I Am Not Fourteen.
Yesterday Christina and I walked around Astor Place, and she showed me St. Mark's, a bookstore well worthy of its reputation. She went to work and I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, then read some Hedges in Brooklyn Bridge Park, by the East River. When the sun disappeared again, I wandered up the hill into bougie Brooklyn Heights. I bought some groceries and took the train back, glutted myself on Sherlock, read more, wrote more.
Christina came home as I was making myself dinner. She smiled at me and we talked for a moment, then she retreated to her room and I to mine. I could hear her laughing uproariously on the phone with someone, and I felt a sudden, surprising pang of loneliness, or jealousy, or just a wondering how often I bring her to laugh so completely?
I brought her a little of the lambic beer I'd bought on sale (she doesn't drink much) so she could try it. "It tastes like raspberries," I said. She liked it. I went back to my room. A moment later, she came in and sat on the floor and said, "Can we talk?"
Any partner who's ever erred in a love affair knows that phrase. Worse, she followed it up with, "This is really hard for me."
Immediately I wonder what I might've done wrong. Does she not like that I drink so much? Do my weird hours upset her? What could it be, that she couldn't tell me at the moment of my fuck-up?
Christina explains:
* She's going through a lot right now (busyness, job transition, &c.)
* Her boyfriend stayed here for a month just previous to my arrival.
* She doesn't want to invite a situation in which she lashes out at me.
* In other words, she needs some space.
Okay, I'm leaving for DC and Richmond on Thursday and coming back on Sunday, right, but Christina says, "I think it'd be best if you found someplace else to stay after you come back from DC."
Ouch.
Immediately I think this isn't fair. I'm just settling in. I just brought groceries home, and I just made friends with the foul-mouthed 70-year-old lady who lives on the fifth floor. Christina offered me this room for a month, and I've shaped my travel plans around that promise. We've spent very little time together since I arrived, something she'd said, and I'd hoped, would change beginning this week. And gee, that really isn't a lot of notice.
But there are situations in which, I've (mostly) learned, it's better to nod as though you agree than to loose the emo hounds, so that's what I did. I let myself feel rejected and betrayed after she'd left. Yes, I sulked.
Luckily, another friend had already offered me her place through next Sunday, and it looks like that'll come through. But that leaves me Sunday night through Thursday night (when I feature at the Loser Slam in Jersey) without a home. I'd rather not come back here. I made the mistake of reading this situation on a superficial level and allowing myself the luxury of feeling at home, settled, when I'm not.
Let that be a lesson to the road dog in me.
Christina came home as I was making myself dinner. She smiled at me and we talked for a moment, then she retreated to her room and I to mine. I could hear her laughing uproariously on the phone with someone, and I felt a sudden, surprising pang of loneliness, or jealousy, or just a wondering how often I bring her to laugh so completely?
I brought her a little of the lambic beer I'd bought on sale (she doesn't drink much) so she could try it. "It tastes like raspberries," I said. She liked it. I went back to my room. A moment later, she came in and sat on the floor and said, "Can we talk?"
Any partner who's ever erred in a love affair knows that phrase. Worse, she followed it up with, "This is really hard for me."
Immediately I wonder what I might've done wrong. Does she not like that I drink so much? Do my weird hours upset her? What could it be, that she couldn't tell me at the moment of my fuck-up?
Christina explains:
* She's going through a lot right now (busyness, job transition, &c.)
* Her boyfriend stayed here for a month just previous to my arrival.
* She doesn't want to invite a situation in which she lashes out at me.
* In other words, she needs some space.
Okay, I'm leaving for DC and Richmond on Thursday and coming back on Sunday, right, but Christina says, "I think it'd be best if you found someplace else to stay after you come back from DC."
Ouch.
Immediately I think this isn't fair. I'm just settling in. I just brought groceries home, and I just made friends with the foul-mouthed 70-year-old lady who lives on the fifth floor. Christina offered me this room for a month, and I've shaped my travel plans around that promise. We've spent very little time together since I arrived, something she'd said, and I'd hoped, would change beginning this week. And gee, that really isn't a lot of notice.
But there are situations in which, I've (mostly) learned, it's better to nod as though you agree than to loose the emo hounds, so that's what I did. I let myself feel rejected and betrayed after she'd left. Yes, I sulked.
Luckily, another friend had already offered me her place through next Sunday, and it looks like that'll come through. But that leaves me Sunday night through Thursday night (when I feature at the Loser Slam in Jersey) without a home. I'd rather not come back here. I made the mistake of reading this situation on a superficial level and allowing myself the luxury of feeling at home, settled, when I'm not.
Let that be a lesson to the road dog in me.