Sorry for the delay in updating the blog but I've been super busy prepping Breaking Up With Brooklyn's new abode on its very own domain of which I am now the proud owner.
Seeing as I am brand spanking new to the world of WordPress and its innumerable functions, the content is not completely moved over just yet but pretty soon this blog will be re-directed to a much cooler space. As a result of this transfer, I will be editing some of the current content to downplay some of the more questionable admissions. The last thing I want is for people to be hurt by way of my words - and the truth is that although I change all names for the purposes of anonymity, there are many many identifying features that can easily be pointed back to my real identity should somebody I know stumble upon these stories. I'm not so much concerned with folks learning about my exploits as I am them learning secrets of my loved ones, current or past, without their consent. That said, get your last fixins of smut in while you still can - cause the filters are coming soon.
I'm pretty proud of myself with the shift over to WordPress. I've been playing with various themes and editing them to make them a bit more to my liking. In only a week or so I've picked up a lot of the basics with respect to editing the php files and the likes. Through the help of a great friend who is a master-of-all-things-wordpress (and then some), I'm starting to get a feel for the user interface, too. Blogger is cool and all, but the functionality is super-limited and if I'm going to take this Breaking Up With Brooklyn idea any further than where it is now I need to step into the current-times and rock out with my .. fucking filters!
Aside from all the computery stuff I'm trying to make work for me right now, I finally received the test results for my entrance exam to the Radiology program I tested for weeks ago. I PASSED!! Had I not already decided, through various research and just a general gut instinct, that RN is actually the route I'm going to take, the next steps in my admission process to the Radiology program would've been an observation and then general admission board interview. I have no doubt that I'd have done wonderfully in both. The entrance exam was my biggest hurdle. When I began taking the practice tests I was scoring in the '4' percentile for the math sections (3 being lowest and 7 highest)- and the required passing percentile was a 5. My results told me that I passed the math sections in the high 6's. I damn near harassed everyone I knew to help me with the various math problems that I just couldn't grasp - and come test day I walked into the classroom with much more confidence than I'd had only a few weeks earlier... And, it paid off. I'm so proud of myself for not only following through with the exam, but ROCKING THAT SHIT!
I have a bunch of new posts to finish and will be releasing them shortly. Lots happening this weekend:
1. I would have been going to a wedding with Daniel and his family out in PA. Knowing where he is/what he's doing fucks with my head and I wish it didn't. I wonder whether or not he'll think of me, even once, during the ceremony or any of the romanticized portions of the evening... Probably not.
2. It's FLEET WEEK! God, I love a man in uniform - especially uniforms with white pants in which you can see just every lovely curve of that male body. F-i-l-t-e-r-i-n-g N-o-w!
Til later!
Friday, May 28, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
60 Minutes -
I am officially registered for fall semester 2010 as a matriculated college student.
Wow. Wow. I’m so excited, and proud of myself. This is going to be a long road ahead but it’s one I am actually honored to say I’ve worked hard to get on.
I went over to the school to finalize the actions this evening and the woman who helped me with my academic advisement was kind enough to push up my available registration date so that I had a better chance of obtaining the classes that worked best with my daytime work schedule. I rushed home and completed the necessary clicking-arounds to ensure that I be officially registered for two of the six pre-requisite courses I need to complete prior to entering my nursing curriculum elsewhere. Done deal, readers. Classes start September 11, 2010.
The bus ride home was an interesting one. My iphone battery went kaput after about 30 minutes of listening to music via the Pandora application. This made it impossible for me to drown out the sound of the two valley-girl like teeny bopping, squeaky voiced, bad-make up applied girls who were sitting behind me discussing some boy who was 31 and still a virgin. I will not enjoy the commute home from school each evening if this is what it is normally like. Car, now – please. Anyway, I was able to filter their squawking out while I looked out the window and I realized that this particular bus runs a route that could easily be associated to my entire life. It’s really rather unsettling when I sit down and think about it.
The timeline I was running in my mind in fact started prior to getting on the bus at all. As I entered the campus I looked around at all the youngish faces and remembered myself in this very same place at their age. I was enrolled here right out of High School. At the time of my first semester I was dating a boy named John. I wondered whether or not the bench in which we carved our names was still around. I didn’t check –and instead I walked the halls of the institution and took note of the other handful of ‘adults’ who looked like they were students and not professors. The number was small – and for a minute or so it fucked with my head but I reminded myself that there is no time like the present and what is important is that I am HERE.
The ride home brought me past not only my High School but my Junior High and my Public School as well. We rolled by the giant High School – no students outside hanging about the way they did during my tenure. I thought about the time I’d kissed Charlie, the hottest bad-ass in the school, right on that bench that was outside my bus window. The memory brought on countless other thoughts of boys I’d kissed and girls I’d had fights with. I thought about this one time that I was waiting for the bus at the very stop we were picking up passengers from and some older kids threw a rock out the back-emergency exit flappable windows that are a NYC MTA bus feature. The rock hit me square on the bridge of my nose and cut my face open.
We rolled through Gravesend. This is where the memories are most plentiful. The small stretch of area that this particular route covers in Gravesend somehow managed to cover two previous residences, my public school, the library I did my homework in every night as a child, and a stretch of concrete that was the coolest place in the world to hang out when I was a tween. The first apartment we passed on my way back home was actually the last apartment I lived in with my mother prior to moving out on my own. I remembered the time I walked in and found strangers in the house, and the time I came home to find my niece hysterical crying over a fight my mother and sister had gotten into over their drugs. This was definitely not a good period of my life. The second apartment we passed was the one I grew up in. We had a two bedroom walk-in, with brown shaggy carpet, an eat-in kitchen and a bathroom that was as pink as pink could be. Being that we were on the ground level, we had access to the back yard as well. There were two kids standing outside my old home – and they were playing some sort of ball. I remembered how my sister and I would play stoop ball on those steps – or box ball, a Brooklyn original, in the three concrete slabs outside of our front-door. A lot happened there in the 18 years I occupied that space. There were countless drug-riddled arguments and dramatized events, robberies, assaults, and the most vivid of all the memories, overdoses.
I clearly remember coming home from school one afternoon and walking through our long narrow living room to find the paramedics working on my mother. White foam fell down the sides of her mouth as she seized. I couldn’t have been older than 6. My mother would overdose a few more times throughout her opiate run – and then she graduated to crack.
I was lucky to have family members on my street. Two houses to my right lived my great – grandmother, a woman like no woman I’ve ever met. She was the rock on which I lay my head at night and know that all was going to be alright. Across the street and a few doors down was my maternal grandmother; a woman that never really accepted me because she didn’t like my father – and because I had a father and my sister didn’t. She died some years ago – and we never did really become fast-friends before that happened. Aunts, uncles, and cousins were never sparse growing up in Gravesend – and I thank god for that!
Driving down the main Avenue on which I spent many a night hanging out on street-corners and being a little asshole was a welcomed reprieve from the memories of a gloomy home life. The hang-out scene in Brooklyn back in the early 90’s was fierce. There were literally never less than 20 kids hanging out back then. We all knew each other and we all looked out for one and other. Fights were never real – and if two guys wound up getting into a tiff over some bullshit, they’d have a chance to settle it with the insurance that no one there would let anything truly BAD happen to each other. I miss those days – eating sunflower seeds and drinking Snapple iced teas while listening to old-school hip-hop out of one of the older kid’s car radios. Us girls would hang in little cliques. We’d flirtatiously look at the boys we were crushing on – and give the other girl-cliques dirty looks if we thought there may be an overlapping of admiration. It was a great time to be a kid in Brooklyn.
Public school memories are few and far between – and the bulk of them are bad enough that I’d rather not even get into them at this point. Let’s leave it at this: I was the daughter of known drug-addicts who wore hand-me-down clothes and had a problem with my eyes that resulted in my having to wear a patch half of the time…. Yes, I was a poor dirty pirate girl up until the age of 8 or so…..
We passed the neighborhood projects. Building 15, 14, 12 – and I was reminded of Louie Alonzo – I was his first kiss in Junior High. He lived in building 6 with his parents and 3 brothers. Our torrid love affair lasted three hours until I found out he tried to kiss another girl before kissing me. Fucking Latinos are players even at twelve years old… Damn them and their sexy boriquenness.
Onward we moved - my getting closer and closer to where I now call home. We drove through the neighborhood in which I lived prior to moving in with Daniel. It has only been around 9 months or so since I’ve been gone from there but the area looks even worse than it did when I was initially becoming disgusted with it. It’s a completely different world than what it was back in the day. Fully populated by an immigrant mainland Chinese population, the area is filthy. Store signs are half falling off of their canopies – and garbage is strewn all over the streets. Empty store after empty store passed by my window – and I felt a tinge of happiness to be gone from there even considering the circumstances under which I parted. My new area, although not too far from the old, feels much more like the good old days of Brooklyn.
My bus finally took its turn onto the Avenue I currently reside - and by this time I was less engaged in the memories of yesterday – The time-line was an interesting one. It was one that brought up feelings of sadness, shame, happiness, and confusion. It also allowed me to identify the fact that my drive to move up and out of this southern-Brooklyn territory is not at all unrealistic. My entire life was just chronologically recounted on a one-hour bus ride. If that doesn’t scream sheltered I don’t know what does.
Brooklyn… I love you, baby – but this break up is going to happen whether you like it or not.
Wow. Wow. I’m so excited, and proud of myself. This is going to be a long road ahead but it’s one I am actually honored to say I’ve worked hard to get on.
I went over to the school to finalize the actions this evening and the woman who helped me with my academic advisement was kind enough to push up my available registration date so that I had a better chance of obtaining the classes that worked best with my daytime work schedule. I rushed home and completed the necessary clicking-arounds to ensure that I be officially registered for two of the six pre-requisite courses I need to complete prior to entering my nursing curriculum elsewhere. Done deal, readers. Classes start September 11, 2010.
The bus ride home was an interesting one. My iphone battery went kaput after about 30 minutes of listening to music via the Pandora application. This made it impossible for me to drown out the sound of the two valley-girl like teeny bopping, squeaky voiced, bad-make up applied girls who were sitting behind me discussing some boy who was 31 and still a virgin. I will not enjoy the commute home from school each evening if this is what it is normally like. Car, now – please. Anyway, I was able to filter their squawking out while I looked out the window and I realized that this particular bus runs a route that could easily be associated to my entire life. It’s really rather unsettling when I sit down and think about it.
The timeline I was running in my mind in fact started prior to getting on the bus at all. As I entered the campus I looked around at all the youngish faces and remembered myself in this very same place at their age. I was enrolled here right out of High School. At the time of my first semester I was dating a boy named John. I wondered whether or not the bench in which we carved our names was still around. I didn’t check –and instead I walked the halls of the institution and took note of the other handful of ‘adults’ who looked like they were students and not professors. The number was small – and for a minute or so it fucked with my head but I reminded myself that there is no time like the present and what is important is that I am HERE.
The ride home brought me past not only my High School but my Junior High and my Public School as well. We rolled by the giant High School – no students outside hanging about the way they did during my tenure. I thought about the time I’d kissed Charlie, the hottest bad-ass in the school, right on that bench that was outside my bus window. The memory brought on countless other thoughts of boys I’d kissed and girls I’d had fights with. I thought about this one time that I was waiting for the bus at the very stop we were picking up passengers from and some older kids threw a rock out the back-emergency exit flappable windows that are a NYC MTA bus feature. The rock hit me square on the bridge of my nose and cut my face open.
We rolled through Gravesend. This is where the memories are most plentiful. The small stretch of area that this particular route covers in Gravesend somehow managed to cover two previous residences, my public school, the library I did my homework in every night as a child, and a stretch of concrete that was the coolest place in the world to hang out when I was a tween. The first apartment we passed on my way back home was actually the last apartment I lived in with my mother prior to moving out on my own. I remembered the time I walked in and found strangers in the house, and the time I came home to find my niece hysterical crying over a fight my mother and sister had gotten into over their drugs. This was definitely not a good period of my life. The second apartment we passed was the one I grew up in. We had a two bedroom walk-in, with brown shaggy carpet, an eat-in kitchen and a bathroom that was as pink as pink could be. Being that we were on the ground level, we had access to the back yard as well. There were two kids standing outside my old home – and they were playing some sort of ball. I remembered how my sister and I would play stoop ball on those steps – or box ball, a Brooklyn original, in the three concrete slabs outside of our front-door. A lot happened there in the 18 years I occupied that space. There were countless drug-riddled arguments and dramatized events, robberies, assaults, and the most vivid of all the memories, overdoses.
