Tag: human condition

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personal

Still ever the skillest and killest, Pt 3

An awful gift

It’s funny, when I first met Mouse, she was arm-wrestling a girl in yet another bar. At least, that’s one of the earliest entries where I introduced her to you for the first time.

In any case, she ended up arm-wrestling another girl at Pac’s bday at Solas as well. She won.

After I had my little outdoor escapade with the woman from the bar, I went back to Solas but when I returned, mosta my friends had left.

Since I knew the bouncers, they just waved me and I quickly – well, as quickly as I could considering how snockered I was – went up to where we were all sitting because I remembered I left my camera at the table in our room.

Shockingly, it was still there.

New York’ll still surprise you from time-to-time, I think.

I’d just left and wanted to eat so I wandered around looking for food. This worked out because I ran into Mouse outside on the street.

She was stone cold sober because she was driving the old whip.

Asked her if she’d be willing to give me a lift to the station cause it was super late and she – hesitatingly – obliged.

Figure she could tell I was two sheets to the wind. She’s one of the few that can since I don’t turn red and I don’t act much different to most people.

It was nice being in the whip again; I thought of her and my dad and tried to remember if they met. They didn’t.

It was a short drive – just from 9th and 2nd to 14th and 7th. But along the way, she asked me something that sobered me up right fast.

Her: When we were together, you wanted to die. You were suicidal. But then…you said that you would stay for the boy. (pause) I didn’t understand why you wouldn’t live for me.

Our past conversations were always arguments, always. Lots of yelling and finger-pointing. And anger.

So much anger, from both of us.

This time, though, the way she said it – simply and plainly, no anger, no bitterness, just…simply and resigned – cut through my intoxicated brain.

If I had a space to crawl into to hide, man, I woulda.

Me: (struggling) I don’t know. I was really messed up then. (sighing) I’m so sorry for everything.

She countered – calmly again – that she was often in physical and  emotional pain when we were together. Yet she still helped me – and the kid – despite her own pain. Instead of doing the same and helping her, I was trying to think of ways to kill myself.

The bad thing about being able to forget things is that when you remember them, it’s like you’re experiencing it for the first time. I saw exactly the moment she brought up, as if I was watching it unfold for the first time.

Like Athena in Zeus’s head, that memory grew and, like Zeus, if I coulda, I woulda grabbed a hammer to bash it out.

Honestly, I woulda much preferred she screamed at me. Much.

She pulled up to the station, I stepped out, and she drove away.

Wish I could tell you I said something terribly charming or clever before I left. But I didn’t. For someone never at a loss for words, there I was.

It’s been four years since we were together. I was sleepwalking through life when I met her. Wish I found a way to wake up before she left.

Then again, I wish a lotta things.

I’m still ever the skillest and killest with my deadly weapons and I’m always armed and dangerous.

It’s a truly awful gift.

Him: (out of the blue) I wish I had a sibling.
Me: What?! (deep breath) I’m sorry, kid. I…
Him: It’s ok, papa. I just wish…
Me: (interrupting) I know. We wish a lotta things. I wish that too.

Location: on 79th Street, trying to explain why to him
Mood:
Music: you want nothing in return, I feel guilty (Spotify)
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Still ever the skillest and killest, Pt 2

It’s my life that’s funny

It was Pac’s birthday the other night and he wanted to have something at Solas, as our usual tradition, so I set it up.

Coincidentally, the following picture showed up on my feed on FB the same day.

Again, there’s been a ton of weird coincidences around me lately, although, really, it was for his birthday four years ago, so it wasn’t entirely unexpected.

Mouse was going to be there this year as well. We’ve not communicated in a while. It’s funny because she and I were two totally different people when that picture was taken.

The moment I arrived, shots were being passed around. The joint was packed – even Tom from Scenic Fights and Katrina showed up.

Pac was having a grand time from the moment he arrived to the moment he stumbled out the door home.

Early on, was able to take some clear pics…

…but, as the night went on, my pics got worse and worse because there was alcohol everywhere…

…so my pics started ending up like this.

Seriously, everywhere.

Met a woman named Jenna at the bar who wanted to come into Pac’s (private) party but I felt that would be rude to Mouse so I told her she couldn’t.

Besides…

Her: …26. You?
Me: (laughing)
Her: (laughing as well) What’s so funny?
Me: My life, darling. Lovely meeting you, reallly.

