boxes. My head is swimming.

I never, in my whole life, thought I would be the type of person who warranted throwing two separate going away parties. At one point last night I pulled Jill-IAN and Drew aside, and was just like “You guys have been one of the best things about New York and I love you a lot.” 

I cannot put this into words. This is so freaking cliched, but I seriously don’t know how to say all this. I am basically overcome with emotion.

CK and I have always had fun together, and despite our insistence for many months that we are not friends, we’ve really become close since we bonded at my birthday party. And to be honest, looking back on over a year in the city, and it has always been CK, listening to be talk when I was cry over a boy last August, toasting to the Transit Strike in December, letting me cry over ANOTHER boy in March, bonding with me on my birthday,  and finally this summer, taking me out and toasting. And that is not to mention all the monologues, political babble, and just plain hilarity.

I was exhausted last night from lack of sleep and my ear hurting, but I wanted to rally. I told CK about how I totally got the guy who put the “black hole of despair” thing in the suggestion box, about how I was honest in my interview, and my boss’s reaction to my World’s Worst Receptionist” t-shirt (that I wore all afternoon). “I underestimated you,” CK admitted. “I thought you’d go out with a whimper, but you went out with a bang. I’m really proud of you.” (Bonus for use of TS Eliot)

It’s funny because at work he always tells me to go away, and I always insult him and so for some reason, nice things from him mean more. Also, I like that he now knows me well enough that he can laugh at me and point out that I’m doing “that Rachel thing where you try to impress me.” I mean, he was totally right, but I can call him out on similar things.

At the end of dinner, he raised his vodka and said “To the best drinking buddy I know, the best friend I have in the city, the most brilliant receptionist ever, and if you start crying I will punch you in the face.” So instead I laughed and we clinked glasses and I said “Screw it, I don’t want to go home. Let’s find an Irish pub and get a beer.”

So we went to The Irish Pub across from my office, and it was my turn to tell him how I think he’s way too fucking smart for his job, and he is awesome and he needs to go do something other than giving into this existential bullshit, because it’s true. “I’ll have my MA in a year, and I might be back in the city. If you’re still at the same job I will kick your fucking ass.”

Sometimes, when CK talks, it drives me crazy because I know I’ve heard the same sentence come out of my own mouth. Sure, I’m more emotional and he’s more cynical (because he’s older, hehe) and yeah, he pisses me off when he calls me out of my self-affirmation bullshit, but we are very, very similar. I have never met someone with views (not just political) are so aligned to mine. We have nearly identical outlooks on life. I mentioned this and he smiled “It’s a Jersey thing.”

We talked about rock bottom, and plans, and relationships, and burning bridges. “That’s kind of what you’re doing,” he said. “You’re saying ‘fuck you, I’m going to Chicago.’ He stumbled on to exactly why I’m so sad to leave. Because I have everything here; I have great friends, and acquintences, and social circles, and an apartment, and a life I love, and I have to take the chance that I’m not going to have all those things in Chicago.

I’m going to really miss CK, and he admitted he would miss me too. We had the same conversation we’ve had several times, and the conclusion was the same, and that also sucks. (“You need to find yourself a decent boyfriend,” he told me. I rolled my eyes) We hugged good-bye and promised to keep in touch. And hugged good-bye again (we were both pretty drunk.)

And yeah, we’ll keep in touch. But it’s never going to be the way it is right now.  I know this whole long good-byes thing is bringing out my penchant for drama, but damn….I’m going to miss him.

It’s like, I moved here in the middle of an overdramatic break up and grad school rejections and this community was so welcoming and immediately made me feel home and like I had a place here. It some how came around that I had just gotten out of a relationship at one of my first Astoria events, and got the typical comments And then at the end of the evening, Lia put her hand on my arm and was like “Your ex boyfriend is an idiot. You’re lovely.”

And she totally didn’t have to say that, and it was so sweet and bonus for the use of lovely.

And so here I am again. It is amazing how incredibly right I feel in this little room in Fain C. But I will save that for tomorrow night.

“I always get nostalgic this time of year,” Sebastian remarked as we drove back to campus this evening. (An “omg, me too” moment) “Endings are just so sad.”

I dropped him off in Case parking lot. There was a boy and a girl sitting in a car with the doors open. I like to imagine they were having one of those conversations you have with a friend on a May evening, where you express your disbelief that the end is so close. Everyone I see wears the same expression, and it is one I am grateful not to have had the chance to don. I am already maudlin enough by nature – I don’t think I could handle an end like this if I’d actually had the type of the experience that prompted that conversation held in the white old-school Volvo in Case Parking lot.

Everything I love from Skidmore will be easily held on to. Anything I want to keep, I will — this I know. Unlike high school, there is no “familiarity” which I will miss when it is gone — I haven’t yet, anyway. There are things that I will not miss until I am reminded of them, like the wash of mood that overtakes me walking around campus on a perfect spring evening, or the corners of Ladd Hall, or the curve of the perimeter road, but most of that is merely sentimentalist.

And I will miss this little room in Fain C, because when I have come back to this room and dropped an armload of stuff on the bed, I have felt home.

.

Sentence that I never thought I would say (type): Friday night, I went to Manhattan, had a few drinks, went to a club, danced (like, a lot),
and had an absolutely amazing time.

Mike has been trying to corrupt me since we were about 14, and made it his mission to make sure I had fun doing something other than talking about philosophy or politics, or whatever it was I did for fun in college. We toasted to getting burned, and caught up, and the bartender called me “hardcore” for my ability to take “a triple shot of whatever your cheapest vodka is” without cringing. So my last semester of college WAS good for something.

Saturday was spent recovering. I was exhausted. Mentally 35 years olds such as myself get tired when they act their real age! It’s very uncharacteristic of me. I inadvertedly became the “serious” type in college, buried in books, drowned in coffee, that I don’t think anyone who knew me in passing the past four years would believe that I actually can relax and have fun around the right company.

I’ll never betray my dorky roots, as was proven by the walk back to the car in Hoboken on Friday, but now there is proof of what I always suspected: that I will dance if given enough alcohol.

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.

These Are the Last Words I Have to Say/It’s Always Hard to Say Goodbye/But Now It’s Time to Put This Book Away/And That’s the Story of My Life

-coffee run with my favorite coffee-run-companion

-sitting on the porch, good timing

-Xina and I, driving home blasting the cliched ‘end of the year’ song by Eve 6 that came out senior year of high school and having the lyrics be relevant.