I clearly remember coming home from school one afternoon and walking through our long narrow living room to find the paramedics working on my mother. White foam fell down the sides of her mouth as she seized. I couldn’t have been older than 6. My mother would overdose a few more times throughout her opiate run – and then she graduated to crack.
I was lucky to have family members on my street. Two houses to my right lived my great – grandmother, a woman like no woman I’ve ever met. She was the rock on which I lay my head at night and know that all was going to be alright. Across the street and a few doors down was my maternal grandmother; a woman that never really accepted me because she didn’t like my father – and because I had a father and my sister didn’t. She died some years ago – and we never did really become fast-friends before that happened. Aunts, uncles, and cousins were never sparse growing up in Gravesend – and I thank god for that!
Driving down the main Avenue on which I spent many a night hanging out on street-corners and being a little asshole was a welcomed reprieve from the memories of a gloomy home life. The hang-out scene in Brooklyn back in the early 90’s was fierce. There were literally never less than 20 kids hanging out back then. We all knew each other and we all looked out for one and other. Fights were never real – and if two guys wound up getting into a tiff over some bullshit, they’d have a chance to settle it with the insurance that no one there would let anything truly BAD happen to each other. I miss those days – eating sunflower seeds and drinking Snapple iced teas while listening to old-school hip-hop out of one of the older kid’s car radios. Us girls would hang in little cliques. We’d flirtatiously look at the boys we were crushing on – and give the other girl-cliques dirty looks if we thought there may be an overlapping of admiration. It was a great time to be a kid in Brooklyn.
Public school memories are few and far between – and the bulk of them are bad enough that I’d rather not even get into them at this point. Let’s leave it at this: I was the daughter of known drug-addicts who wore hand-me-down clothes and had a problem with my eyes that resulted in my having to wear a patch half of the time…. Yes, I was a poor dirty pirate girl up until the age of 8 or so…..
We passed the neighborhood projects. Building 15, 14, 12 – and I was reminded of Louie Alonzo – I was his first kiss in Junior High. He lived in building 6 with his parents and 3 brothers. Our torrid love affair lasted three hours until I found out he tried to kiss another girl before kissing me. Fucking Latinos are players even at twelve years old… Damn them and their sexy boriquenness.
Onward we moved - my getting closer and closer to where I now call home. We drove through the neighborhood in which I lived prior to moving in with Daniel. It has only been around 9 months or so since I’ve been gone from there but the area looks even worse than it did when I was initially becoming disgusted with it. It’s a completely different world than what it was back in the day. Fully populated by an immigrant mainland Chinese population, the area is filthy. Store signs are half falling off of their canopies – and garbage is strewn all over the streets. Empty store after empty store passed by my window – and I felt a tinge of happiness to be gone from there even considering the circumstances under which I parted. My new area, although not too far from the old, feels much more like the good old days of Brooklyn.
My bus finally took its turn onto the Avenue I currently reside - and by this time I was less engaged in the memories of yesterday – The time-line was an interesting one. It was one that brought up feelings of sadness, shame, happiness, and confusion. It also allowed me to identify the fact that my drive to move up and out of this southern-Brooklyn territory is not at all unrealistic. My entire life was just chronologically recounted on a one-hour bus ride. If that doesn’t scream sheltered I don’t know what does.
Brooklyn… I love you, baby – but this break up is going to happen whether you like it or not.
Temptation is a bitch
Have you ever rode the train and noticed someone looking your way just a minute too long? What thoughts does this invoke in you?
For me it's usually one of two things: do I have some toilet paper sticking out of my pants or some other weird thing on my body? Or, is this person having sexual thoughts about me? The latter is only true of male commuters.
I've been told by a number of folks that the train is a huge breeding ground for sexual fantasy. I can see that. It's totally an uninterrupted vantage point of bodies gyrating in sync with the cars bounces and thrusts. Muscles move and curves accentuate. The train can be a pretty hot place if you allow it to be, in your mind. Or in reality if you're ballsy enough... It's fun, try it ;) -
Tonight I am riding the car to school for academic advisement and registration. Yay This is so exciting.
Exciting, too, is the man that is sitting across from me, unable to take his eyes off of my nude calves as they travel down into my chunky red heels. Summer in the city -
I see him watching me - and whenever I look over his way, his eye slightly wanders in an attempt to hide what he's doing. I move my calves, cross my legs and the likes. I want him to keep looking.
He does.
Does he know what I am doing? Mind-fuking him? Slowly and carefully with each soft movement I make, I am dancing with what I imagine to be his erect penis underneath that Brooklyn Industries messenger bag on his lap. Keep looking, baby... Keep looking.
A few seats away I see the largest pair of mens feet ever.
I am out of control today - And, a taste was all it took.
There may be something to this sexual addiction shit after all....
Fuck!
For me it's usually one of two things: do I have some toilet paper sticking out of my pants or some other weird thing on my body? Or, is this person having sexual thoughts about me? The latter is only true of male commuters.
I've been told by a number of folks that the train is a huge breeding ground for sexual fantasy. I can see that. It's totally an uninterrupted vantage point of bodies gyrating in sync with the cars bounces and thrusts. Muscles move and curves accentuate. The train can be a pretty hot place if you allow it to be, in your mind. Or in reality if you're ballsy enough... It's fun, try it ;) -
Tonight I am riding the car to school for academic advisement and registration. Yay This is so exciting.
Exciting, too, is the man that is sitting across from me, unable to take his eyes off of my nude calves as they travel down into my chunky red heels. Summer in the city -
I see him watching me - and whenever I look over his way, his eye slightly wanders in an attempt to hide what he's doing. I move my calves, cross my legs and the likes. I want him to keep looking.
He does.
Does he know what I am doing? Mind-fuking him? Slowly and carefully with each soft movement I make, I am dancing with what I imagine to be his erect penis underneath that Brooklyn Industries messenger bag on his lap. Keep looking, baby... Keep looking.
A few seats away I see the largest pair of mens feet ever.
I am out of control today - And, a taste was all it took.
There may be something to this sexual addiction shit after all....
Fuck!
Death Trinity
Every day when I wake and check my e-mails and social networking accounts, I’m either met with happy thoughts, annoyances, or tragic news. Yesterday it was tragedy times two.
I noticed my father had posted a Rest in Peace onto our mutual friend Francois’ page. Some years ago Francois was diagnosed with Cirrhosis, a disease my father, too, suffers from. Like my dad, he underwent various treatment options which included holistic medicine, dietary restrictions and finally pharmaceutical intervention by means of a drug called Interferon, an extremely potent anti-viral agent that is known to rip you to shreds prior to making a smidgen of a difference for the better. Patients who undergo Interferon treatment are often on their last legs and it is through the administration of this intravenous drug that they seek solace. There are various psychiatric and physical side effects that come along with its implementation – and it is not all that uncommon to hear of suicide attempts or addiction relapse while on treatment.
Francois didn’t go by either of these means. He was on a transplant list and time ran out. My father’s interferon treatment proved successful some years ago. He was being treated not for the later stages of Cirrhosis like Francois, but for Hepatitis C, which both he and my mother have as a result of intravenous drug-use – and/or possible intercourse. It’s hard to tell when you’re sharing needles AND having sex.
Later in the day I called my father to check in and see how he was feeling in the wake of his buddy’s death. They were a close knit team he and Francois. They’d often hang out together, go to dinners and do things boys like to do, like play racquetball and things of this nature. It’s never easy to lose a friend. “Bad day, Kitty… Bad day… Just got another call that Greg died this morning, too.” – I was a little confused. Greg who? Greg from our old block in Gravesend?? My father clarified it for me,“Greg – the guy that helped me move you out of the apartment with Daniel”
I’d only met Greg once – he seemed like a nice enough guy and he was there to help me during a time that I felt pretty alone in the grand scheme of things. He and my father joked around a bunch about breaking Daniel’s giant flat screen TV as a little going away present and at the time it really annoyed me. I believe in a lady making a graceful exit. Looking back, though – I can see where it comes from. My father’s little girl was hurting and where else aside from a punch to the nose could a man hurt another man but their expensive lavish electronics cache. Thanks, pop!
Greg’s body was found in a basement of a housing project in Brooklyn. Overdose. Everyone in the meetings he attended with my father up until his demise knew him to be a recovering heroin addict but this particular housing project he was found in is notorious for crack so who the hell knows. It’s just a sad scene all around.
I told my father that I’m sure he didn’t want to hear it but these events should have him stepping back and taking a look at the choices he’s made recently that have allowed him to be here another day. “Da, I know we could all go at a moments notice but I think this is sort of a spiritual way of the world letting you know you’re supposed to be here. Both of those kinds of death could have easily been yours” –
“I know, Kitty. I know”.
I’m truly happy my father has decided to move onward with his life in a positive manner. I hope – and I do guess I sort of pray that he continues on to uphold a drug-free life. It makes a world of difference for me. A girl needs her dad. A girl needs her mom, too – but I’ve always had a tighter relationship with my father if for no other reason than the fact that I inherited his intellect and sarcastic nature.
They say death comes in threes – and aside from hearing the news of a member of Slipknot passing on, I’m yet to hear of the final part to this trinity. On the train last night, however, I did sit next to a dude who was wearing the same cologne as my ex boyfriend who has been gone from this world since 2003.
I miss him.
When I took my seat against the window and facing the direction the train was traveling in, the bouquet didn’t immediately hit me. It wasn’t until a minute or two later when I was already engrossed in my novel that I caught the whiff. ¬I felt the sides of my mouth curl up into a sweet smile reminiscent of waking up and falling asleep next to that same scent for the better part of five years on an intermittent basis. Perhaps in an attempt to intoxicate myself once more with the heady scent of what once represented mad passion, I took a deep breath in, swallowing every possible particle of air around me.
I miss him.
I noticed my father had posted a Rest in Peace onto our mutual friend Francois’ page. Some years ago Francois was diagnosed with Cirrhosis, a disease my father, too, suffers from. Like my dad, he underwent various treatment options which included holistic medicine, dietary restrictions and finally pharmaceutical intervention by means of a drug called Interferon, an extremely potent anti-viral agent that is known to rip you to shreds prior to making a smidgen of a difference for the better. Patients who undergo Interferon treatment are often on their last legs and it is through the administration of this intravenous drug that they seek solace. There are various psychiatric and physical side effects that come along with its implementation – and it is not all that uncommon to hear of suicide attempts or addiction relapse while on treatment.
Francois didn’t go by either of these means. He was on a transplant list and time ran out. My father’s interferon treatment proved successful some years ago. He was being treated not for the later stages of Cirrhosis like Francois, but for Hepatitis C, which both he and my mother have as a result of intravenous drug-use – and/or possible intercourse. It’s hard to tell when you’re sharing needles AND having sex.
Later in the day I called my father to check in and see how he was feeling in the wake of his buddy’s death. They were a close knit team he and Francois. They’d often hang out together, go to dinners and do things boys like to do, like play racquetball and things of this nature. It’s never easy to lose a friend. “Bad day, Kitty… Bad day… Just got another call that Greg died this morning, too.” – I was a little confused. Greg who? Greg from our old block in Gravesend?? My father clarified it for me,“Greg – the guy that helped me move you out of the apartment with Daniel”
I’d only met Greg once – he seemed like a nice enough guy and he was there to help me during a time that I felt pretty alone in the grand scheme of things. He and my father joked around a bunch about breaking Daniel’s giant flat screen TV as a little going away present and at the time it really annoyed me. I believe in a lady making a graceful exit. Looking back, though – I can see where it comes from. My father’s little girl was hurting and where else aside from a punch to the nose could a man hurt another man but their expensive lavish electronics cache. Thanks, pop!
Greg’s body was found in a basement of a housing project in Brooklyn. Overdose. Everyone in the meetings he attended with my father up until his demise knew him to be a recovering heroin addict but this particular housing project he was found in is notorious for crack so who the hell knows. It’s just a sad scene all around.
I told my father that I’m sure he didn’t want to hear it but these events should have him stepping back and taking a look at the choices he’s made recently that have allowed him to be here another day. “Da, I know we could all go at a moments notice but I think this is sort of a spiritual way of the world letting you know you’re supposed to be here. Both of those kinds of death could have easily been yours” –
“I know, Kitty. I know”.
I’m truly happy my father has decided to move onward with his life in a positive manner. I hope – and I do guess I sort of pray that he continues on to uphold a drug-free life. It makes a world of difference for me. A girl needs her dad. A girl needs her mom, too – but I’ve always had a tighter relationship with my father if for no other reason than the fact that I inherited his intellect and sarcastic nature.