But there was also a dude that was pestering me all night – I tried to hint that I wasn’t gay – but he kept randomly showing up until Mouse brought him over to sit with us, so I had to leave.

This is Katrina, who is NOT the girl I’m talking about below – and whoever took this shot was way drunker than I.

A lotta of the night was blur. At one point I was outside with another drunk woman who had to pee. Like, right then and there.

Me: We can go back to Solas, you know.
Her: I’m going right here, between the cars.
Me: Wait, what?! (she does so) Welp, this is a new level I’ve unlocked. (later) I’ll join you. Stand in front of me…

In my defense, she had lovely eyes, I had a lot to drink, and she was very convincing.

There’s more but this is getting long and I’m writing it on a train pulling into Penn Station, so I’ll continue it later on this week.

Location: on a train just outside Plainfield, NJ, writing this and tomorrow’s entry
Mood: guilty
Music: should have fallen out of love with you by now (Spotify)
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Still ever the skillest and killest, Pt 1

Burying dead things

It’s been an odd week.

Some relatively recent friends (formally) exited my Venn Diagram while others came back for a visit.

Years ago, the Devil told me, “We’re not friends. We’re friendly, but we’re not friends. There’s a difference. Don’t get it twisted, kid.”

Found myself saying similar those exact words to someone else at a Japanese restaurant this past week and – for a moment, at least – I was my old self again.

Me: For what it’s worth, it was mature of you to reach out to me to talk. I never woulda myself because it’s not in my nature.
Him: (slowly nodding) I only know you after Alison…died. I’m still getting used to who you really are.
Me: Gotta be honest, I don’t care. But, our interests are aligned: What you want and what I want are the same. Let’s just get the job done. Whatever personal feelings we have towards the other are irrelevant. (later) To be clear, I felt I owed you a debt. I consider the debt paid – in full. I don’t owe you shit. But, it cut both ways, you don’t owe me shit either. I just wanna come in, do my shit, and leave. We’re both professionals, let’s act as such.
Him: As skilled as you are with a knife, you cut better with words than anyone I know.

It was perfectly eloquent and cruel, but I suppose it was true and I deserved it.

After all, he’s right. I’m ever the skillest with my sharp objects, the killest with my blunt instruments.

Fuck it. I’m getting tired of apologizing for and hiding who and what I am.

A woman I dated briefly dropped me a line earlier this month and then again this week.

She made me laugh.

And then Rain hit me up to chat about stuff. Oddly, someone just asked me earlier today if he and I were still in contact.

There’s definitely something weird in the air. In any case, it was good catching up with him.

Me: Jesus Christ – you have hair! And it’s grey!
Him: Man, you look exactly the same. I can’t believe you still have all your hair and it’s black.
Me: I’m as surprised as you are.

We got onto the topic of buying some grass-fed beef together because…of course we did.

Weirder still, a girl I met on the train three years ago randomly dropped me a line recently as well.

What on earth is going on?

It’s was Pac’s birthday this past weekend.

Had a hangover for the first time in over a decade but I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow.

Location: earlier today, my kitchen, baking two dozen cookies and a pan of lasagna for my favourite tiny human
Mood: Same as the song
Music: Well, fuck ’em, fuck ’em, fuck ’em all (Spotify)
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Old lions

Parenting’s hard

Before I went out with RE Mike, I picked up the kid from school and he wasn’t his usual indefatigably happy self because of his black eye.

Him: Some of the kids were making fun of me. (sadly) They called me hamburger face. I didn’t like that. I asked them to stop but they didn’t. (sighs)
Me: You can’t control what other kids do or say, but you can control how you react to these things. Do you know their names?
Him: No.
Me: People that you don’t know that are mean shouldn’t matter to you. Don’t care so much about people and things that don’t matter. Now, go play.
Her: (woman overhearing my conversation after he ran off) That was really good advice.
Me: Thanks. Parenting’s hard, isn’t it?
Her (nodding) So hard.

If you don’t have a kid, it’s difficult to explain how much it wears on a parent to have a sad kid; and this kid is rarely sad.

But when he is, I’m bummed all day.

While I was out with RE Mike, I mentioned the fact that I studied weapons fighting for just about as long as we’ve known each other.

He was totally shocked because I never once mentioned it.

It’s funny, people think that because I have a blog, my life’s an open book. In many ways, it is. But I also keep a lotta secrets.

There’s so much of my life I’ve not told you and I don’t think you’d believe if I told you anywho.

