moving on..... again

I didn't grow up in a physically violent home but there was an awful lot of yelling much of the time.  But what else can you expect from a family of 4 girls with an off the boat father and mother who is more stubborn than a Christmas pageant mule?!  I essentially moved out at 18 when I went to school though I was back the first 3 summers and for random, short periods of time over the years.  When dad got real sick, I took over a good amount of the yelling at my mother... or one of my sisters did, there was never a lack of screaming matches.  We were good at yelling at each other and good at being miserable much of the time.  Our parents taught us that well.

Then I moved as far away as I could.  Came back.  Left again.  Came back but to my own place in Philly.  Things were good.  The yelling at home was over... mostly.  I moved and moved again.  The fighting then returned to my home with some busted up drywall every now and again.  I moved again.  Things were good.  I moved again.  Things started out great and quickly deteriorated.  I found myself in the all too familiar position of not wanting to go home.  I moved far away.... again.  Things were good.  I ran out of money and came back to homelessness since the one place that offered me a permanent roof also offered me malicious back-stabbing pettiness.  I don't need friends like that and didn't want to live like that.  After bouncing around for a few years on couches, in my car, a few days a week here and there, I was exhausted and resigned myself to a "permanent" home.  As permanent as I could allow something to be.  And the fighting was back.... because that's what we grew up with.  That's what we learned.  We learned passive-aggressive manipulation and guilt.  Once you've moved away from your family, you should never move back.  Old habits die hard and yelling, whether I'm involved or not, gets in my head and I can't think or hear or talk or see or even breath after a while.  I abhor raised voices.   

Misery loves company.  I slowly got sucked into the pettiness and skewed personal perceptions of what was happening.  Entitlement flew like beads on Mardi Gras.  Nothing out of malice but everything out of not knowing how to make things better.  All my money was spent in travel to work over 35 miles away and my calm was buried in the back yard under the old outhouse. 

I finally was able to move again.

It was a beautiful thing.  A teeny studio apartment in the Port Richmond section of the city.  Surrounded by mostly Polish families that had been there for generations.  I figured it would be a lot like Fishtown and I LOVED my little apartment.  Top floor, back of the building with lots of windows and a great view as the tallest building on the block.  And alone.  All alone!  For the first time in my life I was alone and not lonely while surrounded by people.  I found peace that I had only wished existed before.  Happy, peace, contentment.   

So, yeah, my neighbors smoke a lot of pot.  A LOT of pot.  eh, so the smell would wake me by creeping under my door at 7 am.  I was still ok with that.  Oh yeah, the dude that lived in the basement was dealing drugs enough to have the FBI snooping around and stopping me on the way to my car in the morning to ask questions.  I kept to myself and had nothing to do with those people...  it was ok.  *sigh* and the boys downstairs would have crazy parties every other Friday night that were often loud enough to have neighbors down the street call the cops.  Noisy, underage drunks.... eh, once every other week.  I'd deal with that for a great little place on my own where I could wake up anytime I want each day and sit in my kitchen window with my morning coffee watching the morning rush on 95 in the distance as the sun came up over the Delaware. 

Then the husband on the first floor, not the dealer, ended up in Graterford for walking into a bar with a hammer and bashing some dude's skull in.  That unit moved out shortly thereafter and in came relatives of the boys on the second floor.  They actually kept the noise of the parties down and stopped the fights when they started but suddenly the shouting through the hallways of the building increased all day, every day.  Aaah, the yelling returns.

And then my next door neighbor moved out.  YAY!  No more pot smoke seeping under my door at all hours of the day!  Oh but wait, more relatives moved in.  This has now become a single family home of sorts with cousins, aunts, and uncles, girlfriends, children..... 19 members of a family and me, "the lady on the 3rd floor who keeps to herself and doesn't even have a tv."