They say death comes in threes – and aside from hearing the news of a member of Slipknot passing on, I’m yet to hear of the final part to this trinity. On the train last night, however, I did sit next to a dude who was wearing the same cologne as my ex boyfriend who has been gone from this world since 2003.
I miss him.
When I took my seat against the window and facing the direction the train was traveling in, the bouquet didn’t immediately hit me. It wasn’t until a minute or two later when I was already engrossed in my novel that I caught the whiff. ¬I felt the sides of my mouth curl up into a sweet smile reminiscent of waking up and falling asleep next to that same scent for the better part of five years on an intermittent basis. Perhaps in an attempt to intoxicate myself once more with the heady scent of what once represented mad passion, I took a deep breath in, swallowing every possible particle of air around me.
I miss him.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Reminisce on the Love We Had...
Reminisce on the love we had…
It’s really something else – the ability to ask the universe for something and to have your requests fulfilled. Via this blog and various other avenues, I have asked the universe to put some worldly folks in my life and this weekend past found me in the company of two beautiful, independent and driven women. We met in Fort Greene for drinks and within a matter of minutes we were chit-chatting the afternoon away while Michael Jackson tunes filled the outdoor venue. Our conversation ranged from Brazilian porn (yes, these are my kind of chicks!), to hiphop, to blogging, and everything and anything in between. The topics discussed were done so with energy and positivity. It was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I left them feeling, aside from overly tequilaed up, very satisfied and driven.
One of the two ladies I just met that day and the other, Sarah, I’ve known since the age of 7. Our parents began attending 12-step meetings together and she and I would play coloring books and the likes while our folks soaked up the anti-drug propaganda. Sarah and I recently reconnected via social-networking and it’s almost as if we never missed a beat. She came down to visit me the week that Daniel and I broke up and I cried into my plate of untouched mashed potatoes while she listened, without judgment, and offered a warm heart. I appreciate women like this. Sarah also happens to be finishing up her Masters Degree in Social Work from NYU, is a fully independent, smart, beautiful woman, and has little patience for bullshit or assholes. These are the kind of women I want and need in my life. These are the kind of women I most identify with.
Over our outdoor margaritas, Sarah asked if I’d yet had a lover since the breakup. “Nope. I’m fucking dying but nope.” – She told me it’s never been so evident than it was in my last posting that I’m far from over Daniel and that she thinks what I’m doing by waiting is good – and what I need. And, I agree with both of her assessments. This is what I need, and I’m far from over Daniel.
Don’t get me wrong, the days are much easier and I’m certainly a hell of a lot better than I was the first few weeks after the break up but the fact remains that there isn’t a day that goes by where he doesn’t enter my mind. I don’t know if it’s just missing him – missing someone – or if it’s outright abnormal to still have him haunt my thoughts so often. Three nights ago I had what felt like consecutive dreams all featuring Daniel’s face, Daniel’s voice, Daniel’s cock. I woke up and literally had to shake my head back and forth, much like a dog that has just finished a swim. After I ‘shook it off’, I sat in bed for a while and just thought about some of the better times:
1) The time Daniel bought me an 82 piece silverware set because I’d been in tears earlier in the day over not having matching china to host a dinner. This must sound so outrageously silly but to me, it was one of the sweetest things another human being has ever done. We were hosting a dinner for six at our apartment. It was actually our first dinner party together and my being such a domestic goddess doesn’t allow room for any imperfections. The table was set beautifully – with the good china – and the apartment sparkled. It was time to place the silverware down when I realized that I hadn’t a matching set to present. That realization was all it took to go into a downward spiral of emotion that was rooted in never being able to have nice things, growing up in a dirty drug-addicted home, and every other possible negative connection I could make to the past and present not matching up. Yes, over a fucking spoon… I shed some tears and got myself together while Daniel ran out to get last minute things for our dinner. When he came back with the groceries he handed me an 82 piece matching silverware set, kissed me on the forehead and assured me I’d never need to feel like I don’t have nice things again.
2) The sidewalk chalk Daniel bought me as a birthday gift from the cat, complete with card.
3) The Ben & Jerry’s phish food containers he gave me when I was sad.
4) The times we’d lay and watch TV – no talking necessary- my head in his lap, his hands in my hair – our bodies entangled.
5) The night we made love in our bedroom with the balcony doors opened – a breeze tickling our skin as we moved with such a synchronistic beat that afterward we both remarked on how it literally felt we were one entity.
6) The times he’d stop dead in his tracks just to tell me ‘You’re so pretty’.
And, finally, the time when in his parent’s home, we lay in our bedroom and discussing our future he said “I want to build a life with you Kitty, I want us to have all of this one day”. I just smiled and kissed him – confident in the fact that he already knew I’d been waiting to hear those words for such a long time.
I can’t help but reminisce on these things. They happened and although at this point it seems like they didn’t – mostly because of his extreme extraction from my life, I fear ever forgetting the way I felt the moment each of the items above happened. I don’t want to forget the warm love inside, the content I felt, or the security with which I believed we were living. The odd thing about the reminiscing is that it doesn’t sadden me as much as you may think. I don’t sit here and recall these loving moments with an ounce of regret or sorrow. Instead, I sort of feel lucky for having been able to feel these things at all.
Daniel is the first man I’ve opened myself up to in a long time. Prior to dating him, I’d done the casual stints of relationships here and there. I had plenty of men on whom I could call for company but I never believed in anything with them. I matter of factly chose to date losers so that I couldn’t possibly allow myself to be truly invested in what we had. If I was never really invested, I could never really get hurt – and that’s the defense mechanism I used to keep myself safe from the heartache. Then along comes Daniel and I opened myself up to something I felt was very real. I believed in him – and I believed in us as a unit. That is a serious accomplishment for me. I opened myself up - and that’s why when I sit and remember how I would turn into a giddy little girl every time Daniel was around, it’s not with tears of sadness in my eyes - it’s with a feeling of success that I’m able to feel that way at all.
Do I miss him terribly? I think that’s an obvious answer…
At least I’ve got the memories, right?
It’s really something else – the ability to ask the universe for something and to have your requests fulfilled. Via this blog and various other avenues, I have asked the universe to put some worldly folks in my life and this weekend past found me in the company of two beautiful, independent and driven women. We met in Fort Greene for drinks and within a matter of minutes we were chit-chatting the afternoon away while Michael Jackson tunes filled the outdoor venue. Our conversation ranged from Brazilian porn (yes, these are my kind of chicks!), to hiphop, to blogging, and everything and anything in between. The topics discussed were done so with energy and positivity. It was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday afternoon. I left them feeling, aside from overly tequilaed up, very satisfied and driven.
One of the two ladies I just met that day and the other, Sarah, I’ve known since the age of 7. Our parents began attending 12-step meetings together and she and I would play coloring books and the likes while our folks soaked up the anti-drug propaganda. Sarah and I recently reconnected via social-networking and it’s almost as if we never missed a beat. She came down to visit me the week that Daniel and I broke up and I cried into my plate of untouched mashed potatoes while she listened, without judgment, and offered a warm heart. I appreciate women like this. Sarah also happens to be finishing up her Masters Degree in Social Work from NYU, is a fully independent, smart, beautiful woman, and has little patience for bullshit or assholes. These are the kind of women I want and need in my life. These are the kind of women I most identify with.
Over our outdoor margaritas, Sarah asked if I’d yet had a lover since the breakup. “Nope. I’m fucking dying but nope.” – She told me it’s never been so evident than it was in my last posting that I’m far from over Daniel and that she thinks what I’m doing by waiting is good – and what I need. And, I agree with both of her assessments. This is what I need, and I’m far from over Daniel.
Don’t get me wrong, the days are much easier and I’m certainly a hell of a lot better than I was the first few weeks after the break up but the fact remains that there isn’t a day that goes by where he doesn’t enter my mind. I don’t know if it’s just missing him – missing someone – or if it’s outright abnormal to still have him haunt my thoughts so often. Three nights ago I had what felt like consecutive dreams all featuring Daniel’s face, Daniel’s voice, Daniel’s cock. I woke up and literally had to shake my head back and forth, much like a dog that has just finished a swim. After I ‘shook it off’, I sat in bed for a while and just thought about some of the better times:
1) The time Daniel bought me an 82 piece silverware set because I’d been in tears earlier in the day over not having matching china to host a dinner. This must sound so outrageously silly but to me, it was one of the sweetest things another human being has ever done. We were hosting a dinner for six at our apartment. It was actually our first dinner party together and my being such a domestic goddess doesn’t allow room for any imperfections. The table was set beautifully – with the good china – and the apartment sparkled. It was time to place the silverware down when I realized that I hadn’t a matching set to present. That realization was all it took to go into a downward spiral of emotion that was rooted in never being able to have nice things, growing up in a dirty drug-addicted home, and every other possible negative connection I could make to the past and present not matching up. Yes, over a fucking spoon… I shed some tears and got myself together while Daniel ran out to get last minute things for our dinner. When he came back with the groceries he handed me an 82 piece matching silverware set, kissed me on the forehead and assured me I’d never need to feel like I don’t have nice things again.
2) The sidewalk chalk Daniel bought me as a birthday gift from the cat, complete with card.
3) The Ben & Jerry’s phish food containers he gave me when I was sad.
4) The times we’d lay and watch TV – no talking necessary- my head in his lap, his hands in my hair – our bodies entangled.
5) The night we made love in our bedroom with the balcony doors opened – a breeze tickling our skin as we moved with such a synchronistic beat that afterward we both remarked on how it literally felt we were one entity.
6) The times he’d stop dead in his tracks just to tell me ‘You’re so pretty’.
And, finally, the time when in his parent’s home, we lay in our bedroom and discussing our future he said “I want to build a life with you Kitty, I want us to have all of this one day”. I just smiled and kissed him – confident in the fact that he already knew I’d been waiting to hear those words for such a long time.
I can’t help but reminisce on these things. They happened and although at this point it seems like they didn’t – mostly because of his extreme extraction from my life, I fear ever forgetting the way I felt the moment each of the items above happened. I don’t want to forget the warm love inside, the content I felt, or the security with which I believed we were living. The odd thing about the reminiscing is that it doesn’t sadden me as much as you may think. I don’t sit here and recall these loving moments with an ounce of regret or sorrow. Instead, I sort of feel lucky for having been able to feel these things at all.
Daniel is the first man I’ve opened myself up to in a long time. Prior to dating him, I’d done the casual stints of relationships here and there. I had plenty of men on whom I could call for company but I never believed in anything with them. I matter of factly chose to date losers so that I couldn’t possibly allow myself to be truly invested in what we had. If I was never really invested, I could never really get hurt – and that’s the defense mechanism I used to keep myself safe from the heartache. Then along comes Daniel and I opened myself up to something I felt was very real. I believed in him – and I believed in us as a unit. That is a serious accomplishment for me. I opened myself up - and that’s why when I sit and remember how I would turn into a giddy little girl every time Daniel was around, it’s not with tears of sadness in my eyes - it’s with a feeling of success that I’m able to feel that way at all.
Do I miss him terribly? I think that’s an obvious answer…
At least I’ve got the memories, right?
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Mother Fucking Daniel
Disclosure: I'm angry.
This blog is not the only piece of written material I have out there on the Internet. I am the proud owner of a few other blog-type columns on the net and a bunch of said columns are publications with which my real identity is tied. Accordingly, I have various social media outlets with which these publications are connected. Blah blah blah. Here's the meat of the story:
Today I published an article for a column and I blasted the article out via email. I maintain a group listing for this particular column and any time someone joins or leaves said group I am notified. Shortly after my new piece was blasted out a crawl comes up on my screen which reads "Daniel xxxxxxxx has unsubscribed from xxxxx list". I can honestly say this not only surprised me but it genuinely hurt my feelings. I'm not sure what it is that is going to have to happen for me to wake up and welcome the reality check that this dude simply wants absolutely nothing to do with me but it better come soon because I'm really tired of feeling like our relationship was worthless.
I get it - we're apart. I do not call him, I've deleted him from my facebook and any other social media outlets. I do not email, do not IM, do not text. For all intents and purposes, I am completely invisible (Hi, Emily Previn). Is it so wrong for me to expect a certain level of support on my personal endeavors, though? This particular column for which this article was blasted out is an actual paid gig. The money earned is damn near nothing - but for each click I receive, I get a tiny piece of change - and you know what? It adds up. It's not even about that, though.