After all, some secrets are (quite) good and some are (quite) bad, but all are special things.

The next morning, he texted me the following – the link is to Scenic Fights:

Anywho, after I picked the boy up late from RE Mike’s pad, we took the long walk to the west side to grab the train home.

Him: I’m scared.
Me: Why?
Him: It’s so dark and people are so loud.
Me: It’s fine, you’re with me and I won’t let anything or anyone hurt you.
Him: You’re not scared?
Me: Everyone’s scared sometimes. But I’m not right now. Because these people are all like sheep, or – at most – like wolves, and papa’s neither.
Him: What are you then?
Me: (laughing) Uncle Pac thinks papa’s an old lion. That sounds about right. And lions – even old ones – aren’t afraid of sheep or wolves.

Although, to be fair, I’m like a weird old lion…

Location: West 77th and Columbus on a conference call trying to sound cavalier
Mood: parental
Music: devil’s on my shoulder stirring up trouble (Spotify)
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Precisely the opposite

Weapons are force multipliers

For those of you that have been reading this blog for a while, you may have noticed a recurring theme, which is, What does it mean to be human?

It seems like a silly question but we’re all essentially imperfect; physically, mentally, and emotionally, we’re all lacking in something that makes us fully realized human beings.

On that note, I had an interesting exchange with a young visitor at the gym the other day.

Him: I never knew that there was such a thing like knife and stick fighting, I just thought people picked these things up and used them.
Me: All fighting is skill-based. Some require more skill than others. The argument against weapons fighting is that it’s unnatural, because we’re not always armed, and I think that’s precisely the opposite of reality.
Him: What do you mean?
Me: It’s empty-hand fighting that’s unnatural; the nature of being human is that we use tools.

Imagine you’re alone in your home and you hear a noise in your living room. Do you just saunter out to check things out or do you grab a bat, stick, or lamp first?

Or, google any uprising and lemme know how many unarmed people you see? Or any mob action, including the January 6th riot – how many people are completely unarmed?

The nature of human violence is that we want something – anything – in our hands, in times of stress. Because we all instinctively know that weapons are force multipliers.

Fighting someone without any type of weapon is unnatural, precisely the opposite of what most people think.

And that’s why I think everyone should have some weapons training.

Here’s the kicker: If you’re unarmed, you don’t get to decide if you’re in a weapons fight or not. Only the armed person gets to decide that.

On a somewhat related point, we had to cancel the children’s classes at our gym because the kid’s coach we were using got an offer we couldn’t match.

So, I signed up the boy to the local gym around me.

I’m probably a bit biased but…man, he’s so damn cute, I can’t stand it.

This is in addition to alla his other afterschool activities like swimming. He’s the lime green blur in the photo below.

Trying to get into the new rhythm of the school year. One unexpectedly sad thing I realized was that every year for the past three years is that I’m the only emergency contact for him.

I had someone as a second contact when he was pre-4K but that was a long time ago.

It’s annoying, these little heartaches that randomly crop up.

On a much happier note, while I was there at the gym signing the kid up for his new class, this young man – very excitedly – waved to me:

Him: I’m so sorry, but are you Logan Lo?
Me: (laughing) Yes! Do you watch Scenic Fights?
Him: YES! I’m a subscriber! This is so cool!
Me: For me too!

I’m a solid D-list celebrity at this point, now.

Eh, I’ll take it.

Location: out in the village with RE Mike
Mood: concerned
Music: I can’t do this again, do this again (Spotify)
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Two Pizza Joints, an Indian Restaurant, and a Park – Pt 3

The Cavalier’s dream

After Blond Banker left, I walked past the station and ended up walking down that, somewhat familiar, street. Vaguely remembered how to get to the GBA’s old pad.

Last I heard, she had a kid or two and is living in the City with them and her fella.

But 20 years ago, she lived around here. Somewhere. And this was the street I walked down to get to her then pad.

Walked by this Indian restaurant and remember that this was maybe our first date place? I don’t remember.

My memory’s like Swiss cheese these days. But it was definitely this restaurant where we went on one of our earlier dates. I think she paid.

Had just bought my apartment a little before I met her – maybe a year or two earlier?

Was looking into possibly getting a second place at the Majestic Theatre Condos, which was a theatre that just turned into condos. Don’t think it was open yet at the time.

