packing/not-packing

i need to wake up superearly to start the trek to JFK. it's almost 11, i'm fidgety and restless, and although lately i've been doing all sorts of traveling without this feeling, inevitably when i go home i have a night of uncomfortable packing/not-packing.

i want to wear my new boots on the plane and the tan button-up man's shirt thats so comfy. trouble is, it's my ex boyfriend's, and i would loathe for him to see me wearing it. i do not look forward to seeing him at all, actually, but with a week in vegas, i doubt i could miss him.

things like this make these trips rocky at times. i love home. there is a feeling there that can't be duplicated anywhere else on the planet for me. there's also a lot of shit there that i want to leave behind there,shit that still makes me uncomfortable.

i want to focus on days at the pool with the girls and drinking high life with my brother in the desert at night, and decidedly un-focus the lens when it comes to awkward run-ins and the like. problem is i sometimes run into these things when i'm drunk and something about being drunk and home makes me especially rowdy.

but part of growing up is keeping my temper, and maybe i can do less of the stuntin downtown and more of the chillin with fam and homies.

but i'm going to wear that fucking shirt.

it's mine now.

my bronx cherry

start with friday.

anna is from school. she’s a super strong and fly dominican from the bronx. i met her and her girls at the seaport friday night. i got there early and so i walked around and ran into ground zero for the first time.

it’s crazy because there is this super old graveyard right next to it with old worn-down gravestones where you can’t even see the names. i just sat there for a minute.

so i meet anna after that and kristina and val and we schmoozed by the docks with a bunch of people, mostly dudes, until one girl that was dancing in a circle of dudes grabbed another one’s weave and ripped it off. and a fight broke out.

i was wearing the high-waisted acid wash sasson shorts and homeboy told me i looked like paula abdul in 1990. cold game! i said.. straight up??

so then last night we went to the club in the bronx.

took me forever to get out there and i ended up having to cab it at some point and the driver kept asking me if i was going to be okay and if i was accounted for… hella gave me the creeps… and i had to wait in line (not VIP in the bronx… yet) and the security lady felt my boobs a little too enthusiastically, and by the time i got in there i was super frustrated.

so i took three shots of patron and broke it down on the dance floor a little bit and felt much better. it was hot as fuck in there though, hella people, some girls looking really good and dapper dudes and such, but the vibe was kind of weird and the bartender did some stone-age type maneuvers to charge my credit card, and by the time we went out for air i was ready to go.

anna wanted to stay so i went with val and kristina and beba (total babe) to the chicken place a couple blocks down and the girls tried to get ahold of someone with a car to come get us. while we were eating this mexican dude comes up and puts his hand on my arm and says, “Thank You.” right into my eyes. the girls said it was probably for the stiffy i gave him.

the chicken place was more fun than the club, and riding around the bronx crammed in with these dominican dudes that picked us up, drinkin liquor slushies (they call it ‘nemo’), was the funnest part by far. i drank and smoked til 8:00 in the morning at their crib, and then they dropped us off at beba’s projects, and we walked through them to get to the train.

in the early morning sunshine, it looked calm and peaceful and… pretty. i LIKE these wild girls.

then i hopped on the train and listened to my headphones all the way home, on this epic 9 am walk of shame that took me all the way through the bronx and manhattan, and down to bay ridge, with a big red stain on my lace dress, teetering around in high heeled black boots and mouthing the words to hall & oates.

what a weekend. i popped my bronx cherry, and the girls said i could be one of ‘the flavors’, and i picked strawberry, of course.

what are the things i know and can always believe?

today i read two stories, wrote three letters, and bought four notebooks.

ten days to las vegas.

i've been reading ayn rand's atlas shrugged and it has been giving me anxiety. purpose, yes, i can dig it, but the utter lack of compassion, the world where 'public good' only means one thing and that's pure evil... i understand the true essence, but what a cold world if there's no room for humanity.

plus its so pro-capitalist that half of it feels like propaganda. and she hammers it in so hard... i say cut the fucker in half, whittle it down to the story, and let your reader draw the conclusion. as it stands it seems like she's writing to the idiot she hates so fiercely. and all of her good guys are tall and lean and angular, and her bad guys all squat and pug-nosed and fat. and all her words and points too blatantly, painfully obvious.

she makes a snide reference to a work called 'the heart is a milkman' and if thats to mccullers, because she writes about the losers, then rand can fuck herself.

it's funny because i bought atlas shrugged together with the short stories of mccullers. i'm reading some now to balance it out.. and her emotional intuitiveness, her heartbreaking stories of misunderstandings or misdirected affection... she is a powerful writer.