Here's the thing:
Daniel and I dated for a year and a half or so. We had a relationship that started out stronger and with more passion than almost any other union I've had in my life. I really felt like we simply understood each other. I was able to talk to him and to tell him my secrets, my fears, my desires and my insecurities. In turn, I sat and listened to his - and held him when he found himself in tears over things that may not seem tear-worthy to someone else. I didn't judge him for crying, didn't try to change who he was or toughen him up in any way. We both had our issues and it felt sort of great to have someone with whom I could be open and honest, with whom I could be weak. I always felt like we were such a strong couple because of all of this mental support we provided one and other - and right now, after having watched him completely delete yet another part of who I am from his life, I am kind of wondering what the fuck happened to all that support.
It's not about being a boyfriend or a girlfriend. It's about being a human being. My writing endeavors are not what pays the bills. I work a 9-5 just like every other Tom, Dick and Harry. My writing is done so because I genuinely enjoy it. The fact that I have some outlets which allow me to earn a penny here or there is great and I'm very lucky to have found that opportunity. Every penny counts, na'mean Brooklyn? That said, it is just astounding to me that after all of the mental support we've provided one and other that I'd see Daniel's name vanish from my mailing list.
It just seems so childish - so fucking immature. Our personal relationship has absolutely nothing to do with the topics I cover in this particular article. If it was my sitting there and discussing my heartstrings I could completely understand his not wanting to be witness to that - but, fuck - you can't offer me the simple support of just being another human being out there that is down to support a passion that lives inside of a woman with whom you shared your life, your secrets and your fears?
It just hurts, readers. It hurts to know that this man I loved - and obviously still love on a lot of levels, undoubtedly wants absolutely nothing to do with anything I'm involved in. I try to understand it and I try to make sense of it all but I come up short with each attempt. I am lucky to have folks who will talk me through it and crack various jokes. I am lucky to have people in my life with whom I can spend time and not focus on the sadness that finds its way into my mind when shit like this happens.
I am lucky.
This blog is not the only piece of written material I have out there on the Internet. I am the proud owner of a few other blog-type columns on the net and a bunch of said columns are publications with which my real identity is tied. Accordingly, I have various social media outlets with which these publications are connected. Blah blah blah. Here's the meat of the story:
Today I published an article for a column and I blasted the article out via email. I maintain a group listing for this particular column and any time someone joins or leaves said group I am notified. Shortly after my new piece was blasted out a crawl comes up on my screen which reads "Daniel xxxxxxxx has unsubscribed from xxxxx list". I can honestly say this not only surprised me but it genuinely hurt my feelings. I'm not sure what it is that is going to have to happen for me to wake up and welcome the reality check that this dude simply wants absolutely nothing to do with me but it better come soon because I'm really tired of feeling like our relationship was worthless.
I get it - we're apart. I do not call him, I've deleted him from my facebook and any other social media outlets. I do not email, do not IM, do not text. For all intents and purposes, I am completely invisible (Hi, Emily Previn). Is it so wrong for me to expect a certain level of support on my personal endeavors, though? This particular column for which this article was blasted out is an actual paid gig. The money earned is damn near nothing - but for each click I receive, I get a tiny piece of change - and you know what? It adds up. It's not even about that, though.
Here's the thing:
Daniel and I dated for a year and a half or so. We had a relationship that started out stronger and with more passion than almost any other union I've had in my life. I really felt like we simply understood each other. I was able to talk to him and to tell him my secrets, my fears, my desires and my insecurities. In turn, I sat and listened to his - and held him when he found himself in tears over things that may not seem tear-worthy to someone else. I didn't judge him for crying, didn't try to change who he was or toughen him up in any way. We both had our issues and it felt sort of great to have someone with whom I could be open and honest, with whom I could be weak. I always felt like we were such a strong couple because of all of this mental support we provided one and other - and right now, after having watched him completely delete yet another part of who I am from his life, I am kind of wondering what the fuck happened to all that support.
It's not about being a boyfriend or a girlfriend. It's about being a human being. My writing endeavors are not what pays the bills. I work a 9-5 just like every other Tom, Dick and Harry. My writing is done so because I genuinely enjoy it. The fact that I have some outlets which allow me to earn a penny here or there is great and I'm very lucky to have found that opportunity. Every penny counts, na'mean Brooklyn? That said, it is just astounding to me that after all of the mental support we've provided one and other that I'd see Daniel's name vanish from my mailing list.
It just seems so childish - so fucking immature. Our personal relationship has absolutely nothing to do with the topics I cover in this particular article. If it was my sitting there and discussing my heartstrings I could completely understand his not wanting to be witness to that - but, fuck - you can't offer me the simple support of just being another human being out there that is down to support a passion that lives inside of a woman with whom you shared your life, your secrets and your fears?
It just hurts, readers. It hurts to know that this man I loved - and obviously still love on a lot of levels, undoubtedly wants absolutely nothing to do with anything I'm involved in. I try to understand it and I try to make sense of it all but I come up short with each attempt. I am lucky to have folks who will talk me through it and crack various jokes. I am lucky to have people in my life with whom I can spend time and not focus on the sadness that finds its way into my mind when shit like this happens.
I am lucky.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Poppa was a rolling stone...
A few weeks ago I invited my father to attend a live acoustic show that would have been something I went to with Daniel had he not gone all loopy on me and end our relationship. The fact that my friends are somewhat restricted with respect to their artsy taste left me with little option in terms of who to invite, not that I don’t enjoy the company of my dad; I do. We made our way down to Murray Hill and settled into an authentic English pub for some fish and chips prior to the show and it was here that my father began to talk about his disdain for hipsters. I couldn’t help but laugh because I knew, undoubtedly, that my father didn’t even know what a hipster was. To prove this fact, I asked him ‘Dad, what’s a hipster?’ – to which he replied “I don’t know but I hear they are all wannabe Brooklyn” – Man, does it get any better than hanging with your dad over a pint of Blue Moon and discussing the Brooklyn wanna-be pretense of a hipster? I don’t think so, my friends.
We sat 3rd row orchestra and enjoyed the show a magnificent amount. Both of us are a bit on the spiritual side when it comes to connecting with art and it was interesting to see how the various changes in musical energy elicited similar emotional responses in each of us. On at least two occasions, the music brought us to tears which then brought us to laughter at how empathic we seem to be at times. We purchased our merchandise (A CD each; support good music!) and made our way out of the city by way of the Brooklyn Bridge, but not before making a stop down in the lower-east-side for an egg-cream at Ray’s.
If there is anything Brooklyn should be synonymous with it is egg-creams. I distinctly remember being a little kid down in Gravesend and walking to the corner luncheonette with my mother to get cigarettes or milk or lotto tickets, or whatever it was she needed, and my getting an egg-cream. They were something around $.50 back then – and they were prepared and served up just perfectly. Ray’s in the LES serves up a comparable mixture and whenever I am in the city and with a car I make it a point to stop there and grab a large-one before heading back into Brooklyn. Tonight was no different. My father has some decent egg-cream skills and when I told him about this place he immediately laughed at the idea of some spot in the now-trendy Lower East Side being able to produce something authentic New York. Soon after his first sip, however, he changed that tune and he and I enjoyed our large chocolate egg-creams as we continued our drive back into the county of Kings.
We took the scenic route to the FDR drive, taking a left off of Avenue A working our way down into the beast that is Alphabet City. My memories of this area as a child are far from coherent, but they are certainly there. I recall coming into the city with my parents as a kid – waiting for them to cop. Most of my memories involve being in the back of a car of some sort – waiting while one of them ran into a housing project. I suppose I should be happy my recognition isn’t clearer but the fact remains that I knew what we were doing there. Almost without fail, any time my father and I are in this area he points out to me the corner (Avenue C and 7th) where he was stabbed thus resulting in a decent chunk of his liver having to be removed. He wears a scar from the surgery they needed to perform on him that runs the length of his breast plate down to past his belly button. Today would be no different and as we drove past Avenue C he mumbled something or other about the stabbing. The clearer memories for him this drive-through were of the various dope-spots in the area. There was one building in particular that he pointed out in which there used to be a New Jack City style set-up. “You see those different colored bricks on the far end of the courtyard there – they’re a different color because they were nonexistent at one point. That spot used to be a hole in the wall, literally, where you’d place your money and out would come your heroin”. I suppose to some this type of conversation would be interesting? The ever-changing face of NYC was sitting next to me and, in a way, I had my own personal tour guide pre-gentrification LES. I wish I could see it that way – but I suppose I still have a lot of shit to work through.
Seeing as I have been trying to write this post for weeks now and any time I sit down to get started something (like the TV, my email, my cellphone) distracts me from actually tackling the feelings that go along with the story in the posting, I realize that I definitely do have some tension to work through with respect to my childhood. Tension is probably, no it’s definitely an understatement.
The truth of the matter is this: I am the child of drug addicts. My mother and father are both recidivists in the world of addiction and although at time of print for this posting they’re on a sober-run, I have absolutely no idea how long that will or won’t last and that is terrifying. Daniel would often ask me how I can even still have a relationship with my parents after all they’ve put me through – and my only answer is “they’re my parents” – And, they are my parents. I love them regardless of their battle with drugs and will continue to love them accordingly. Love is one thing, but tolerance is another and this last year I pretty much exiled my father from my life for a period of time.
It was moving time for me and Daniel - he was coming from Queens and I from Brooklyn so it only made sense to schedule our moves for the same day and meet up at the new apartment. Daniel’s folks had given him some extra money to assist in any moving expenses (shocker) and my plan was to hire some day-laboring illegals and use my father’s pick-up truck to transport the little amount of stuff I was actually taking to the new pad. Days before go-time, my mother who loves to watch a drama fire spark, called me and expressed her concern with my father’s mixing of Xanax and Oxycontin. As I listened to her talk about it – and express her concerns in a manner to indicate that her problems were of the utmost importance and with little regard to the fact that I was in the middle of planning a stressful move, scared of giving up all of my shit, and just generally under a lot of pressure, I became so aggravated that I flew off the handle and started screaming and yelling like a maniac. Two days later I had a discussion with my father in which I told him that unless he sought help for his behavior I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him and that this wasn’t something up for negotiation. Xanax and anything are a completely insane combination and I already lost one person I loved dearly to a Xanax cocktail, I wasn’t about to stand idly by and watch another go.
I’m not sure if it had as much to do with my cutting him off or the credit should go to the folks at his job who began to notice a difference in his behavior, but my father checked himself into a rehab facility a few months after my cutting him off and he’s been clean for the last 7 or 8 months now. I’m happy he’s on the right path – but I cannot deny, at all, the fact that that can change in an instant. As such, my relationship with him is one that has me asking a lot of questions.
Is it normal, I ask myself, for a father to show his kid (albeit 32 year old kid) the spot where he used to slip money through bricks to get a bundle of dope? Is it completely acceptable or is if just my own shame with the past? There is no mistaking the fact that my father is a heroin addict. He admits to it and anyone that knows me is basically in the know – him showing me the dope spot isn’t exactly an admission of guilt – it’s really more so just a matter of fact much like pointing out a good Chinese restaurant to a neighbor. I suppose that is a bad comparison. The real question I am asking here, though, is what is it going to take for me to be more at ease with the past? Will it be forgiveness? There are tons of self-help books that I review looking for the answers and they all seem to point toward forgiveness and acceptance. Acceptance is something I think I’ll have an easier time doing over forgiving. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure I even know what it specifically is I am so angry about that would solicit forgiveness.
There’s a lot of work to be done.
We sat 3rd row orchestra and enjoyed the show a magnificent amount. Both of us are a bit on the spiritual side when it comes to connecting with art and it was interesting to see how the various changes in musical energy elicited similar emotional responses in each of us. On at least two occasions, the music brought us to tears which then brought us to laughter at how empathic we seem to be at times. We purchased our merchandise (A CD each; support good music!) and made our way out of the city by way of the Brooklyn Bridge, but not before making a stop down in the lower-east-side for an egg-cream at Ray’s.
If there is anything Brooklyn should be synonymous with it is egg-creams. I distinctly remember being a little kid down in Gravesend and walking to the corner luncheonette with my mother to get cigarettes or milk or lotto tickets, or whatever it was she needed, and my getting an egg-cream. They were something around $.50 back then – and they were prepared and served up just perfectly. Ray’s in the LES serves up a comparable mixture and whenever I am in the city and with a car I make it a point to stop there and grab a large-one before heading back into Brooklyn. Tonight was no different. My father has some decent egg-cream skills and when I told him about this place he immediately laughed at the idea of some spot in the now-trendy Lower East Side being able to produce something authentic New York. Soon after his first sip, however, he changed that tune and he and I enjoyed our large chocolate egg-creams as we continued our drive back into the county of Kings.