The yelling increased.  My new next door neighbors spend most of their time in the hall outside my door.  I told them from the beginning that I hear everything that happens in the hall.  They understand but the 2 yr old has a heart condition so they can't smoke in the apartment (plus it's a family of 4 in an efficiency and there's just not enough room).  No one in this family knows how to speak.  They yell.  They yell and belittle each other constantly.  All day and all night.   A fight broke out one evening and the window on the one door in the foyer was busted out (or, as I found out 2 days later, an uncle pushed the 14 yr old through it for "gettin' in his face").  *sigh* a few weeks later of steady yelling and hearing things smash and break downstairs and then last Friday night happened. 

I've learned over the past 2 winters that as long as I keep moving, I won't be so cold.  Thus, the birth of the 24 hour dance party in my apartment.  Sometimes with a glass of wine or a glass of whiskey to any music I may be in the mood for at the time.  If I dance around until it's time to climb under my electric blanket I'm not paralyzed with cold.  It's almost as good as having sufficient heat, iron, and blood pressure.  I dance to the Smiths or Billie Holiday or Tori or Radiohead or Pink Floyd or Tool.  It doesn't matter because there is no one else here.  And I can do the dishes tomorrow everyday.  I eat my own leftovers (though I'm nearly certain lentils and brown rice would be pretty safe from most any other person on the planet).  I have bars and restaurants and Wawa in walking distance and the el is a quick trolley ride away.  I love my home. 

All the fighting is stressing me out.  I regularly listen at my door for the rare few minute window that the neighbors are yelling at each other inside their apartment instead of at my front door.  I don't like walking through a domestic dispute on my way out of my own home.  It only makes things worse that the unsupervised boys downstairs have infested the building with roaches and I've now seen 3 in my apartment.  Oh yeah, and of course there's the car repair bill every 4ish months from a mirror or window or the like being smashed out while parked.  I am thankful that mine wasn't one of the six vehicles that had been set on fire and burned down to the frame this past summer. 

Friday night was a going away party for the boys as the 19 yr old has joined the army and was leaving on Saturday.  The DJ equipment went on at 10 am (typical).  By 6 pm there were 60+ drunk teens downstairs (typical).  By 8 pm the fights started (typical).  By 1 am the cops had been here 3 times, the 17 yr old boy downstairs had been taken to the hospital, the railing between the first and second floor had been ripped out, the ceiling was busted where some kid got flipped and his foot went through, the wall in the stairwell between the first and second floor doesn't exist so much as it has more than a dozen holes from heads and bodies and fists.  The glass on the second foyer door has been busted out.  Both second floor windows to the outside are busted out from bricks getting thrown through them and no doors in that unit are in one piece or even hanging anymore.  The wall on the second floor landing has a giant hole in it from a person getting thrown into it (likely the same one that got flipped down the stairs and smashed his foot through the ceiling). 

I listened to this all from the safety of my apartment, shaking a little at the insanity that was happening around me.  Saturday morning I left for work around 9:30 am trying to ignore the smell of stale beer and smashed beer bottles in the hallways and certainly pretending to not see the blood splattered through the halls.  I politely stepped over the broken glass that was everywhere and quietly closed the doors to the building.  Though, for the second time in my life I truly questioned how the hell I had gotten here. 

My arrival back home after work found no more glass or blood and everyone in the building laughing about what had happened the night before.  Laughing!  Perhaps I'm a spoiled little girl from the suburbs but I'm pretty sure that this is not right or good or funny.  Maybe my middle class upbringing is just causing culture shock right now.  Whether it's my skewed perspective or their's, I'm not living like this.  I've put the fighting behind me once, twice, .... eh many times.  and I'm certainly doing it again.  My new place is secured and undergoing some renovation before I can move in. 

In the meantime, the boys downstairs are moving out!  YAY!  Being evicted actually.  When they are gone the building will be bombed for bugs and the family of 4 next door will move into the 2 bed unit downstairs.  But the yelling won't go away.  I'm certain of that.  I don't like the yelling in the least. 