But back to my story; I was still kinda lit so I just went with my instincts and ended up outside Van Vorst Park, which is where we used to hang out from time-to-time.

Couldn’t – for the life of me – remember which apartment building was hers but I knew I was on the right street.

Oddly, I remember the address of a nearby building, 285 Varick Street. This is because the owner wanted to sell us the building, which had a deeded parking spot, for $800,000.

It seems she sold it for $895,000 back in 2006 and it’s selling again for a cool $2 million now.

Wonder what my life would be like right now if GBA and I bought the building and just stayed there. We’d probably be divorced.

Because we weren’t each other’s person, obviously.

Never did figure out which one was her exact building. That’s 285 Varick Street, above, not her actual old pad.

I taught myself how to forget because of her and it seems that it’s worked like gangbusters.

Still, I do remember that, the week I met her, there was a snowstorm when I’d gone to visit her for the first time and we ended up getting snowed in that weekend.

I remember that we had a snowball fight but I don’t remember much else.

For this entry, I dug up a picture someone (her roomie?) took of us that day. I was 29, almost exactly two decades ago.

Have almost no pictures of her because I wasn’t yet into photography and no one’s camera on their phones were worth a damn.

There’s a song by Pink Floyd called, The Gunner’s Dream that has the lines:

Floating down, through the clouds
Memories come rushing up to meet me now
But in the space between the heavens
And the corner of some foreign field
I had a dream

Suppose that’s what I was expecting: To walk down the street and have my memories come rushing up to meet me.

All I could remember was that she had two cats. I forgot their names. She liked scarves and adrenaline. Struggled to remember anything else.

See, when I decide to do something, I go all out. I wanted to forget her and she’s almost completely gone from my head.

We had something-a-lot-like-love but not actual love.

Because true love is a self-proving thing; it either stays with you forever, or you struggle to remember anything you did together.

Spoke to my therapist about it today.

Her: But, it’s what you wanted isn’t it? To forget her, completely and move on?
Me: Yes, but I thought maybe they’d still be there, somewhere in my head. My memories.
Her: But it worked, didn’t it? You forgot her so was able to move on and meet Alison.
Me: Yes, but, now I’m forgetting Alison. I’m forgetting so much.
Her: You’re surviving. That’s why you do it. Because it works.
Me: Suppose you’re right. But what are we, if we’re not our memories?

In any case, I walked back to the station and headed home. I felt like I visited a ghost. It didn’t feel good, at all.

Started remembering things of a friend from years ago who disappeared. And nuthin made sense.

In the first entry of this brief series, wrote that my past came to visit me and I went to visit my past.

Suppose it would be more accurate to say that my past came to visit me and I went to visit someone else’s possible past.

Because, while I know it was mine, it didn’t feel like mine at all.

My memories are all copies-of-a-copy-of-a-copy.

Just realized now that, perhaps, I’m a copy and the real me is out there somewhere.

Man, wouldn’t that be something?

Location: Penn Station this afternoon, to go get my treasure
Mood: fake
Music: Night after night, going ’round and ’round my brain, his dream is driving me insane (Spotify)
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I was incandescent

Belonging to someone

My brother, and another friend, once remarked that a lotta the people we’ve casually dated are still friendly with us and I asked him why he thought that was.

Him: (shrugging) We’re useful.

As always, he’s right. He and I have alla these explicit skills (lawyer/doctor) plus rando skills that are useful.

Plus, we both like helping people.

On that note, another woman from my past reached out to me for my legal opinion on something.

Gotta say, it was one of the more interesting legal scenarios I’ve come across…

Me: Whoa! That’s…insane.
Her: I was incandescent.
Me: I have to write that down.

…and I gave her my opinion…

Me: You do know why they did this, don’t you?
Her: Why?
Me: Because they thought they could get away with it. Don’t let them.
Her: But, what’s the upside for me?
Me: Cash money, yo. Plus, you’re stopping them.

…and that was that.

We then caught up because it’s been a while since we chatted.

She’s on the dating apps but she also gets so many inquiries that she ends up just not opening the app because they give her stress.

Me: Man, women’s and men’s dating problems are so different.
Her: I think I’m just going to stop altogether.
Me: (shrugging) I dunno, you might meet a gem like me.
Her: (incredulous) I have so many thoughts, I don’t know which one to go for. I need a drink.
Me: I can get behind that. Let’s do it.

We ended up chatting for a while.