We took the scenic route to the FDR drive, taking a left off of Avenue A working our way down into the beast that is Alphabet City. My memories of this area as a child are far from coherent, but they are certainly there. I recall coming into the city with my parents as a kid – waiting for them to cop. Most of my memories involve being in the back of a car of some sort – waiting while one of them ran into a housing project. I suppose I should be happy my recognition isn’t clearer but the fact remains that I knew what we were doing there. Almost without fail, any time my father and I are in this area he points out to me the corner (Avenue C and 7th) where he was stabbed thus resulting in a decent chunk of his liver having to be removed. He wears a scar from the surgery they needed to perform on him that runs the length of his breast plate down to past his belly button. Today would be no different and as we drove past Avenue C he mumbled something or other about the stabbing. The clearer memories for him this drive-through were of the various dope-spots in the area. There was one building in particular that he pointed out in which there used to be a New Jack City style set-up. “You see those different colored bricks on the far end of the courtyard there – they’re a different color because they were nonexistent at one point. That spot used to be a hole in the wall, literally, where you’d place your money and out would come your heroin”. I suppose to some this type of conversation would be interesting? The ever-changing face of NYC was sitting next to me and, in a way, I had my own personal tour guide pre-gentrification LES. I wish I could see it that way – but I suppose I still have a lot of shit to work through.
Seeing as I have been trying to write this post for weeks now and any time I sit down to get started something (like the TV, my email, my cellphone) distracts me from actually tackling the feelings that go along with the story in the posting, I realize that I definitely do have some tension to work through with respect to my childhood. Tension is probably, no it’s definitely an understatement.
The truth of the matter is this: I am the child of drug addicts. My mother and father are both recidivists in the world of addiction and although at time of print for this posting they’re on a sober-run, I have absolutely no idea how long that will or won’t last and that is terrifying. Daniel would often ask me how I can even still have a relationship with my parents after all they’ve put me through – and my only answer is “they’re my parents” – And, they are my parents. I love them regardless of their battle with drugs and will continue to love them accordingly. Love is one thing, but tolerance is another and this last year I pretty much exiled my father from my life for a period of time.
It was moving time for me and Daniel - he was coming from Queens and I from Brooklyn so it only made sense to schedule our moves for the same day and meet up at the new apartment. Daniel’s folks had given him some extra money to assist in any moving expenses (shocker) and my plan was to hire some day-laboring illegals and use my father’s pick-up truck to transport the little amount of stuff I was actually taking to the new pad. Days before go-time, my mother who loves to watch a drama fire spark, called me and expressed her concern with my father’s mixing of Xanax and Oxycontin. As I listened to her talk about it – and express her concerns in a manner to indicate that her problems were of the utmost importance and with little regard to the fact that I was in the middle of planning a stressful move, scared of giving up all of my shit, and just generally under a lot of pressure, I became so aggravated that I flew off the handle and started screaming and yelling like a maniac. Two days later I had a discussion with my father in which I told him that unless he sought help for his behavior I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him and that this wasn’t something up for negotiation. Xanax and anything are a completely insane combination and I already lost one person I loved dearly to a Xanax cocktail, I wasn’t about to stand idly by and watch another go.
I’m not sure if it had as much to do with my cutting him off or the credit should go to the folks at his job who began to notice a difference in his behavior, but my father checked himself into a rehab facility a few months after my cutting him off and he’s been clean for the last 7 or 8 months now. I’m happy he’s on the right path – but I cannot deny, at all, the fact that that can change in an instant. As such, my relationship with him is one that has me asking a lot of questions.
Is it normal, I ask myself, for a father to show his kid (albeit 32 year old kid) the spot where he used to slip money through bricks to get a bundle of dope? Is it completely acceptable or is if just my own shame with the past? There is no mistaking the fact that my father is a heroin addict. He admits to it and anyone that knows me is basically in the know – him showing me the dope spot isn’t exactly an admission of guilt – it’s really more so just a matter of fact much like pointing out a good Chinese restaurant to a neighbor. I suppose that is a bad comparison. The real question I am asking here, though, is what is it going to take for me to be more at ease with the past? Will it be forgiveness? There are tons of self-help books that I review looking for the answers and they all seem to point toward forgiveness and acceptance. Acceptance is something I think I’ll have an easier time doing over forgiving. To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure I even know what it specifically is I am so angry about that would solicit forgiveness.
There’s a lot of work to be done.
Monday, May 17, 2010
New York, I Love You
New York, I really do love you.
This afternoon while attempting to busy myself every which way possible in an effort to avoid doing what my company pays me to do, I was on my various sites reading up on all things NY when it was brought to my attention that the infamous graffiti artist Banksy struck in NYC last night. Apparently Banksy hasn’t thrown up anything in NYC since 2008 so the intertubes are all abuzz over this recent find.
I tried to communicate some thoughts regarding the idea of every hipster harry and their entourage running over to the piece in order to snap their picture next to it, pointing at it, or doing some other lame ass thing that hipsters do when things like this pop up all over NYC but my comments were misconstrued to represent my disdain for a difference in personal style. Guess I shouldn’t have opened my statement with a bitch-fest on skinny jeans? Either way, the person that I had a back and forth torrent with later came out to express their interpretation of the image as a doctor looking for life in NYC and being unable to find any. I thought it was an interesting concept – and I suppose to some of us out there, myself included or else I wouldn’t be looking to get out of NYC as a whole, their elucidation holds truth. The interesting thing for me was that as much as I have a difficult time in finding the positive things to see in our city these days, my first estimation when looking at Banksy’s piece was that the doctor was listening to the heart of NYC and was loving it.
If there is anything that can be said about a NYer that is true, it is that we have got some heart. There is definitely a pulse in the underbelly of NYC and even in the grittiest grimiest parts of town, the flavor is clearly identifiable. It bothers me that I forget that I love my city. It bothers me that my life’s experiences have given me this cynical approach to all of the wonderful things that are inherently New York – I already posted the Brooklyn Unite thing and I’m going to really try to run with this idea for the reason that like any abusive relationship, I want to fall back in love with the bitch.
Photo credit: Banksy forum on Flickr.
The Organic Pick-Up
Last week instead of being lazy and taking the downtown E train one stop to transfer to my downtown Brooklyn train, I decided to have a nice quarter or so mile walk into the west-village to catch my train home. I had Sade blaring in my headphones and the weather was almost as perfect as could be; the sun was still shining brightly at 5pm, and the breeze was the type that caught your hair and allowed it to have some organic movement while you walk. I was feeling great – no negative thoughts of Daniel had entered my mind – and I was off the next day to head out of town to a friends house for some much needed away from the city time. Seemingly, I felt on top of the world.
I was strolling east when I noticed a nice looking guy take a double look in my direction. He was noticeably older than I was – but his clothes and his style stood out to me and as a result, I suppose my gaze made its way over to him as well. I continued forward at the same pace I had been walking but he seemed to slow down a tiny bit. In a very adolescent yet charming way, he purposely however accidentally almost hit me with his outstretched arms while he let out a relaxing “what a great day” type of yawn. When he veered back to apologize for almost catching me with his arms, I smiled and said “not a problem”. We strolled together for a block or so and made casual chit chat about the gorgeous weather, the need to go outside on a day like this, and the whereabouts of my office with proximity to where we were currently. “My office is right over here”, he pointed to a tertiary street that only native NYers know exists – and in the next movement he handed me his card. “Do you have a card?” – In my mind I told him “no, my boss doesn’t consider me even nearly important enough to warrant a business card and even if he did my company is so fucking cheap they’d never approve the expense”. Instead, I smiled and apologized for not having one to return to him. So he did what any over 35 year old person would do these days, he asked me for my phone number – not my IM screenname, or if I had a Facebook account he could check out, or whether or not I was on a dating service, or my e-mail; he asked for my phone number. We exchanged digits right as I was about to head down the steps to catch my train back into Brooklyn and I had a Kool-Aid smile on my face for a good 15 minutes afterward.
There is something to be said for the organic ‘pick-up’. It’s been such a long time since something like that has happened to me that I forgot how good it makes a girl feel to have a man sort of court her. We are in such a digital world these days that even as I consider stepping back into the dating world, my first inclination is to activate my various dating profiles to see what’s out there. Has digital media made us that anti-social that instead of putting on a hot outfit and coloring my lips, I’ll sit at home in my living room, hair in a bun, and rock it out? I think it may have done just that.
There are various positives to doing the digital thing and highest on the list for me is that when you are engaging in an online world, you are immediately made aware of your potential matches aptitude with respect to literacy. To some, this probably sounds silly but it has become increasingly more important to me to have a partner who is able to handle their own in the literate universe. Granted, I realized there are probably myriad grammatical errors in my postings (Daniel was my resident editor!) – But on a comparison stand point, I think I do A-OK with the ink-sword and I really yearn for a partner who will bring it correct on the language tip. Believe it or not, this is progressively more difficult to find in a partner. During one of my many Daniel stalking sessions during which I read his Match.com profile, I veered off course and went to the “men seeking women” section to check out what was available with in 5 miles of my area and in the age range of 32-38. God – help – me and keep me strong; Brooklyn is crawling with the uninformed. It wasn’t a total massacre, though. There were quite a few profiles that seemed attractive enough to maybe ‘wink’ at some day and I’m sure when I’m ready, I’ll send them a little nod.
Whether or not my friend of last week calls is really immaterial for me at this point. One significant point I didn’t mention earlier with respect to my organic-suitor is that his business card told me he was the principle of a NYC based Real Estate firm. This may seem like nothing – but in a weird way this sort of validates my growth process. I realize the guy could be a complete scumbag and still have a lot of money and success, but the fact that he is a successful man at all and was attracted my way means that I am omitting something different to the world. Remember my post sometime back in which I mention that the universe watches? I believe this was a bit of an example of that happening in real time. Up until shortly before meeting Daniel, the general type of dude that was attracted my way sat somewhere on the low-level street thug scale and that has seemed to completely cease. I have no doubt that it is what I am giving out to the world in terms of my attitude and my belief that things are going to work out in my favor that is no longer attracting the dregs of society.
It must be my attitude because physically not much has changed on this end. I am still the short white girl with brown hair and strong yet nice-looking looking face that I have been for the last 10 years of my adult life. My frown lines are a tiny bit more defined now and there are some prominent grays atop my head, but all in all I am the same physical specimen. My body hasn’t changed much; I go up and down a range of 10-15lbs as often as people change their panties but all in all I lay somewhere in the range of a size 10-12 American. My tattoos haven’t gone anywhere, so it can’t be that… All in all, I really believe it has to do with looking at the world through a different lens and the lens I am wearing now is somewhat clearer than the murky frames of yesterday.
My personal efforts are paying off and it feels really good to recognize that.
I was strolling east when I noticed a nice looking guy take a double look in my direction. He was noticeably older than I was – but his clothes and his style stood out to me and as a result, I suppose my gaze made its way over to him as well. I continued forward at the same pace I had been walking but he seemed to slow down a tiny bit. In a very adolescent yet charming way, he purposely however accidentally almost hit me with his outstretched arms while he let out a relaxing “what a great day” type of yawn. When he veered back to apologize for almost catching me with his arms, I smiled and said “not a problem”. We strolled together for a block or so and made casual chit chat about the gorgeous weather, the need to go outside on a day like this, and the whereabouts of my office with proximity to where we were currently. “My office is right over here”, he pointed to a tertiary street that only native NYers know exists – and in the next movement he handed me his card. “Do you have a card?” – In my mind I told him “no, my boss doesn’t consider me even nearly important enough to warrant a business card and even if he did my company is so fucking cheap they’d never approve the expense”. Instead, I smiled and apologized for not having one to return to him. So he did what any over 35 year old person would do these days, he asked me for my phone number – not my IM screenname, or if I had a Facebook account he could check out, or whether or not I was on a dating service, or my e-mail; he asked for my phone number. We exchanged digits right as I was about to head down the steps to catch my train back into Brooklyn and I had a Kool-Aid smile on my face for a good 15 minutes afterward.
There is something to be said for the organic ‘pick-up’. It’s been such a long time since something like that has happened to me that I forgot how good it makes a girl feel to have a man sort of court her. We are in such a digital world these days that even as I consider stepping back into the dating world, my first inclination is to activate my various dating profiles to see what’s out there. Has digital media made us that anti-social that instead of putting on a hot outfit and coloring my lips, I’ll sit at home in my living room, hair in a bun, and rock it out? I think it may have done just that.