I've been sharply aware lately that I most definitely intensely fear anger.  I will walk away instead of fight.  I will hide instead of fight.  I will stand up for myself when absolutely necessary though.  I think that's the important part but I am too agreeable much of the time.  I'm learning.... slowly, but I'm learning.  With a better understanding of myself and why I behave the way I do, I'm ready to move forward.  I am ready for things I've been avoiding for 8 years.  There are possibilities in the air.  They crept in with the autumn air and whether or not they are real is of no worry.  Just breath.  Things are constantly changing and getting better and everything is as it should be, just not in the right place quite yet. 

reconnecting

I'm out of milk again.  This is a fairly regular occurrence in my kitchen.  I’m used to drinking my coffee sweet and black.  My shopping list is now: milk, something to eat that is more substantial than sunflower seeds.  I realize there are easier ways to go about things but I like things this way.  I don’t mind sitting here thinking of an old friend when I should be dressing and going to the market before work.  In fact, I prefer sitting here thinking.

The details of that evening are not mine to share and even if they were, I’m not sure I’d want to share them with you.  I’ve thought of her often.  Especially a few years back while with him.  He and I were playing out a 20 year old fantasy and the rest was just good fun.  I now wonder who was actually the better friend and how the hell I ended up the one in the middle.  Oh yes, I remember now.... we were 14 years old. 

The 3 of us were "in a band" together.  We had shitty instruments, no songs, and never played together but we were going to make it big!  It was the 3 of us against the world.  But this was the boy that all the girls loved, including us.  The guitar playing boy that all the girls went nuts over.  The boy who spent everyday after school and that summer at my house hanging out and playing music.  He was so wonderful and I wasn't, there was no way he could ever like me, not when he could have any girl he wanted.  I was naive.    Naive even after he kissed me towards the end of that summer shortly before he moved away.  It was too late though.  I had already lost my best friend and had a horde of torch carrying girls out to kick my ass.  All over this boy.

1000+ miles of I-95 between us, communication was spotty letters and occasional phone calls.  We held on to a "someday" that we discussed in every conversation.  We were young and thought we could do anything.  I spent high school rebuilding my social life and working towards college.  By the end of senior year we were all living in a different world.  Feelings had healed, apologies were given and accepted, and life moved on and distances of all kinds increased despite random run-ins, letters and phone calls. 

She was the last best girl friend I had.  I never really trusted another girl after that.  I thought of her often during his and my brief affair a few years ago.  After getting back in touch after about 15 yrs of no communication we agreed that this life was not meant for us but that we weren't ready to call it over.  It was the perfect affair, short, loving and provided closure at least for me. 

It's absolutely impossible for me to separate these two friends.  I think of one and see the other standing back and to the left.  They have set the standard for all friendships since and that's not necessarily a good thing.  But it's also not an entirely bad thing.   

There was a strong instant hug when she walked up to me on Saturday.  We are now grown women.  We've walked our own paths, moved on to new lives but in that moment, during that hug, I felt that old bond still there and strong.  Maybe it was just a wish. 

9 days

The now familiar alarms... the phone at 6:30am... a pleasant woman's voice telling us "This is your wake up call."  We didn't even have to put the receiver to our ear to hear it loud and clear.  Then the cell phone alarm 15 or so minutes later.  This time though, I also had to get out of bed.  This morning I couldn't lay cozy in bed listening to his shower and sneaking peeks of him dressing and leaving for work.  This morning however, he turned the heat on before he got in the shower to help make getting out of bed easier for me.

I climbed out of bed with arms of warm air starting to reach out across the cold room.  I reached for my panties somewhere on the floor and pulled on my clothes from last night.  I could have brought clean clothes but I knew it would be an early morning and I would wait to shower at home.  The sun was just starting to rise... I could see the mauve and steely blues and hazy purples and the clear turquoise blue in the space between the clouds from the sliding glass door.  It was only raining in the puddles on the low roof below, otherwise, it looked like a beautiful day.  I could feel a crisp chill in the air through the glass and I stood there until the urge to close my eyes and drift back to sleep left me... He stepped out of the bathroom clean, smiling, and shirtless.  What a week!

