A new life appreciating the old

The 14 hour drive to DC was invigorating and terrible. I usually stop after 12 hours but the thought of a financial writing job—I could uncover something big, become a celebrity journalist along the lines of Thompson and then binge self medicate on any kind of drug I could name—the friends I’d meet—wearing suits during the day in a 20 story office, then by night smoking cigarettes in the seediest bar in town and carrying out their every fetish—and the man—intelligent but strange, handsome and dark, meeting me on the metro and being my tour guide among other inelegant things—pushed me on.

All of its silly I know. But I have such high expectations for my travels. So those thoughts pushed me on, while there were plenty of times my foot grazed the break pedal and my hands twitched as the memories of the words said to me in Missouri slithered from one ear to the other.

None of those things have happened… yet… of course.  

Before I left, after a double, I was sitting at the bar tables with two friends from the kitchen, drinking Norton and filling the bistro with smoke. I had decided to hang around later than usual and the guy—who reminds me so much of my brother—said, “I’m going to miss you. You don’t let things get under your skin.”

Well it was something along those lines. And although I don’t know if those were just the erratic word to sentence formations of a drunk man, it made me realize that the people I met in Columbia will always be comparable to family. Whenever I decide to visit home, I’ll always have two places to stop now—Cape and Columbia. The friends I found during my 10 months in the hipster hellhole are extraordinary people that enjoyed me for the person I am.

But I think he was onto something. My ability to shake things off, to not get to upset about the things presented, to not care is maybe my best quality. It allows me to get over being stood up by a girlfriend, to be cheated on by a boyfriend, to move across the country with no one and nothing to call home.

It allows me to pack up my life and move without a care in the world, in a month, a week, a day. I feel like I didn’t have time to say good-bye and although there’s a regretful sense I should be sad about it, I’m not. You can decide whether you think this is amiable or malignant.

Every morning I wake up to police sirens, in a small room with another woman. I walk to the metro and there are so many people around, so many beautiful people, but no one even speaks to each other. There have been several times I have missed the opportunity of a handsome man, but today I decided it would be my last day for that. If I don’t ask him I’ll never see him again and if I do, well I still might not. Embarrassment only lasts approximately 15 minutes. People are always in a hurry, running up and down the escalators for Christ’s sake.

I got home from work and looking at a house where a 40-something-year-old pedophiliac looking banker and an old woman who shares a room with another man live, and was tempted to cry. Lately I’ve been feeling on the verge of crying almost every second, but then when I finally give in the tears never come. It’s quite exhausting to feel such different emotions at the same time. It’s quite exhausting to be in a three bedroom house with ten people.

I feel so many different things. I’ll call it, nomadic bipolar disorder.

I love it here; absolutely love it here. There’s so much potential, for whatever I decide to dabble in next.

But I do miss home as well. It seems I’ve spent 22-years trying to get out of Misery, only to realize when I dug my roots into the top soil of a new land, Missouri has made me who I am, and I love and appreciate who I am, so I love and appreciate Missouri. It will always be my home. It will always hold a place in my mind as a god forsaken state that sometimes creates strong independent woman that will adventure around the world to make it a better place.

I've made a small home of red sand

More than 35 hours in five days… My Explorer—probably more of a home to me than any shack, apartment or house I’ll ever stay in—took me to Albuquerque, New Mexico last week. I was calling the trip a small introspective experiment in dealing with utter aloneness. I knew not a single soul, and the closest relative or friend was about 10 hours away.  
I found myself eating New Mexican food in small cafes, where voluptuous Hispanic servers delivered huge plates of eggs, peppers and beans smothered in red or green Chile to tattooed immigrants, alone. I was drinking my liver into submission in seedy bars alone, viewing the skinny-jeaned hipsters and quiet, mustached homosexual artists, all with something quite intriguing in that head I was sure, if only they’d notice me.

But as I was screeching open old rusty cabinets and rummaging through sticky notes in my own brain, I found every so often under stacks of crumbled papers thoughts of the others around me. My lips twitched as I mouthed the words they would say and what I’d say back, being cool and witty of course.

Is introspection not also extrospection? Is there ever a difference between the two? What you have seen and heard and felt all has an effect on your mind—aren’t they all parts that couldn’t work correctly without the mind—so maybe it isn’t that they are the same, but that introspection doesn’t really exist. But then again, after watching a TED video by Julian Baggini, I don’t much believe that we as humans even have a core—a real you—but merely we create what we are and in turn can be absolutely anything we please, at any given moment, especially if we don’t have to perform but instead only speak.

This led me only to another experiment. Be someone else. It would only take a creative mind and a good lie, but think how interesting it might be to absolutely trick someone, maybe even depending on what they like. It would be as if the two of you were meant to meet, or at least that’s what the other brain would think.

I’m not really sure what the implications are to this kind of experiment. I didn’t try it in Albuquerque, merely because I met a lady the first night I was in town, getting a drink at a crimson glowing pool hall.
I asked her, “How far is Sante Fe?”
She said, “About an hour. Hey my friend bailed on me for pool, want to play?”

It was that easy—the beginning of a great friendship. I suppose not all first meetings go so well, but Luck and I get coffee every morning.

There was something about that place. Who knows if it’s because I’ve been dying to move but I came here thinking I wouldn’t leave. That I would just stay and make a new life for myself. How hard could it be with $300.
When you meet someone that you can talk to for hours and the conversation never ceases to interest and before you know it you’re five drinks in and you walk to the bathroom and the mirror whispers to you, ‘You’re drunk,’ it’s hard to find motivation to drive out of the city.
Albuquerque wasn’t the most beautiful town I had ever seen, but the way the buildings were tinged with red dirt and the small immigrant businesses, probably started with only $300, showed cracks and scratches from the winds whipping hard work and tumble weeds across the façade, got to me. The stories of the War Zone and gang battles—the Padilla boys and the West Siders—pushing cocaine and heroin and shooting their guns in the streets on holidays, I was immediately entranced.

For me the stranger the better. I enjoy the filth, I relish in the grime and I’d much rather play in the dirt than sit pretty with dolls.

Is it the paper or the keyboard that is my friend?

I’ve had two too many libations. An incoherent fragment I’ll make.

Do you know how many times I’ve hit that foreboding backspace button?

I was in Cape, driving past those houses that hold every ounce of trauma and joy. On that dark old street I drove past a house—after we broke up, before I was over it all, even though I was sleeping with your cousin, when I seizured in front of all those “friends”—and thought, ‘Are the ghosts still there?’

Is beer can shrapnel still not stomped into the ground? Is the memory of you making my face burn and then my father burning it again, for your sake, not ingrained there? The baseboards tense in terror and the walls shutter at my name screamed and then the floor catches my fall, wraps me in harsh words and handshakes, till I—who I was then—start a new life. Then someone unknown starts theirs. But do they feel that presence?

How many times will I drive past this house… no matter how many times we lied, we cheated, we loved.

I still see the same fucking house. The same fucking people. The same fucking party. I same fucking “It’ll be okay; I’ll go talk to him.” The same fucking friends looking at you in the eye wanting to be your friend but knowing in a small town like this, ignorant friends are easy but ignorant friends with ignorant parents are slightly more difficult to come by. The same fucking place. The same fucking… that made me who I am.

I had wanted this to be short. Ole scrap paper, my confidant—a withered piece torn from an unused checkbook, left too long on a dusty computer desk where he has stalked me silently—how you inspire me.