Keep My Words

Since the break-up, I haven’t been the same.  I’ve obviously been writing more.  I drink a lot.  (I know, I know – how is that different from before?)  I wander down the streets aimlessly with my head down.  I stare at the walls in my apartment and think, what have I done? Even though it was one of the longest, greatest relationships I have ever experienced, I had to end it.  It gets a little easier every day.  Still, I don’t know if I will ever stop missing the great love that was cable television.

Without cable around, I have been spending more time with my DVD collection.  The other night I watched Faces of Death before I went to sleep, which resulted in some glorious zombie nightmares.  Upon waking, I felt immediately pleased with the adventures that my subconscious mind had created.  But last night when I watched Faces of Death III prior to bedtime, I was not so lucky.  Instead of a lovely dream where I was on the run from the living dead, my nightmares were more personal.

I remember two of them fairly well.  They both starred the boy who is quickly becoming the bane of my existence, yet at times I want nothing more than to hug him.  Figure that one out for me.

In the first dream, I drove to his apartment to drop something off.  (It was one of those mats given out by Top Shop in the VIP section at the McCarren Pool Parties last summer.)  My plan was to make the delivery and leave immediately to drive and visit my grandmother in Maine.  Even though my mind knew she was dead, in the dream I had spoken to her and she had told me to come.  He wouldn’t let me leave.  There was another girl at his apartment.  She wasn’t familiar to me and didn’t speak to me, but she saw me.  I felt insecure and confused.

My alarm went off.  There was no way I was getting out of bed on that note.  I adjusted my alarm clock to allow myself an additional hour of sleep.

Back in my dreams, I was hanging out with Kyle in the neighborhood.  We were outside of my apartment, and he was angry.  I had lost my phone and was searching through garbage and storm drains.  Kyle was yelling at me.  I decided to go by the bar and see if my phone was there.  I walked up to the door and pressed my face against the glass.  I saw that the boy was there, and so I didn’t want to go inside.  I remained watching while my thoughts became everything I didn’t want them to be – angry, resentful, and hateful.  I wasn’t sure if the boy saw me through the glare and it wasn’t a concern of mine either way, but I sensed that he did see me.  He knew I was there.  Finally, defeated by something undefinable, I walked back to my apartment.  Kyle had found my phone in a garbage can.

The alarm again.  I wasn’t feeling much better about things than I was an hour before, but I got up, got dressed, and went to work.

I saw two dead birds last Wednesday.  One was at a park on the Hudson near 54th Street, where I sometimes eat lunch at work.  The other was by the ball fields at McCarren Park.  They were showing the first Summerscreen film, Reality Bites.  I was walking to the restrooms with my friend Mike, where I would tragically drop my new sunglasses in the toilet.

Me: “Oh my god, Mike, that’s the second dead bird I’ve seen today!  I need to take a picture of it!  I wonder what it means.”

Mike: “Death.  It’s a sign of change in your life.”

There was one change that I already knew I was going to make.  In short, it involved a guy, and me making a choice to break my own heart this time.  (Lelaina: “Walk out on you? You walk out on them.  I’ve seen you.  You’re out the door before the condom comes off.”  Vickie: “Listen to me, I’m just beating them to the punch.”)  Did I do the right thing?  This isn’t a rhetorical question.  I really want to know if I did the right thing.

Anyway, I feel the need for more change.  So I’m going to quit my job, take out a loan, and (finally) finish school in time for summer 2010.

I can’t just let those birds die in vain.

Manhattan bird (above), Brooklyn bird (below)