I pay for a little studio apartment 16 miles up the highway.  It's small and cozy on the top floor of a building filled with trashy tenants in a questionable neighborhood.  I pay my rent in cash and keep to myself.  If I ever needed an egg or cup of sugar I'd be shit out of luck there.  But I don't mind it being that way.  I love my cozy sanctuary perched above most else on the block just a short drive from this hotel room.  Yet every evening this week I've found myself here with him.  And every morning I hear the hotel room door shut in the wee hours of the morning and smile.  It reminds me of the business lady and her hotel room in Florham Park, NJ where I used to stay a few nights a week for a few months.

In that north Jersey hotel I remember the lingering smell of her tea tree oil lotion as she bent over and kissed my forehead goodbye.  She knew I'd be gone when she got "home", just like he does.   They were both so kind as to put the "do not disturb" sign up when leaving so that I could sleep a bit longer.

He also kissed me on the forehead before heading out each day.  There's something I love about crashing in the bed in someone else's hotel room or lounging around in their house after they've left for work for the day.  I find it so sweet when these wonderful people kiss me so gently before they leave.  I wonder if they know I'm awake?  That I've been awake since they've crawled out of bed, just lying there relaxing and soaking in all the things I wish didn't have to end.  And when I finally get out of bed I look around at the remnants of the night before and smile leaving it for housekeeping or to make them think of me when they return to the empty room after work.

I can smell him on my skin as I have everyday that I've gone home to sit at my computer, drinking coffee before starting my day.  The lingering smells floating around me make me turn my head to find him but it disappears only to sneak up a few minutes later on the other side.  Like being haunted by a ghost only there is no ghost here... not yet at least.  I've had the happiness knowing that I would be seeing him again each evening. 

We spent the evenings laughing and talking and watching movies and drinking whiskey and eating take-out or delivery or something someone else has cooked for us.  We had little adventures throughout the week.... pretty dresses, bridges, big ships, parties, tattoos.... but those are other stories for other days.   

This morning we said our goodbyes in the room and again just outside the hotel entrance and went separate ways to our cars.  It is still pre-rush hour on 95 North and the drive towards the Girard Point Bridge is peaceful as I watch the sun slowly come up over the Navy Yard.  I hit pockets of rain showers as the sun shines bright through the hole it's burned through the clouds.  I'm not used to being on this side of the sun rise.

He called me pretty this morning as I sat on the bed and he stood in front of me holding my face.  I'm thinking of that as I drive through the city.  Breakfast at the Port Richmond Diner for some coffee and breakfast seems to be in order to say goodbye to the last 9 days of fake life.  An empty diner on Tuesday morning... I drink my coffee and watch the day open up.  It's cozy and warm and comfortable in here.  I know my apartment will be cold and lonely after all this.  Pele will keep me company today.  Pele and that smile that keeps sneaking across my face. 

Wine, Pele, and a piano

Today was the first day of Pele weather and I still need a new leather.  Like the red one I used to visit in the shop window in Forest Hills.  That was forever ago when I was living with a girl in a hotel room in north Jersey. 

I suppose it's really been quite a while since I opened a bottle of red wine and cozied up in my jammies and ignored human contact.  It feels so nice and the wine tastes so comfortable. 

The chilly air hit early this afternoon just after a short soaking rain.  I had my pumpkin coffee in hand and headed into Room 104, my favorite 9 foot Steinway.  I sat down and started playing and remembered 12 years ago, my piano in the living room... my big, beautiful, shiny black grand piano in the ugly room in the ugly house.  Chopin Nocturnes while I could barely see straight from entirely too much self medication.  One particular time, one especially drunk and down time, I remember my mother complimenting me the next morning, "You sounded really fantastic last night playing.  The best I've heard in years!" 

I don't have a piano anymore.  I can only play at the school.  And then I can't drink.

I used to love my second apartment in Nashville... 359 Mountain High Drive :)  The wonderful apartment with 2 full bathrooms and a balcony and a cat and a piano.  I loved it when I was home alone.. I'd open a bottle of Boone's Farm, because that's all I could afford aside from the whiskey and vodka, and I'd dance and play and drink for hours.