There are various positives to doing the digital thing and highest on the list for me is that when you are engaging in an online world, you are immediately made aware of your potential matches aptitude with respect to literacy. To some, this probably sounds silly but it has become increasingly more important to me to have a partner who is able to handle their own in the literate universe. Granted, I realized there are probably myriad grammatical errors in my postings (Daniel was my resident editor!) – But on a comparison stand point, I think I do A-OK with the ink-sword and I really yearn for a partner who will bring it correct on the language tip. Believe it or not, this is progressively more difficult to find in a partner. During one of my many Daniel stalking sessions during which I read his Match.com profile, I veered off course and went to the “men seeking women” section to check out what was available with in 5 miles of my area and in the age range of 32-38. God – help – me and keep me strong; Brooklyn is crawling with the uninformed. It wasn’t a total massacre, though. There were quite a few profiles that seemed attractive enough to maybe ‘wink’ at some day and I’m sure when I’m ready, I’ll send them a little nod.
Whether or not my friend of last week calls is really immaterial for me at this point. One significant point I didn’t mention earlier with respect to my organic-suitor is that his business card told me he was the principle of a NYC based Real Estate firm. This may seem like nothing – but in a weird way this sort of validates my growth process. I realize the guy could be a complete scumbag and still have a lot of money and success, but the fact that he is a successful man at all and was attracted my way means that I am omitting something different to the world. Remember my post sometime back in which I mention that the universe watches? I believe this was a bit of an example of that happening in real time. Up until shortly before meeting Daniel, the general type of dude that was attracted my way sat somewhere on the low-level street thug scale and that has seemed to completely cease. I have no doubt that it is what I am giving out to the world in terms of my attitude and my belief that things are going to work out in my favor that is no longer attracting the dregs of society.
It must be my attitude because physically not much has changed on this end. I am still the short white girl with brown hair and strong yet nice-looking looking face that I have been for the last 10 years of my adult life. My frown lines are a tiny bit more defined now and there are some prominent grays atop my head, but all in all I am the same physical specimen. My body hasn’t changed much; I go up and down a range of 10-15lbs as often as people change their panties but all in all I lay somewhere in the range of a size 10-12 American. My tattoos haven’t gone anywhere, so it can’t be that… All in all, I really believe it has to do with looking at the world through a different lens and the lens I am wearing now is somewhat clearer than the murky frames of yesterday.
My personal efforts are paying off and it feels really good to recognize that.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Brooklyn: Unite!!
I’ve been doing some thinking – Yes, that’s what that smell is.
Through various conversations I’ve had recently both as a result of this blog and utter randomness, I have come to the conclusion that I have no one to fault but myself when it comes to choosing to exclude myself from various artistic events happening in the BK. Yes it is certainly true that half of the reason I avoid most of these things is because they’re generally swarming with hipster wanna-be Brooklynites who make my skin crawl, but looking past their dirty-on-purpose vintage store rags and Ray-Bans, some of these fuckers may actually have decent taste in art. I realize this statement may be met with major criticism from my fellow native BKers, but I will stand by it – for now, at least.
I have, in-fact, attended various artsy happenings in gentrified Brooklyn in which I actually had a decent time and got to take a peek at some interesting stuff happening. There’ve been readings, film-screenings, and various gallery-events that were not completely dominated by an unimaginative trustrafarian’s attempt to be the next Andy Warhol. I realize they are few and far between, but the reality is that they do exist and by avoiding the gentrified areas of Brooklyn, which unfortunately is where the bulk of the events are, all I am doing is robbing myself of whatever good I may be able to find in Brooklyn while I am still here.
My days here are numbered. That number may be high right now, but it’s certainly not infinite and I intend to, at minimum, attempt to grasp on to whatever fun can be had here while I’m still around. I’m met with a couple of roadblocks when I enter this thought pattern. As previously mentioned in a few of my posts, I don’t have a very exposed social circle. This leaves me with a limited amount of folks to which I can forward an event happening with the hopes that they’d be down to join me. Second, and this one really angers me to throw out there but I realize that I may actually be the minority at these events and it does leave me feeling a tiny bit uneasy in terms of having a go at it on the solo tip.
The uneasy feeling of facing these events alone brings me to a memory I have of Daniel and I at a rooftop party in Bed-Stuy this past summer. Hipsters love to take advantage of rooftops. When I was a kid, rooftops were used for taking the sun with a visor but these days anywhere north of Brooklyn’s Mason Dixon line which I might go so far as to say sits somewhere between Dark Slope and Sunset Park, rooftops are used for parties, bbqs, and late night movie screenings. Daniel and I ventured out to this event and I was literally the only non-hipster type there, save Daniel (although I am beginning to wonder about this). At some point up on the roof, the I-pod shuffled its way over to Biggie Smalls’ Gimme the Loot. This being one of my all time favorite Biggie tracks enabled me to get my bop on in a serious way. My Kitty emblazoned doorknockers bounced about freely while the beat filled the air and with my fast flow was re-mark-able as I threw out word after word along with Frank White. Daniel knew every word too, and he joined me in the little sing-a-long. We volleyed the verses like Serena and Venus – and our energy was on some serious love shit. I have to admit, I was kind of diggin’ it. Looking around me, I saw Brooklyn to the left and right. I was on a rooftop in Bed Stuy enjoying the likes of one of the very reasons I am proud to be a Brooklynite; good hip-hop ala The B-I-G. All was great and dandy until I noticed that all around me these pasty skinned, too concerned about what every other person at the party thinks about them, daddy-pays-my-rent mother fuckers, were giving me dirty looks! I mean, it wasn’t at all something I needed to figure out here, they were completely giving me the up and down eyeball thing while probably commenting inside their pigeon holed minds about my obnoxious behavior. Man, this is Biggie Fucking Smalls. This is a rooftop in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn. You want to move here and party here? Celebrate Brooklyn. Fuck another person’s opinion. Live it, be it - Rock out to Biggie – Now, I realize there is a great chance that Gimme the Loot may have been a foreign thing to the rest of the attendees. They were probably much more familiar with Juicy or Big Poppa – but don’t be giving me dirty looks cause I know my shit – you fuckers. Shortly after my realizing what was happening, my tone for the remainder of the evening changed. I announced to Daniel that I was pretty much ready to go. He wasn’t, so I went downstairs grabbed my shit and waited on the front stoop until he realized I was gone. About 20 minutes later, after at least 4 sewer rats walked by the stoop as I sat on it in the dark, the tunes of Brand Nubian and Tribe Called Quest filling the summer air around me, he finally came out. We called it a night shortly there after. He never fully understood what had changed and why I needed to get out of there – but you, my native Brooklynites, I trust you get it and that I don’t even really need to decipher the situation.
Fuck all that noise.
So, from that warm night with Biggie and a bunch of douche bags comes a bit of an idea. As I mentioned, I was digging the overall tone of the evening. I had my borough around me and aesthetically the night was beautiful. I really want to be able to experience these types of evenings but I want to experience them with my kind of people in tow. This means going out to events – not necessarily those that are completely hipsterfied, but going out to events that give me that same general feeling of ‘I dig this’. Artsy environments do this for me. Being around folks with brains does this for me. Unfortunately, I have a hard time finding things in my part of the BK that satisfy the need for culture and in order to get my fix, I’ll need to venture a bit North.
Who Is With Me?! Who’s with me?!? Who – Is – With – Me?! (Jerry Maguire, anyone?)
Are any of you readers out there down with the idea of starting a Real Brooklynites meet-up type of group, in real time, where we can scout out events that may be to our liking and head on over to take advantage of whatever the evening is offering? I am talking about film screenings, poetry or spoken-word readings, (no pansy hipster shit), gallery viewings for mixed media art events, concerts, hiphop nights at bars/clubs, etc., and all other things Brooklyn history and the likes. I am contemplating creating an aggregator – or, at minimum my myself becoming an aggregator, of events that I feel us native and real Brooklynites would be attracted to and I’m thinking of including it as a feature on this blog. What comes out of it will shape the future of the blog itself but I really believe this may be something that is needed for ‘us’.
Let me clarify, too, that a “Real Brooklynite” is not necessarily someone who was born and raised here like us natives. You may have moved here at 10 or even 15 and experienced Brooklyn during its more authentic period. This would constitute you a Real Brooklynite in my opinion. Anyone who did not move to Brooklyn because it was socially expected of them to do so would probably be on the same level of thought as me and those I keep company with. It’s not about geography – it’s about so much more than that. It’s about a state of mind and of consciousness. It’s about having an opinion and sticking to that opinion. It’s about expressing a thought and not being easily wavered when someone chooses to challenge that thought. It’s about being real – and being tough.
It’s about being about Brooklyn – not being about the social status being about Brooklyn will bring to you. Do you get that?! If you do – and you want to venture out and experience many of the things that have been somewhat hijacked by the hipster-holes, comment back to this posting and lets see what we can create.
Creation, hipsters. Creation. Try it on for size. I bet you an egg-cream it will look better than your too tight jeans.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Fuck you, Daniel ---- and a little more, too!
I’ve been having a bit of a ‘block’ with respect to writing this week. I don’t know why – my thoughts run rampant on a daily basis and I’ve got so much shit trickling through my mind that I can’t even keep track of it. Sometimes I envision the scene in Hackers when the mainframe is attacked and they’re showing all the rambling lines of code – and every now and then a number or a letter becomes illuminated. I suppose the same could be true of the DiVinci Code movie. It’s a constant borage of thoughts floating through the cerebral fluid that is Kitty G.
I’ve had a lot of shit plaguing me this week – There’s the thoughts of Daniel and his would be Match.com meetups that are consistently making me sick. I know I need to not worry about this but it’s really a lot easier said than done. I think one of the major things that is fucking with me is that in his new profile, the section that asks whether or not you want kids is answered with a “definitely”.
Really, Daniel? ‘Definitely’ - ?
Cause, like, a month before our breakup you came to me on some “I never fully committed to having children, Kitty” and these remarks are what sparked one of the angriest arguments we’ve ever had. Now, all of a sudden, you’re ‘definitely’ into the idea of having children? Fuck you! – I told you from the very beginning that I wanted kids more than almost anything. My friends are having children left and right – and above all that, it’s not like I have an abundance of time left in which I can dick around. My biological clock IS ticking like Marisa Tomei’s and I’m not going to pass up the opportunity to perform one of life’s greatest miracles. Shit, even as I type this one of my friends is in the Labor & Delivery ward of a hospital in Staten Island preparing to give birth to her first child. FUCK! What the fuck, Daniel!?
The interesting thing about his “definitely” answer is that in the “describe your perfect match” section, under the ‘wants kids’, he notates that he’d be OK dating women who either “definitely, or someday, or maybe’ want children. – Do you even know what the fuck you want, Daniel? How can you absolutely want children - yet you’ll consider dating someone who may, or may not, mirror your desires? Get your ass to therapy and stop fucking with people’s emotions you heartless fuck.
I think I am slowly entering my anger phase. I wish it would be quicker and that the anger would be fiercer – but, I have to remind myself that I’ve made great strides in allowing myself to feel and that acknowledging my pain is A-OK. That said, I acknowledge that this all still hurts a hell of a lot. And I acknowledge that if I see Daniel with one of his fucking match.com dates in the Bay Ridge area, I will have to hold back on a preposterous scale in order not to spit in both of their entitled faces.
Phew -- Breathe, Kitty. BREATHE!
So – second to all that stuff, I am sort of bugging out on the whole school tip. I took the entrance exam last week and am waiting on the results. 10-14 business days is the expected wait time. It’s like a fucking gestation period… What will be birthed out of the result? I don’t know. I went ahead and did a bunch of additional research on the radiological field and job availability. Turns out that via the opening of tons of programs which suddenly offer this training, the market is completely over-flooded with candidates looking for jobs – and, well, we all know the current state of the economy. There are hardly any jobs, anywhere – even in the land of opportunity that is NYC. With this in mind, I am starting to doubt my next moves. I realize this could be my fear manifesting itself like I said it would – and I’m keeping a watchful eye on all of that. It cannot be denied, however, that facts are facts and if there are 1000 folks looking for work and only 100 jobs, my fears are very real and should be considered on a grand scale. I am looking at managing loan payments for a better portion of the rest of my working career. Do I go ahead and complete this program only to come out – unable to find work – and responsible to pay these notes? It’s a valid concern.
