10-29-10 Some things you have to pay for after you've already used them

"Come on," she says, this strange girl whose constant, scattershot flirtation is starting to get me down. "You don't like to smoke?"

What do I say, that I really DO like to smoke, but that it inevitably leaves me feeling worse than before, lost and anxious, like I've got a bucket over my head and a hole in my chest?

"No, I like it, but it costs too much," I say, and leave it at that.

10-28-10 reminds me of the day I proposed

The stumps of downed trees still line the streets like broken teeth, reminders of the plagues God has visited on our borough this year (the hail that recently fell, while leaving no visible scars the way the tornado did, lingers more in the mind for me, as I was underground when the tornado struck).

I came up above ground from the subway yesterday only to find the remnants of a flood moving off east. One of the brightest rainbows I've ever seen shone strong and wide across a slate gray sky as the storm trundled off.

Traffic stopped, people stared, cameraphones cradled in their hands, smiles wide, and I said to my neighbor, "Looks like God won't flood us today."

10-27-10 let's pretend

Last night, my good friend JT reminded me how much I enjoy playing "let's pretend" by letting me take part in a reading of his new play. I got to act like a 70 year old abbot of a monastery who tries and convicts one of his charges of (spoiler alert) homosexual conduct with a being who may or may not be some kind of angel.

As JT's words worked through my body, I found my posture hunching, my hands snarling into the arthritic claws characteristic of my grandfather, passions and sorrows that were not mine, but were familiar to me, spilling into the light. An old man lived in my skin for an hour or so, and I walked away feeling... good, like I'd just built a table with my hands, when all I had done was let another part of humanity have a voice for a little while.

10-26-10 (though I could still use the money)

The issue is not with life - life is entirely blameless.

The issue is expectations. When I was a boy, I wanted fame, and money, and ease, and I now realize these desires were rather ill formed, and not particularly worthwhile.

Realizing this, and not having anything to replace the discarded goals with, I find myself at loose ends.

10-25-10 - the hutch

The white haired gentleman chats with Kevin and me while Katie goes to the bank to get the cash to pay for the hutch we've decided to buy from him for the kitchen.

"You never know what your life is gonna bring. My son died five years ago from cancer, and then my wife died a year ago from cancer."

I think about what I would do if Katie died, how lonely I would be, and all I can say is, "I'm sorry, man."

10-22-10 Fall arrives - we fight off the chill

We come home late from our respective outings, she from work, and me from rehearsal, to find the kitchen a disaster and the sink stacked with dishes, courtesy our soon-to-move-back-to-where-he's-from roommate, but we still manage to find a clean cocktail glass for Katie and a beer for me. An amaretto sour and a hefeweizen later, and we're almost ready to go to bed, dishes be damned.

Fall creeps in around the corners of the windows and beneath the doors, his cold breath chilling us, and Katie, always more susceptible to the cold than I, hugs herself for a moment before proposing the perfect solution to the quandary of undressing for bed in our chilled room. "Want to fool around?" she asks innocently.

10-21-10 The days are long, but the years are short

I wake up from a cold, dark dream of a run down home which bears a striking resemblance to my time in Queens, and I realize that today, despite all the good that has occurred, all the joy I have had in the past few months, that I am still myself.

This has a bad side, and a good side. I am still directionless, wandering my days, wondering how I can possibly achieve anything in this life where I have wasted so much time.

On the good side, I still wake up next to a beautiful woman I adore, who rolls over as I get out of bed in the darkness to begin my morning, and sleepily says, every morning without fail for the last year we've lived together, "I love you."

10-8-10 a few words on the meta-narrative

This was one of the things that really got me about the concept for this blog (sidebar: if electrons shape words, but no one reads them, do they retain the information after the computer is off?): do I write the morning after about the previous day, but date the entry for the previous day? The deal is, I write, work, think, and am more motivated to do all of those things, in the morning, but nothing's really happened so far that day. At night, I'm ready to lie down, talk with my wife (!!!), watch some TV or read something, and drift off to sleep (it's those darn morning pages I wrote all those years ago that got me in the habit, I imagine). Writing in the morning about things that have happened that day per se leads to lots of posts about commuting, which has its place, I suppose, but is not what this blog is supposed to really be about.

10-5-10 Many changes make for renewal

I haven't written in ages, mostly out of a sense of "why bother?" But since I've effectively eliminated most of my readership through neglect, I'm now utterly free. I don't have to do this because I feel obligated, or because there's something "important" for me to say. I can simply write, because I like to write, because it's fun to write, and because it makes me happy.