That piano got repossessed when I moved back to Philly.  They should have never given it to me but I'm glad they did.

A colleague came in my room today as I was picking through a Chopin Etude.  "Miss" Olga often eavesdrops while I'm playing I've learned.  "There's just something special when you play classical music.  Something special there that no one else I've ever heard has.  Your touch.... I love it.  I could listen to you all day and all night.  So beautiful!" 

She smiled and left me with the ghost of my Maynard sitting beside me on the bench. 

Yellow

....It all depends on the definition of "my peeps" and "ok" and right now I'm struggling with both....

You know he's gone?  He left six months ago but it feels just like this morning.  I've been listening to The Beekeeper all day.  He said he was worried about me but I told him I was fine and he should go.  Then another said he was worried about me and I told him I was fine but I didn't tell him to go and he left anyway.  For 2 months I've wished I was the seated woman with the parasol.

The kettle on the stove is beginning to whistle quietly.  It won't get much past the hint of a whistle.  It's been broken for years.  Too many moves, too many apartments, too much time in and out of boxes.  That poor grease stained kettle has to be at least 9 years old by now.  Tonight I'm looking forward to a cup of green tea with lemongrass and mint.

It's been more than 12 years now of Mays turning into Junes and I have no thoughts about anything in any direction other than, what possessed me to buy a pack of cigarettes and smoke half of it before dinner?  My chest is filled with a thousand razor blades and weighs a ton.  But the taste in my mouth and the air around me is comforting and makes me smile and reminds me of more than a few great loves and adventures.

Tonight my mind keeps going to the back of the 15 foot Penske truck, half full and backed into the driveway on Moonflower Road.  Those ridiculous white and yellow barrel back chairs from the early 70's were the last things I had put in and we sat around on the back of the truck drinking beers together one last time.  Back in a time when going through 2 cases of beer and half a carton of Marlborough Lights after work was a daily occurrence for the four of us.  I've never been a smoker but I've always fallen in love with them.

I still have those ugly barrel back chairs in a storage unit sitting still and lonely and being the only material objects I'm saving solely for the memories they hold.  "Silly girl, a chair can't hold memories."  This I know but I wish I was sitting in one right now as I smoke the cigarettes of the ghosts.  I also wish I was drinking my Guinness out of the mugs he gave me that night in the back of the Penske truck.  I hope they are safe in that storage unit as well and did not become a casualty of my fickleness and flight response like countless other whats and whos.

In a few hours I will drunkenly curl up with his poems and probably a few of hers and maybe a song or 2 until I pass out.  I have no regrets but I some nights I swing from old wishes.  Tonight is one of those nights.

I am strawberry pudding.

Saturday morning....

Here it comes again.  Like clockwork.  There's a sigh of relief in my head as well as the longing for it to not end yet.  I'm never ready for summer to end.  The days have been cooler.  Cooler than August should really be actually (at least I think so).  And the evenings have been cool enough to wear jeans.  Although I haven't yet broken out of my dresses-all-day-everyday yet.  That's the part of me longing for summer to continue a few weeks longer than it will. 

The air is damp and chilly right now as I sit here sipping my green tea and honey.  That's another way I know the season is changing.... no coffee for me this morning.  The house is still asleep.  Today I will head home, open some windows and relax a few hours.  I am seriously bummed that my original plans for this evening have fallen through but there's nothing you can do about other people.  The universe will be whole again soon.  I have faith in that.  I'll take today as it comes.  Same with tomorrow and the next day.  Such is life and you have to enjoy as much of it as you can.  Things change, people change, time pauses for no one.   

The sun is almost breaking through the thick morning clouds.  It will be warm and bright again soon.  I am truly thankful to have had these past 2 peaceful mornings.  My heart is beating slower.  My thoughts are getting saner.  My balance between want and have is slowing creeping back. 

....

Monday evening thunder over my head and Tori in my ears.  I love watching the rain.  The lightening finally came by as well.  I love me a nice natural light show.  If you've ever been to my place you know I'm watching this all play out over the greened double-spired church across the way.  It's the perfect view from my bed.  As were the 4th of July fireworks and the hundred and seven rainbows I've seen in the past few months.