i much prefer her to rand. matter of fact, i think i'll let the last 400 pages of shrugged go unread.

one story i liked a lot so far was 'court in the mid eighties', about a girl who watches her neighbors out her window. she says she would sit at her typewriter and write what came to her head, such as

what are the things i know and can always believe?

and i've been thinking of those things a lot myself these days.

happy is the home that shelters a friend

i'm trying to reach a balanced state; it's always hard on traveling days.

i got back from shelter island a few hours ago, and this marks a pause, a break in the train of events that has been the last month or so.

i want to sort out my thoughts before i write them but i have a feeling that they will remain unsorted until i write about them, and i don't want to lose a moment of it.

I have a crazy feeling about these days and weeks.

shelter island was an amazing experience. we caught the weekend-after-the-fourth fireworks and they put miami's to shame. the island is full of rich people, of course, but they are kind of a low-key rich, which is much more chill. unleashing my tattoo on the beach was a challenging experience; judgment (both mine and others') is a shifty and ever-changing concept for me.

we hit the beach at montauk, held communion with the stars, ate all-you-can-eat mussels and all-you-can-drink beer at the chowder pot, and partied with the locals. the two highlights for me were walking home from the bar late last night... 3.5 miles in the PITCH BLACKNESS with daps and mario's scurry ass...

and catching a blue fish. this one:

we didn't eat him though, we put him back.

miami vice

day one, miami FLA.

we arrive at the standard 4 hours too early, so we immediately hit the pool. while sunning in the kind of sticky, tingly heat that immediately tans, i overhear the two girls next to my sister talking about xanax. i look up and flash them a smile. 'you want some?' the blonde one asks me, and i do, but my sister is the opposite of feeling it, so i say maybe. but then she raises a joint and laughs. that i definitely want.

so i walk down the dock (still in plain sight of everyone at the pool) and spark this big beautifully rolled joint with vania and diana, these two latin dimepieces, and i tell them it's my first hour ever in miami.

diana laughs. "welcome to miami!"

will smith reference? check.

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the next evening, after a long session in the turkish hamam (and three caiparinhas), i hit up the hotel bar. i'm still in the robe... it seems as if it's cool to do that around here. i order a shot for me and the bartender, patron, and we're immediately friends. the couple next to me is super friendly... an attractive young businessman with glasses and a curvy cuban girl with big hair. she asks me if i like her man. i say, yeah, he seems cool. we talk a little bit about some books and i get the feeling they are definitely trying to bone. me. aldo writes his information on a napkin and i tuck it in my bathing suit.

later that night he texts me, room 701. the tides hotel. i don't go.

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at the bar the next day, the same bartender covers my drinks. cuba libres. i hear a rumor there's a hula hoop party upstairs in the yoga room and i end up in the midst of a throbbing drum circle with a bunch of middle aged hippies. i had no idea there were hippies in miami. all of em have great bodies. it takes me a few minutes to find my groove on the hoop but i end up working up a sweat there, really feeling the vibe. later, when sexy bingo's about to start, i run into the main drum guy, he's about sixty-five, tan, with a sort of khaki top hat covering a head of grey curls. i tell him i live in brooklyn and he says i don't belong there. he grew up off kings hwy. i said why? and he said you're not a regular person.

i don't think he's been to brooklyn for a long time.

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the bingo caller is a big beautiful black lesbian woman, and she cracks jokes the whole time. every time she picks up a ball everyone yells BALLS! and then she hands the mic to someone in the audience, who can choose to say 'in your mooouuuuth' or anything else that relates to balls. we win two mudbaths but don't have time to use them. when she puts the mic in my face i say, 'flapping in the wind'. i don't know why i say that.

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on the last day it's pouring rain and the cab driver only takes cash. my sister and i are broke for cash, spent way too much, so i have to overdraft to cover the fare. he drives us to fort lauderdale, it looks like a fucking tropical storm and i have anxiety. he has two cellphones and a walkie talkie, and uses all of them simultaneously while weaving through traffic on the freeway. i've had this anxiety since i fell asleep the night before but the juggling act he's performing is definitely not helping. i ask do you think the rain will delay flights? and he says yes of course, definitely. when we finally arrive he tells us, have a beautiful flight ladies!

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everything in miami feels like a trap... from the luscious hotel bed to the tingly sun to the 10 dollar drinks made up almost entirely of rum... it's a beautiful, an indulgent trap, but a trap nonetheless.

i'll be back there.