As a back up option to the Radiological program, I have revisited the idea of Nursing. I originally planned to try to get into a nursing program back when Daniel and I were living together. His mother is a hospital bigwig down in Florida and when Daniel and I were planning what I thought was the rest of our lives, Nursing seemed a very smart career choice for a number of reasons. Just because he is no longer a part of the future plan doesn’t mean that I should forget that there is a lot of success and, more importantly, merit in the nursing industry. I’m a caring person – and my bedside manner is amazing (just ask the trannys :P) – so, I’m sure this would be a smart career choice. The fact that all of my thoughts are centered around medicine in some respect is a bit calming. At least I know I’m not barking up the wrong tree completely.
In order to move forward and get into one of the two full time nursing programs offered in the evenings in NYC, I need to complete various pre-requisite courses on the Liberal Arts and Basic Sciences. I did the preliminary research and it looks like there are around 6 classes I’ll need to complete by June 2011. I think it’s certainly possible and I’m looking forward to this as a serious back-up consideration if the Radiological stuff doesn’t seem like the best way to go.
So, yeah – this is just a random spewing of the thoughts that are going through my mind today. I wanted to throw something out there in terms of a posting and I just didn’t know where to go with it. Sorry if it’s a bit of a ramble. I know I tend to do that on occasion. It’s the Brooklyn in me!
Speaking of Brooklyn – Tour De Brooklyn is June 6th – it’s 18 miles and it starts in Williamsburg and ends in Williamsburg with a stop off at Redhook Park. God, I never thought I’d be considering doing a bike tour that takes me to RedHook. Brooklyn sure has changed, huh? I know a bunch of you readers are Brooklynites. I see your locations on my stat-finder software ;) (big brother is always watching, motherfuckers!!) – so I am just throwing this little tidbit out there as an FYI.
I’ve had a lot of shit plaguing me this week – There’s the thoughts of Daniel and his would be Match.com meetups that are consistently making me sick. I know I need to not worry about this but it’s really a lot easier said than done. I think one of the major things that is fucking with me is that in his new profile, the section that asks whether or not you want kids is answered with a “definitely”.
Really, Daniel? ‘Definitely’ - ?
Cause, like, a month before our breakup you came to me on some “I never fully committed to having children, Kitty” and these remarks are what sparked one of the angriest arguments we’ve ever had. Now, all of a sudden, you’re ‘definitely’ into the idea of having children? Fuck you! – I told you from the very beginning that I wanted kids more than almost anything. My friends are having children left and right – and above all that, it’s not like I have an abundance of time left in which I can dick around. My biological clock IS ticking like Marisa Tomei’s and I’m not going to pass up the opportunity to perform one of life’s greatest miracles. Shit, even as I type this one of my friends is in the Labor & Delivery ward of a hospital in Staten Island preparing to give birth to her first child. FUCK! What the fuck, Daniel!?
The interesting thing about his “definitely” answer is that in the “describe your perfect match” section, under the ‘wants kids’, he notates that he’d be OK dating women who either “definitely, or someday, or maybe’ want children. – Do you even know what the fuck you want, Daniel? How can you absolutely want children - yet you’ll consider dating someone who may, or may not, mirror your desires? Get your ass to therapy and stop fucking with people’s emotions you heartless fuck.
I think I am slowly entering my anger phase. I wish it would be quicker and that the anger would be fiercer – but, I have to remind myself that I’ve made great strides in allowing myself to feel and that acknowledging my pain is A-OK. That said, I acknowledge that this all still hurts a hell of a lot. And I acknowledge that if I see Daniel with one of his fucking match.com dates in the Bay Ridge area, I will have to hold back on a preposterous scale in order not to spit in both of their entitled faces.
Phew -- Breathe, Kitty. BREATHE!
So – second to all that stuff, I am sort of bugging out on the whole school tip. I took the entrance exam last week and am waiting on the results. 10-14 business days is the expected wait time. It’s like a fucking gestation period… What will be birthed out of the result? I don’t know. I went ahead and did a bunch of additional research on the radiological field and job availability. Turns out that via the opening of tons of programs which suddenly offer this training, the market is completely over-flooded with candidates looking for jobs – and, well, we all know the current state of the economy. There are hardly any jobs, anywhere – even in the land of opportunity that is NYC. With this in mind, I am starting to doubt my next moves. I realize this could be my fear manifesting itself like I said it would – and I’m keeping a watchful eye on all of that. It cannot be denied, however, that facts are facts and if there are 1000 folks looking for work and only 100 jobs, my fears are very real and should be considered on a grand scale. I am looking at managing loan payments for a better portion of the rest of my working career. Do I go ahead and complete this program only to come out – unable to find work – and responsible to pay these notes? It’s a valid concern.
As a back up option to the Radiological program, I have revisited the idea of Nursing. I originally planned to try to get into a nursing program back when Daniel and I were living together. His mother is a hospital bigwig down in Florida and when Daniel and I were planning what I thought was the rest of our lives, Nursing seemed a very smart career choice for a number of reasons. Just because he is no longer a part of the future plan doesn’t mean that I should forget that there is a lot of success and, more importantly, merit in the nursing industry. I’m a caring person – and my bedside manner is amazing (just ask the trannys :P) – so, I’m sure this would be a smart career choice. The fact that all of my thoughts are centered around medicine in some respect is a bit calming. At least I know I’m not barking up the wrong tree completely.
In order to move forward and get into one of the two full time nursing programs offered in the evenings in NYC, I need to complete various pre-requisite courses on the Liberal Arts and Basic Sciences. I did the preliminary research and it looks like there are around 6 classes I’ll need to complete by June 2011. I think it’s certainly possible and I’m looking forward to this as a serious back-up consideration if the Radiological stuff doesn’t seem like the best way to go.
So, yeah – this is just a random spewing of the thoughts that are going through my mind today. I wanted to throw something out there in terms of a posting and I just didn’t know where to go with it. Sorry if it’s a bit of a ramble. I know I tend to do that on occasion. It’s the Brooklyn in me!
Speaking of Brooklyn – Tour De Brooklyn is June 6th – it’s 18 miles and it starts in Williamsburg and ends in Williamsburg with a stop off at Redhook Park. God, I never thought I’d be considering doing a bike tour that takes me to RedHook. Brooklyn sure has changed, huh? I know a bunch of you readers are Brooklynites. I see your locations on my stat-finder software ;) (big brother is always watching, motherfuckers!!) – so I am just throwing this little tidbit out there as an FYI.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Destructive behavior at its best
Daniel and I would often kid around about how our relationship was on the wild side due to our both being sex addicts. We'd laugh about it and even throw around the term in a manner meant to mock one and other. The very beginning of our relationship was met with a super concentrated physical union. We were easily having sex three times a day at minimum and, for us, this seemed completely normal. Our nights out were always ended with intense kink. For the first month and a half or so we kept the sex to ourselves but eventually we stepped outside of the normal male/female relationship parameters and introduced exaggerated variations of our kink.
In a previous post of this blog, I mention that I was introduced to the group scene via a dude I met on Craigslist. Scouring the Internet was not that uncomfortable for me. I have, indeed, engaged in anonymous sex. This behavior, looking back, was super dangerous but while you're doing these things you don't stop and look around at the warning signs because for the most part, these actions are dictated by something much greater than the sheer desire to cum.
In the Six Feet Under snippet linked to this post, Brenda goes to see a therapist at the push of her friend Melissa who happens to be a sex worker. I chose to include this clip for a few reasons. At one point, Brenda mentions that she thinks she truly enjoys the euphoric feeling she gets from these random sexual encounters with strangers while she is in a monogamous relationship. Save Daniel, I have cheated on pretty much every boyfriend I've had. There was a point in my life that I was allowing my sexuality to dictate the bulk of my decisions. The idea of being in a relationship that was not centered on sex seemed nearly impossible. I was condoning my behavior by stating, simply, that my activities were a result of my desires. It's a rather simple equation; you want something, you get it. Deep down inside, I think I would often wonder whether or not my behavior was out of the norm and time and time again I would condone it by rationalizing the fact that I was simply acting on my raw needs. And, to a degree, this was true. I did have these desires and curiosities and my acting on them made me feel as if I was a step ahead of everyone that was allowing their repression to filter their desires. I was on top of the world in my mind.
Sometime over the last five years or so, I began to question these decisions. I wouldn't say that I was particularly ashamed of myself for having experimented but I am confident in exclaiming that the events took on an unsatisfying air after a while. They just became a bit substandard at their core and I tried, for a long time, to figure out what had changed and why my interest in these self-gratifying events began to dissipate. I still don't really have a firm answer on that.
When Daniel and I went to a group event, I found myself taking a moral inventory of the attendees. I was creating scenarios in my mind of all of their lives and the paths that brought these folks to the same room in which I was sitting. How fucking condescending of me. Of course, none of this was said aloud, but I certainly do remember having choice thoughts about two women in particular. One was the very youngish girl that had come along with a much older man. Her skin was as alabaster as a fucking porcelain doll and her hair as healthy as could be. I would guesstimate her at around 20, tops. I wondered what type of fucked up shit had happened in her childhood to bring her to this event on the arm of a 40+ bi-sexual male with whom she didn't seem to have very much in common. The other area I focused the remainder of my attention on was this socially awkward mid to late 30’s female. It was very evident via the weird small talk we had that she was a very self-doubting woman. She was on the heavier side, probably around a size 14-16, and while I didn’t find her particularly sexy or attractive, she was not an eye sore either. I studied her awkwardly work the room while she was fully clothed and later sat back to watch while she turned into this sex-beast who suddenly exhibited the confidence of Aphrodite. It was a transformation like none I'd ever seen before and all that continued to run through my mind was the sadness I felt for this woman who could only feel strong and beautiful when she was a sexual object. Now, far be it from me to cement any of these observations as real. My opinions are nothing but opinion - and a part of me plays with guilt for even having these types of thoughts but our minds are interesting creatures and they will go where they may. After the get together and my little thought session I turned the tables onto myself and played with the ideas of why I had found myself in this scene at one time. I still participate in these thoughts and I endlessly come up with the same answer: I use sex as a coping mechanism.
When the therapist in the clip above introduces the basic fundamentals of sex addiction she says some choice words. "It involves the sublimation of emotions that are too painful to address". My onset into the world of extreme casual sex came less than a year after the death of a man I was dating for five years intermittently and was sure would eventually be my husband. My entrance into the world of sexual activity at all, came at the ripe early age of 13 and I was unquestionably looking to escape the reality that was my home life. My parents are recovering drug addicts. The word recovering in the previous sentence might as well have a toggle switch because their lengths of clean time vary even to this day.
I have no hesitation declaring that the bulk of my sexual experience was gained via the attempt to not sit down in my own skin and deal with my life. This makes the most sense to me now because as I go through the motions of this break up with Daniel, I have never struggled more with feelings and I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that it is because instead of having a dick in my hand, I am actually allowing myself to go through this. I don't know if I would go so far as to say that I need to attend sex anonymous meetings - but I am positive in exclaiming that avoiding unhealthy sexual encounters is becoming a real struggle for me. I am starting to set myself up to jump back into this behavior pattern and I need to keep a watchful eye on it because this is NOT what I want to revert to. If for no other reason than to have a one-up on Daniel, I cannot go out like that. But, seriously, this has absolutely nothing to do with Daniel. This is about my healing process and I'm proud of myself for actually feeling the pain.
Three days after breaking up with me, I spotted Daniel on a strictly-sex site looking to hook up. He'd been staying at a friend’s place over in Washington Heights and I noticed that his 'location' on the site had been changed to reflect his current whereabouts. I was hurt, obviously, but more so I was actually a bit stunned that he would so quickly revert to this behavior. We'd discussed our sexual exploits and repeatedly he'd mentioned that he did not want to go back to being "that guy". Here I was in our apartment, drowning in a bed of tears, looking at the online profile of "that guy". It was heart breaking on a number of levels. Even now, nearly two months have gone by and I can't help but check his online status on that site every now and again. He's still active, still seeking hookups. I went and looked further today - and found that he now has a match.com account, too. I was joking with a friend of mine after having read Daniel's Match.com profile and said "He's going to make me go out and suck a dick, and I don't want to do that!". The real joke is that I don't know how untrue that statement is.