Its almost over.  This is not the way it was supposed to happen, but I knew it would be like this.  Now the sun is down.  2 more days.   The storms have set off a few car alarms... it seems like chaos out there and I am safe inside.  The thunder is wrapping me in stories tonight.  It has my undivided attention until I drift to sleep.

....

Up, showered and dressed early, and in search of new surroundings.  There's a coffee shop in Fishtown I've been wanting to try.... It smells of fresh coffee and has records decorating the walls.  The rain looks like snow the way it's dripping from the shop's side awning.  Heck, it all looks like snow the way it's blowing today.  Small drops... spray almost, coming down nearly sideways with a fury.  How many days now has it been raining?  I've lost count.  I've been rather enjoying it.  Someone just opened the door and along with the damp August air was a rush of cigarette smoke.  I think I'm in heaven.  Honestly, I'd be a smoker if I wasn't too lazy to start.  Maybe I'll give up not smoking this year.  Though I doubt I'd love the fresh second-hand smoke and stale smoke in the clothes, hair and fingers of the smokers if I was a smoker myself.

And Bob Dylan comes over the coffee shop speakers.  (smile)  Tomorrow I will see him live at The Mann.  I couldn't be more excited.  It will be a fun relaxing night before a day I’m nervous about.... uncertainty is as nerve-wracking as it is exciting.  The harmonica takes me back to a dog I fell in love with... I fall in love with dogs much easier than I do with people.  I think I'll always love the dogs most of all. 

Someone recently asked me if I've always lived in Philly and my instant reply was "yes."  An easy, unintentional lie.  Philly has never felt like home.  No place ever has really.  All the places I've ever spent more than a month in have been home to me.  Boston 1994 - 1998.  Nashville 1998 - 2000.  NYC/Woodside, Queens 2006 - 2008.  Ikaria, Greece the summer of 2001 (or 2002, I don‘t remember exactly).  Indian Rocks Beach, FL the summer of 2009 (not really home but a much needed month and a half vacation while I was temporarily homeless up north).  Philly and it's burbs before, in between, and since. 

The sun peeks out on cue as the Beatles come on.  (...and I say it's alright...)  A silly little coincidence but enough to bring a big smile to my face.  A short rain storm today, perhaps just one of many.  And now I'm watching the mailman paint the mailbox on the corner of Girard and Columbia.  Once upon a time I lived in a wonderful house 3 blocks up the street from here but that was long before this coffee shop existed. 

I loved that house.  I needed a place to live and my sister worked with a guy who knew a guy.... something like that.  I remember first seeing the place.  I walked in and fell in love.  Coming from all sorts of shit and decent and nice apartments, I had never before thought of renting a house.  2 story, 2 bedroom, claw-foot tub, large eat-in-kitchen, dining room, living room complete with black marble mantel, crown molding in the whole house, beautiful light fixtures, full basement with washer and dryer and a big backyard, fenced in with trees and flowers and the most beautiful black irises.  Perfect.

My friend, who was to be my roommate, showed up after I had seen the entire house.  I couldn't contain my excitement as I took him around to see it.  I was literally jumping up and down.  We could afford the rent easily.  Location was great.  All I needed was for him to agree.  It was the one time in my life I ever seriously used "pretty please" followed by an unknown number of solo "please"s.  And of course, "I want to live here really badly!"  Cue The Smiths... (....so please, please, please let met, let me, let me get what I want this time....).  He agreed and we moved in at the end of that month.

That was the last time I ever begged the Universe for anything.  Lesson learned.  I let the chips fall where they may now.   And I know I'm right in the middle of something now.  Certain doors are wide open.  Some doors are trying to close and some are fighting to keep open even just a crack.  I'm lost when it comes to humanity.  I have such a lack of faith and trust in the world around me.  I don’t think I can live this way for long.  I have places to go but without even an idea of where I want to end up how do I know what I should do?  Make myself happy right?  Have trust in my friends.  Draw a clear line between friends and lovers.  Follow the music where it takes me.  Buy a chair for my apartment.