Her: What about you?
Me: (laughing) Well, I just recently went on a date and called her by an ex’s name, so, yeah, it’s going great. What about you?
Her: I have over 1,000 messages on one app. It just stresses me out.
Me: You need a dating manager to handle alla that for you.

Somehow, we got onto the topic of the two of us, which was uncomfortable because there were so many layers to it.

And, she actually said to me what Alison said to me on our first date.

Her: (sighing) Oh, Logan. You’re so dumb.

Ended up cutting off the conversation early because of that and for other personal reasons that are unimportant here.

But she wrote me afterward to tell me that all was ok, which I appreciated.

Relationships are hard, even when they’re great. Add on things like trauma and such and it’s just a mess.

I wish I was her person. I wish I was a lotta people’s…person. But, I suppose I’m still looking for something I can’t put into words.

It drove Caligirl nuts when I used to say that to her; she thought I was making it up. But it’s always been true for me.

Still, it’s a bit different now. See, I used to belong to someone.

And then I thought maybe I belonged to someone else, but – it turned out – she didn’t belong to me.

And I miss belonging to someone that belongs to me.

I’m a guard without enough people I love to guard. And one that failed his last charge.

Location: the basement of my brain again
Mood: searching
Music: save me from my brain (Spotify)
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Cascading consequences

Schadenfreude

Me: You’re not thinking of the cascading consequences.
Her: What are they?
Me: Let’s say you meet someone today. You chat, etc. You meet up in, say, September. Figure like six months of casual dating and you two lock it down, it’s now March 2023. You’re 35 then. You guys date for two years before you decide you’re right for each other, it’s now 2025, and you’re 37. You get engaged for a year, you’re now 38. You want to be a young married couple for a year without kids, making you 39. Then you decide you wants kids and try. Figure the first year isn’t great, and then you get pregnant, you’re now 41 with a kid. That’s even assuming the guy wants a kid in the first place.
Her: Well, now I’m stressed out even more!
Me: Sorry. All I’m saying is that you obviously still love him and he loves you. Just have him join my gym and that COVID weight will come right off. 15 pounds isn’t the end of the world.
Her: You just like him because he’s rich.
Me: See – I think of the cascading consequences. Have him join the gym. Shame he doesn’t have a sister.

Trump’s in alla this legal trouble right now, least of which is because of the FBI raid on his house.

I think most people would say that he’s in a quandary of his own making, and that’s true, but not in the way most people think.

See, he and the other GOPers have always needed a boogeyman to rail against and they picked Hillary and Biden to play that role.

For her part, Hillary was supposed to have mishandled classified information/documents. So, when Trump was president in 2018, he signed into law a bill that made mishandling and keeping classified information a felony.

I suspect he did this to have the chance to actually “lock her up,” without fully thinking of the cascading consequences of his actions, knowing that he was a sloppy and relatively stupid man.

Check that, knowing himself, he didn’t even fully think of the direct consequences of his actions.

Add this action to McCarthy refusing to have GOP members on the Jan6th committee and we see a group of people that barely consider the direct consequences of their actions, let alone the cascading ones.

It’s with more than a little schadenfreude that I sit back and watch alla this unfold.

Couldn’t happen to a more deserving fella.

Location: in front of a portfolio of work. What have I done?
Mood: busy
Music: Relax, relax, relapse, it’s a new day (Spotify)
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Hook me up!

Circle

Like I said, people are always trying to fix me up with someone. I usually agree just to be polite and, besides, you never know.

Maybe I’ll be set up with Mary Jane Watson, who Peter kept avoiding for months. This is what MJ said when they finally met:

A mom from my kid’s class has been running me through all her friends because she’s just a sweetheart.

And, because I figure, compared to what’s out there, I’m a catch – the bar’s pretty low, lemme tell ya.

She actually got me in touch with a producer from NBC for a segment called, Hoda and Jenna: Hook me Up!

I had a nice talk with the producer but I decided it wasn’t for me. I did tell them to keep me in mind for anything in the future.

Anywho, the segment I woulda been on ran today.

The woman, Michelle, seems like a nice lady, just not my type, so it’s good I said no.

I’ll let you know if I show up on it ever.

Speaking of dating, the Counselor gone but the Acrobat’s still (kinda) around. It’s all complex.

It’s a shame because the Counselor was cool, pretty, and smart as a whip.

On the flip side, I’ve been chatting with this one woman who seems lovely but super lonely.