I have not had sex with anyone since Daniel which may honestly be the longest period I've been without intercourse in over 10 years. It's a conflicting feeling because a part of me is missing the intimacy that comes along with intercourse. I want to have someone’s hands running down my post-coital flesh. The issue with this is that anyone that I would fuck right now doesn't do the snuggle thing. It'd be strictly sex and I am just not 'there'. Reading Daniel's Match.com ad had me nearly in tears. It's my own fault for looking, obviously - but the Internet will test your limits if nothing else. I am just 'not ready' for the next steps and I suppose that means I'll need to hold off on getting my rocks off accordingly. This is difficult.
Rebounds can be a good thing. Rebounds deflect and I need deflection. I want to nerve up the energy and resources to build my own damn Match.com account - or at least to go out to a bar, or actually attend one of those meetup.com meetups. Why the fuck did I even join if I'm never going to attend an event? Pointless! I suppose my process is one that will work at its own pace. And, I need to make certain that I don't lose sight of the fact that I am not the one with active sex accounts looking to hook up. Typing that sentence prompted me to check his online status - what do you know? Online! I have to stop that, seriously.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Xtranormal Adaptation of why hipsters are assholes!
I am not the only one out there who thinks hipsters are the douchesacks of the universe. Some fellow hipster-haters over at diehipster.com ran a link to this blog and it prompted the ultra awesome Xtranormal adaptation of my previous entry.
I can assure you, my Brooklyn accent sounds nothing like this chick. My brown hair, however, is pretty damn spot-on, and so is the scowl on her face as she delivers the truth!
I can assure you, my Brooklyn accent sounds nothing like this chick. My brown hair, however, is pretty damn spot-on, and so is the scowl on her face as she delivers the truth!
Monday, May 3, 2010
Sunday, May 2, 2010
The Invisible Woman
About two months before my and Daniel's actual break-up, we decided to sit down and make a winter project out of watching Alan Ball's wildly awesome HBO series, Six Feet Under. I have seen the series from start to finish two or three times. Daniel, however, stopped watching right around the last season because he thought it got too campy and novella-ish. I think it is without question the smartest and most interesting series ever to grace the tube.
I was flicking through the channels one night and saw a mini Six Feet Under marathon. I was so excited I could've jumped up and down right there. I eased into the marathon and before I knew it I was once again completely engrossed in the lives of the Fisher family. There is always an over-abundance of tears that comes along with watching Six Feet Under. The identification process I go through in nearly every episode often makes me feel as if the show is speaking directly to me. This was true not only the first two times I watched the series but especially so during this winter project.
The random episodes on cable picked up somewhere around where Lisa goes missing. If you're a fan of the show, I don't need to remind you of the particulars as it seems they have a way of sticking to your ribcage the way day old oatmeal sticks to a dry dish. If you're not a fan of the series or you're just generally unfamiliar with it, I cannot stress enough what you are missing. This production will have you on the edge of your seat - not through suspense, but through sheer pain. We, as human beings, cannot look away in the face of tragic events. Think of the rubbernecking phenomenon - The Fisher family of California experiences accident after accident after accident but they do so in the same manner as us. The characters depicted on this show are all someone we know in reality. I, after watching it numerous times, am still undecided as to who I relate with the most. There are so many attributes of each of their scripted characters that I find in myself on any given day. There are sluts, liars, manic depressives, over-bearing under-trusting matriarchs, soul-searchers, and art lovers. There are episodes that delve deep into drug use, sex as a coping mechanism, prostitution, love, loss, pain, fear, abandonment, abuse, etc. I could go on and on. The interesting thing is that with that huge laundry list I just threw out at you comes only five-Fishers. There are very important peripheral characters as well, but the cast is not as vast as you would expect it to be for a show that covers every fucked up thing about humanity I can think of. I cannot say enough good stuff about Six Feet Under.
I had an idea a while back that was prompted one evening when Daniel and I were camped out in front of the T.V. somewhere around the second season of SFU. It was actually probably more of an epiphany than an idea but either way it has haunted me since and I need to put it out into the universe. There were some things happening on the screen and the dialogue was, in the Six Feet fashion, strong and riddled with guilt and pain. The conversation was directly related to loss and how we, as human beings, deal with it on varying degrees. I peered over at Daniel while the characters delivered their lines and looked for a hint of recognition or at least an indication of cognizance as it related to the subject matter at hand. There was nothing from him - He might as well have been looking at a blank screen. It was at this very moment that I realized our winter project was actually a primer.
The ultimate demise of my relationship was being narrated by the Fishers.
I acknowledged this to myself and somewhere in that split second the reason for my flowing tears switched from identifying with a television show to recognizing just what was happening in my living room. I didn't mention anything to Daniel at that point but I did throw out this idea to him later on and once after our actual break-up. I told him that I was going to document our relationship and my life as it relates to episodes of Six Feet Under, and that's exactly what I intend to do.
I'd like to start with The Invisible Woman; Emily Previn.
Tonight while I was washing my single dish, single pot, and single glass after I had a dinner of Turkey Franks and Vegetarian Beans (I had a craving!), I couldn't help but realize that I am quickly falling back into 'alone' Kitty. My days are repetitive and structured. Monday through Friday, I am up at 6:15am to the scent of the timed coffee which finished brewing only a moment earlier. I use the bathroom, greet the cat with some good-morning nuzzles and prepare his breakfast, and turn on the television to NY1. I have my coffee while I apply my make-up for the day. During make-up time, I obsess over what I will wear to work. I pack my lunch at about 7:15 and no later than 7:25 I am out the door and onto the Manhattan bound train. I'm at my desk from 8:30AM to 4:30PM. Most of this time is spent fucking around on the Internet, writing entries for this blog and various other publications for whom I am a contributing editor, and generally slacking off. By 6pm at the latest, I am back home. I change, greet the kitten, and prepare my dinner. Today was no different than everything I just described except instead of watching television or playing on the Internet after I had dinner, I studied and did practice tests for my exam this coming Friday. As I washed my dish(es) this evening, I couldn't get the thought of Emily Previn out of my head. She was dead a full week before anyone noticed she was gone and it was only via a horrific scent that her management company notified the authorities.
Ruth Fisher has some what of a mental breakdown in this episode because she is faced with the idea of being Emily and dying alone. She considers the fact that she, too, may be invisible. And, tonight - I sort of felt the same way.
When I came in from work this evening, on the steps leading up to my new apartment was a big yellow envelope with Daniel's handwriting on it. He sent whatever mail hadn't made its way to my new apartment via the USPS Forwarding order I completed weeks ago. I opened the envelope and thought that maybe there would be a small note from him wishing me well or something. With the exception of a letter from my old college, the envelope was filled with complete junk mail. There was a Val-Pak in the envelope and I wasn't sure whether to be surprised that he included that or to smile because he may have sent it knowing that whenever I got Val-Pak when he and I lived together, I got a little excited. What?! I like to save a buck!
Am I so invisible, like Emily, that Daniel couldn't even bother to include a note as a means of good fortune? In all seriousness, I don't believe I am like Emily. I have friends and if they didn't notice I was missing then the Internet would. The frequency with which I use Social Media
is a little ridiculous. But, I do feel like my life is sort of similar to hers in that I have my dinner alone most nights. It's lonely, and it's sad. I don't enjoy being single Kitty as much as I do Kitty who gets to take care of her man.
The Invisible Woman episode also finds Brenda joining her Shiatsu client Melissa as she turns a trick for a dude who is into exhibitionism. Exhibitionism: there's a topic for a later date!
I was flicking through the channels one night and saw a mini Six Feet Under marathon. I was so excited I could've jumped up and down right there. I eased into the marathon and before I knew it I was once again completely engrossed in the lives of the Fisher family. There is always an over-abundance of tears that comes along with watching Six Feet Under. The identification process I go through in nearly every episode often makes me feel as if the show is speaking directly to me. This was true not only the first two times I watched the series but especially so during this winter project.
The random episodes on cable picked up somewhere around where Lisa goes missing. If you're a fan of the show, I don't need to remind you of the particulars as it seems they have a way of sticking to your ribcage the way day old oatmeal sticks to a dry dish. If you're not a fan of the series or you're just generally unfamiliar with it, I cannot stress enough what you are missing. This production will have you on the edge of your seat - not through suspense, but through sheer pain. We, as human beings, cannot look away in the face of tragic events. Think of the rubbernecking phenomenon - The Fisher family of California experiences accident after accident after accident but they do so in the same manner as us. The characters depicted on this show are all someone we know in reality. I, after watching it numerous times, am still undecided as to who I relate with the most. There are so many attributes of each of their scripted characters that I find in myself on any given day. There are sluts, liars, manic depressives, over-bearing under-trusting matriarchs, soul-searchers, and art lovers. There are episodes that delve deep into drug use, sex as a coping mechanism, prostitution, love, loss, pain, fear, abandonment, abuse, etc. I could go on and on. The interesting thing is that with that huge laundry list I just threw out at you comes only five-Fishers. There are very important peripheral characters as well, but the cast is not as vast as you would expect it to be for a show that covers every fucked up thing about humanity I can think of. I cannot say enough good stuff about Six Feet Under.
I had an idea a while back that was prompted one evening when Daniel and I were camped out in front of the T.V. somewhere around the second season of SFU. It was actually probably more of an epiphany than an idea but either way it has haunted me since and I need to put it out into the universe. There were some things happening on the screen and the dialogue was, in the Six Feet fashion, strong and riddled with guilt and pain. The conversation was directly related to loss and how we, as human beings, deal with it on varying degrees. I peered over at Daniel while the characters delivered their lines and looked for a hint of recognition or at least an indication of cognizance as it related to the subject matter at hand. There was nothing from him - He might as well have been looking at a blank screen. It was at this very moment that I realized our winter project was actually a primer.
The ultimate demise of my relationship was being narrated by the Fishers.
I acknowledged this to myself and somewhere in that split second the reason for my flowing tears switched from identifying with a television show to recognizing just what was happening in my living room. I didn't mention anything to Daniel at that point but I did throw out this idea to him later on and once after our actual break-up. I told him that I was going to document our relationship and my life as it relates to episodes of Six Feet Under, and that's exactly what I intend to do.
I'd like to start with The Invisible Woman; Emily Previn.
Tonight while I was washing my single dish, single pot, and single glass after I had a dinner of Turkey Franks and Vegetarian Beans (I had a craving!), I couldn't help but realize that I am quickly falling back into 'alone' Kitty. My days are repetitive and structured. Monday through Friday, I am up at 6:15am to the scent of the timed coffee which finished brewing only a moment earlier. I use the bathroom, greet the cat with some good-morning nuzzles and prepare his breakfast, and turn on the television to NY1. I have my coffee while I apply my make-up for the day. During make-up time, I obsess over what I will wear to work. I pack my lunch at about 7:15 and no later than 7:25 I am out the door and onto the Manhattan bound train. I'm at my desk from 8:30AM to 4:30PM. Most of this time is spent fucking around on the Internet, writing entries for this blog and various other publications for whom I am a contributing editor, and generally slacking off. By 6pm at the latest, I am back home. I change, greet the kitten, and prepare my dinner. Today was no different than everything I just described except instead of watching television or playing on the Internet after I had dinner, I studied and did practice tests for my exam this coming Friday. As I washed my dish(es) this evening, I couldn't get the thought of Emily Previn out of my head. She was dead a full week before anyone noticed she was gone and it was only via a horrific scent that her management company notified the authorities.
Ruth Fisher has some what of a mental breakdown in this episode because she is faced with the idea of being Emily and dying alone. She considers the fact that she, too, may be invisible. And, tonight - I sort of felt the same way.
When I came in from work this evening, on the steps leading up to my new apartment was a big yellow envelope with Daniel's handwriting on it. He sent whatever mail hadn't made its way to my new apartment via the USPS Forwarding order I completed weeks ago. I opened the envelope and thought that maybe there would be a small note from him wishing me well or something. With the exception of a letter from my old college, the envelope was filled with complete junk mail. There was a Val-Pak in the envelope and I wasn't sure whether to be surprised that he included that or to smile because he may have sent it knowing that whenever I got Val-Pak when he and I lived together, I got a little excited. What?! I like to save a buck!
Am I so invisible, like Emily, that Daniel couldn't even bother to include a note as a means of good fortune? In all seriousness, I don't believe I am like Emily. I have friends and if they didn't notice I was missing then the Internet would. The frequency with which I use Social Media
is a little ridiculous. But, I do feel like my life is sort of similar to hers in that I have my dinner alone most nights. It's lonely, and it's sad. I don't enjoy being single Kitty as much as I do Kitty who gets to take care of her man.
The Invisible Woman episode also finds Brenda joining her Shiatsu client Melissa as she turns a trick for a dude who is into exhibitionism. Exhibitionism: there's a topic for a later date!
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