Direction and peace of mind just like that :p  Now if the rain would stop I could walk home though there's a nice selection of eye candy here, maybe I shouldn't be in such a hurry to leave....

Love and Friends

why would I stop loving you?

A single line tucked in the middle of an email reduced me to tears this morning.  Honestly, I've had a difficult time with several things recently and tears have been keeping me company.  It is not necessarily an entirely bad thing.  It just is.  Sometimes we all need a break from being (or pretending to be) strong and put together and need to allow ourselves some time to be selfish and human.

While I am being honest I would like to add that this dull aching throb in my chest is like none other I have felt before... it's bubbling.  Not like a freshly opened soda but like a thick tar-like something at a fast boil on the stove.  I awoke mid-night from a dream of events to come in the near future with the bubbly throb amplified and my left arm numb.  I was certain in my hazy sleepiness that my heart was literally broken.  Perhaps it is.  It will scab over in time.

On Monday I took a walk to see a friend.  A friend with whom I don't share much of anything verbally but I feel understands me better than most.  We chatted a few minutes and set a date for me to come back for longer and I left, closing the door gently behind me.  I walked most of the 2.5 miles home before finally giving in to hunger and heat and hopping the trolley to the bar.

Bonk's was surprisingly full for 3:30 on a Monday afternoon.  I ordered a crabcake and onion rings and swallowed down a few lagers.  When I was at the point of picking at my onion rings a man approached and burst into a story of how he and his friends were discussing the "damsel in distress" alone in the bar and how he should come up and talk with me but wanted to wait until I was finished eating.  I thanked him for that and quietly resented the "damsel in distress" moniker.  From that point I was introduced to and shook hands with all 18 people occupying the bar and the older gentleman (17 yrs my senior) next to me provided me with conversation for the rest of my time there.  Following a polite amount of conversation after his awkward yet sweet attempt to ask me on a date and my decline, I paid my check and stumbled from the bar.

There is something I love immensely about a mid-day drunk.  Bumbling my way through the city streets while people are just arriving home from work always brings a smile to my face.  It reminds me that I do have a wonderful life.  I hiccupped as I walked which made me laugh out loud and in turn talk to myself the whole way home.  I passed a large bed of purple, fuchsia, and pink pansies and was overwhelmed by the smell of lilies.  Even in my inebriation I knew that my eyes and nose were not agreeing on the current situation.  I laughed and hiccupped and continued on my way glancing back periodically to make sure I wasn’t being followed.

Today all I hear in my head is Ms. Molli's voice easing my concerns over decisions I had made, "Extraordinary lives don't just fall into people's laps.  You have to take risks and make stupid choices."  Somewhere in the past 2 years I forgot that and am glad to have remembered it upon reawakening this morning with feeling having returned to my left arm.  I love nothing more than seeing the people I love do crazy-ass things in an effort to find their own extraordinary life.  Though today it means losing a great friend to the distance of a new life, hopefully a better life.  And I know using the word "losing" here is going to touch a nerve but that is the truth in the sense that there will be no more hanging out, no more ridiculous electronic communication while sitting next to each other on the couch or waiting to play a gig, and I'm sure considerably less gmail chatting in the evenings as time will be otherwise occupied.  But amid the selfish melancholy I am still more thrilled and excited at the new world that awaits and agree that perhaps it‘s time I do the same again.  And just in case you ever find yourself lost in a fairy tale:

Remember your name.
Do not lose hope - what you seek will be found.
Trust ghosts.  Trust those that you have helped
to help you in their turn.
Trust dreams,
Trust your heart, and trust your story.
When you come back, return the way you came.
Favors will be returned, debts will be repaid.
Do not forget your manners.
Do not look back.
Ride the wise eagle (you shall not fall).
Ride the silver fish (you will not drown).
Ride the grey wolf (hold tightly to his fur).
-Neil Gaiman excerpt "Instructions"