Day Four: The Kitchen

(Just a moment)

Young Turk, yet another musician, is fussing with food and the fridge, he's asked if I'm sated and I'm not, but I'm not hungry for food. We've come from our respective work days, our projects overlapping and coinciding, our friendship growing, his flirting evenly spread between every girl on the team.

I ask him, "Any luck finding a well-heeled cougar who needs a pool boy?"

"It's an ongoing process..."

"I'll let you know when my financial statements come in."

"I'll look you up when I'm tall enough to ride this ride."

He touches me each time he passes, his hand on my shoulder or in my hair. I type away, must write, must write, thirty days. Another long post? Another angst-y piece? The porn was made last night but isn't finished being written up...

Young Turk is an excellent cook. He sets out his tools on the counter, I hear the click of the cutting board, the slap of a filet of something thin and wet. A drawer, a knife unsheathed and the sound of the blade in the air and the sharpener.

Every hair on the back of my neck stands up and my nipples harden.

Well...

...if I stay until 6, the breakfast buffet will be up when I get back...

OK, ok...

...but I absolutely *have* to get back to my own hotel by 3AM.

Fragments

This is when I think of him:

When I brush my teeth
Eating an avocado
In the cities of New York, C_____, N______, Chicago, Louisville and Ann Arbor
In the state of Mississippi
At rest areas
In sex shops
While driving long distances
While shaving my ass
While brushing my hair
While toweling off after a shower
As I wake up
As I go to sleep

***

Looking across the table at Beautiful Girl and Zurich, her skin so smooth and soft, his eyes so blue, her laugh so lovely, his face so open and unguarded (rare). I sniff the beers they try, none of them suit me, Miss Half-OJ-Half-Ginger-Ale-Please. I will see him soon, outside of her company. I will see her soon, outside of his company. I will see later but still soon my best friend, a continent away. My best friend has also recently broken up, finished by her get-over-the-previous-bad-relationship-boy, finished the contents of her liquor cabinet and the contents of her medicine cabinet in one go, not enough to do the job. I call her, I tell her, wait for me. We’ll bring boltcutters and jump from Hornsey Lane Bridge together, the city spread out before us. I am only half joking, only half cheering her up. That’s the half that would never choose plummet-to-a-sharp-stop as the means. Nor guns, gas, water, automobile. Not sure enough, too messy, too protracted, can’t stand not being able to breathe. (Might as well live, right DP?)

I’ve never been drunk.

I’ve never been high.

What I am is addicted to drama. Addicted to mattering, meaning, having the cock that tells me so.

Maybe coke would be less draining. Probably more expensive. Maybe not.


***

I am in the company of others 24 hours a day, and have been since New Year’s. Down side: hard to carve out time to write, to connect with lovers, to think, to be all moody. Up side: hard to carve out time to be all moody. Hard to inconvenience others with feelings, tamp them down, bottle them up.

I am sharing a bed with Beautiful Girl – in the night, I lie with my head next to hers, smelling the scent of her face cream. I am too tired, too tiny, too alone to wrap my body around hers, throw my arm over her shoulders, place my hand on her belly. But even so, her smile is the first thing I see in the morning. I head for [the workplace] with a carload of people, we go inside, we work together in a way that makes me remember how I love my work. Power Girl is there beside me, and Beautiful Girl, and Secret Scientist and Hairline Boy, and all of us are focused, intent, something larger than us is happening, something larger than can happen alone.

We share dinner together, passing back and forth to the salad bar, we cluster by the restrooms chatting in little groups. Zurich is heading out to meet a friend in the city, he hugs me, he leans in and whispers, “I’m not shooting myself in the foot am I? I’m not missing out on you-me time?” No, I tell him, this time, no time alone. Next week? Midwestern City? We make tentative plans.

I am ridiculously pleased.

I keep feeling like maybe I'd have more good days if I could sleep...

Coffee, Gentle Readers?

I will be in San Francisco this weekend. If you would like to meet for coffee, drop a line.

A note to those who care (thank you) - right now, the blog is about four days behind my actual life. This is a good morning, this is a good day - I can't swear there won't be another abyss (or at least a small fissure) but I have come through to the other side and things are much, much better. One more already-written bitter post to go, and then we'll all step forward together into the lovely fun world again.

I'll be holding my hand back for you still finding your own way.

Fragment

Eleven of us. Two on this bed, two on that, several sprawling on the floor, the suitcase bench, the armchair, lounging against the doorway to the bath. The jacketed waiter has brought glasses on a linen-draped tray and the new guitar shimmers, pickups gleaming and the body gently aglow. We turn down the ipod and the amp, he plays unplugged - "Dark Lady, hellish angel," "out of time..." The lyrics fade out the open window, his cellphone glows as he resurrects the words.

Later there is the story of the man we all know who climbed out the window and then, locked out, emerged from the fire escape into another room, padding past sleeping guests through to the hall, the elevator, security later arriving at his room to see him in his hotel robe, covered in fire escape grime and leaves, 'can't imagine who that could have been, don't you chaps havce decent security?'

At two we turn to pumpkins, sleepy hugs goodbye, sleeping on the short drive, leaving, having left.