Her: I don’t know. I just never connected with anyone. Not anyone worth connecting with, I guess.
Me: I get that.

I’m always surprised at just how many lonely people there are in the world.

In some ways, I feel a little lucky that I didn’t have friends growing up because it’s kinda like that old Edie Brickell song that goes:

Being alone is the
Is the best way to be
When I’m by myself
It’s the best way to be
When I’m all alone
It’s the best way to be
When I’m by myself
Nobody else can say goodbye

Legit. I believe that.

An old friend of mine just completely disappeared. Like Will Hunting at the end of Good Will Hunting.

Except I doubt it was to see about a girl.

And I’m a bit jealous. Part of me wants to do that.

Maybe someday.

Location: earlier today, being shown a broken wall where my son had to be cut out of on the Upper West Side. He was fine.
Mood: pensive
Music: I quit. I give up (Spotify)
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Still speaking Martian, Pt 2

Lovely imposter syndrome

It was Rain’s birthday recently, so if you see him, wish him a good one?

Years ago, he told me about this comedy skit where there’s this guy that has a speech impediment where he can only speak in a sarcastic voice, which makes his life totally miserable and lonely.

Rain told me about it and then I told you about it.

Finally found it, if you’re interested.

It’s not like I didn’t want to have friends.

I just talked like a weird 49-year-old Chinese-American man with a Queens accent…when I was 13. That was my speech impediment.

Met a pretty girl once in 7th Grade. Told her she looked lovely. And she and her friends called me a weirdo and worse.

As an aside, I say lovely all the goddamn time now.

In junior high, the closest I had to friends were a girl named Julia and a guy named Phil. I’ll tell you about them someday but, not for a while because I wasn’t exactly kind to them.

And the reason was because I started making friends here and there.

I did this by reading books like How to Win Friends and Influence People and Think and Grow Rich.

Books are really amazing things. But I digress.

By the time I got to high school, I (kinda) started figuring out how to talk like everyone else. I always had a Queens accent but used words like lovely and idiosyncratic all the time – studying for the SATs didn’t help matters.

In many ways, I always felt the weight of imposter syndrome – as if someone people would figure out that I was super mechanical at being social.

Step 1: Introduce yourself by looking someone in the eye.
Step 2: Shake their hand.
Step 3: Repeat their name.
Step 4: Smile.

And so on.

Yet, for the most part, people didn’t figure out that I was a ghost in a machine, pretending to be human.

The girl I called “lovely” was named Stella.

She wrote in my junior high school yearbook that I shoulda asked her to the JHS prom. She went with a guy named Edwin instead. It was junior high school where I slimed down and started dressing better.

It was also then I learned that if you look good, people will talk to you, even if you talk like a weird 49-year-old Chinese-American man with a thick Queens accent.

Hence my being unkind to Julia and Phil. That is one of the earliest of my 10,000 regrets.

A much smaller regret was that, for years afterward, I wished that (a) I didn’t tell Stella she was “lovely,” and (b) I asked her out to the JHS prom.

Didn’t realize that I was speaking Martian while everyone else was speaking English.

I wanted desperately to be understood, like that guy in the video above, but I didn’t know how.

I’m bringing alla this up because the two arguments I had recently have been on my mind.

Both were with people that mattered to me in some way and in both, I couldn’t make myself understood. And I suppose the same was true in reverse.

35 years after Stella, they were speaking English and I was speaking Martian. Or vice versa.

One ended with me being told to leave in the rain, the other, being told to get out at a desolate intersection after midnight.

Everything I said was construed in the worst possible way and there was no way I could make myself understood.

I always say that we’re the prisoners of our 14-year-old selves. In both arguments, I felt like I was telling Stella she was lovely and all she heard was that I was weird.

Every so often, we feel the weight of the chains we forge for ourselves as kids.

I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. 

This is where I sat, waiting for the library to open.

In the end, the question really is, how much do we want to be understood and how much do we want to understand someone else.

These days, for me, most people aren’t worth the effort. I’d rather just be with my (e)books again.

But some people are worth the effort, even if you realize it too late.

Spoke to one of the women that helped me survive 2017 recently.

It wasn’t – at all – what you would call a “good” talk.

But she also didn’t tell me to go fuck myself, so I suppose that’s a net positive.

Location: West 79th Street, giving the boy a hug and telling him I’d see him soon
Mood: mute
Music: you do not need to speak (Spotify)
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